2 regular season meets, conference championship, NCAA qualifier. I coach in D3 and the only reason I schedule more than 4 is to give opportunities for my developing athletes. We use targeted practice time trials throughout the season to measure how things are going. At least 1/2 of the men and women on my team have their track 5K PR's set in cross-country time trials.
For a 10-11 week season (begin Sept through second weekend in Nov)?
And do you have ideas on virtual racing for athletes whose schools aren’t presently competing due to the pandemic?
Thanks very much for any insights you’re willing to share.
I understand why they do. I coached in HS from 1990-1997. We had one NY state championship CC team and several D1 scholarship athletes in that time. I think we raced less than most teams we competed against. Our top runners, generally juniors and senior only raced once a week. Other, developing, athletes might race three times every two weeks. They needed to learn how to race, plus we needed to get them excited for cross-country as a sport. They raced more because of that. Our top guys had a lot of competitive days amongst themselves in practice. We would stage mini competitions on the team all the time. My guys could race!
During the pandemic, with meets hard to come by now is the time to experiment a little to see what you really can develop if you have dedicated runners. Set a daily mileage that they run EVERY day (13 out of 14 days) without exception. Do time trials every week, varying the distance. Maybe 4K's, 3K's and 2K's. Get them running fast on the track or trails in time trials. Ideally you can get small groups (3 or 4 athletes) together to do this, but if not have athletes do it on their own and report results. We have the luxury of a 2400m stone dust trail that we use for training and time trialing. It's perfectly fast and candidly, faster than a track. It's nice to try and find something like that for athletes to use for fast running.
A typical two week training during this time might look like this:
1 day off
1 day long (120% of regular daily mileage)
1 day fartlek (we usually use 5 min warmup, 5 min cool-down, the rest at 3 min on/3 min off)
2 days time trials (4K one day, 2K the other day)
9 days training runs (training runs are at your daily mileage, the key is to "run how you feel today" which means there could be a lot of quick days as well as some slower days. Never hold yourself back on a day because you have a "workout" the next day.)
..... don’t mind, what’s your perspective on how XC/T&F recruiting timelines are being impacted by season cancellations and eligibility waivers at D3 and/or D1 programs? I’m asking with respect to current high school juniors (‘22s) as opposed to seniors.
Thank you again!
Incidentally, NY state cross country. Not sure what it was like back in the ‘90s, but my impression is that may be THE top state in the country these days — certainly right up there.
With so many different resources available (Strava, video, etc..) most of the athletes I recruit can still send me plenty of information on their performances. Whether they are done at a meet, time trial, or practice setting (jumps, throws) there is plenty of information available. Athletes need to be a little more pro-active in getting their information out to coaches.
I'm actually doing a lot of recruiting via Zoom and my feeling is that the athletes can actually get MORE information from coaches and college athletes that way than they could in the old "in person" recruiting method. Probably the biggest issue at D1 and D2 is getting a feel for how many scholarships you might have available as athletes decide whether to stay or not. What I am hearing from the NCAA is that they may "grandfather" some current scholarships and not count them against your limit. Schools would then have to decide if they wanted to offer the extra scholarships that might result for one or two years. The delay from the NCAA on this is their effort to find out how many athletes it might affect and whether it is worth it.
NY state cross country is the best for women but about middle of the pack for men right now.
Last weekend I was in Saratoga Springs. I went for a hike in the State Park. After the hike, walking to the car, I saw a girl's H.S. team working out and I stopped for a moment to speak with the coaches.
He mentioned that the team won the Nike National Championship last year. It was the outfit linked and they did, in fact, win Nationals last year (78 pts to Central Oregon's 160). NY put at least five girls in the top 20 in that race. So I think you are on to something: NY girls HS XC is pretty good.
Much appreciated!
If I’m interpreting correctly, it sounds like D1 and D3 schools would currently be in reasonably active recruiting dialogue with new high school juniors, as opposed to waiting until later this fall or some time in 2021.
Is this a reasonably accurate interpretation. Thanks again!
In D3 you my be dealing with staff furloughs in some cases. If only one head coach is active, recruiting might be a little slower.
before then. I assume that will mean rehionals as well. At least the ACC championship will be held. Given many of the xcountry runners also run distance in track & field they will have to figure that out as well. For now the 3 meets look fine. When my daughter ran xcountry for her the only meets that really mattered was the conference championships and the rest were just to work on times.
Your point about track and field makes moving the NCAA XC Championship to the spring difficult. Both indoor and outdoor track had their championships cancelled last year. The NCAA will likely do whatever they can to protect those championships, even if that means cancelling the cross country championship this year.
Presumably, conferences could still hold conference championships, even if the NCAA championship is cancelled.