Half Marathon

Sunday I raced my first half marathon. It was more of a glorified training run, but I definitely was getting after it. I had a bit of a quick start and back it off a little on mile two. I then proceeded to fall asleep in mile three. For the next few miles I felt like I got into a good rhythm and was clipping off some good miles. Unfortunately when it came time to get after it and start cutting it down I started running out of gas. The last 4 or so miles hurt and I was trying to throw in surges to get back on pace, it just wasn't happening. Overall I was pleased with the race and felt it was a good step forward. There is still a lot of work to be done but i feel that I am on the right path and if I can stay healthy big things are just around the corner.

coaching on line

A few weeks back I had a chat with a long time friend Tim Budic who suggested I start an on line training service. Charge a fee and write up programs for people looking for a coach. I think that this is a great idea. I love coaching, I write up workouts anyways, even if I don't have people to write them for, why not see if there are people out there who would be interested. Tim sent me a few examples of people that he knew for me to take a look at. It seemed easy enough, but i have yet to pull the trigger on this project. So I am asking you the readers of my blog, if there are any of you out there. Should I do this. Is there a market for this, do you think people would want me to coach them? Would love some feed back.

Dellinger Invite

For any track and cross country fan getting to travel to Track Town USA is always a great trip, and for me getting to go back was very exciting. Our day started very early, 5:15, where we meet at WSU to load up the vans to head to the airport for our 7 am flight. Our travels to Portland included a layover in Denver was very uneventful, which is always the best way to travel. Once we arrived in Portland we drove to Eugene and checked into the hotel. We were located less than a half mile away from Pre’s trail and Hayward field., prime location We had a little down time to relax before getting our run in, during that time coach Hunter and I drove out to Springfield to do a test drive to the course. We made a few wrong turns so it was good to figure out where we were going. After arriving back at the hotel we headed out for our run. We jogged over and got a run in on Pre’s trail. I took the guys on the parts I remembered running on while in Eugune for the Olympic Trials in 2008. It took me a few wrong turns but it all started to come back to me. We got a great run in. One of the best parts for me was that there were all sorts of people out hiking, biking and running. We even had a few elite sightings. Jordan Hasay and the women of Oregon and Sam Chelanga both ran by on the runs. It is cool getting to see those type of people out putting in the daily miles, just like all of us do everyday. We finished up our night with some dinner at Track Town Pizza, which was delicious and a walk down to Hayward Field to take some pictures and do some touristy stuff.

As I said earlier Track town is a unique place. Friday morning after my run on Pre’s trail I sat down to breakfast and opened up the sports page and on the front page is a picture of Luke Peskedra and an article about the race and who would be running for the Ducks the next day. There are not many places in the country where a Friday morning Cross Country is the front page news in the local paper, although I wish it was, but that is a post for another time. After breakfast Coach Hunter and I meet up with Jenny Ashcroft a former Wichita State Assistant whom is now an assistant coach at Oregon and was nice enough to give Coach Hunter and me a tour of some of there athletic facilities. It was a very interesting experience and amazing what the backing of a company like Nike can do for your school. Later that afternoon we continued our sight seeing with some of the kids from the team by taking them to Pre’s rock on Skyline Dr. I have only been there twice and both times it has had an impact. How different would the world be if Pre would have made it around that narrow turn on the road about the city of Eugene and what impact could he have continued to have on the sport if he was still here today.

Later that afternoon it was time to get down to business. We drove out to Springfield to preview the course. There was a great atmosphere even the day before. I guess it helps when you have NCAA national champs and High School record holders doing workouts on the course. The course was in great shaped was marked very well and had a ton of signage. The team was very excited to be in this type of environment. I just hoped that they could take all that excitement and turn it into positive energy and race well the next day. Both teams finished up their easy run and did some strides followed by some stretching. As we drove back I felt that the team was ready to go and I started getting excited about the race the next day.

When we arrived at the course in Springfield the meet atmosphere was electric. They had upbeat music playing and the announcer was doing trivia with the crowd before and between races and keeping the fans entertained. They even had the man himself, Bill Dellinger as the honorary co starter of the meet along with Matt Centrowitz who just picked up a bronze medal at the world champs in the 1500.
After watching both races I felt that our kids stepped up to the challenge of the day and raced like they belonged. While both teams ran well this was a huge step forward for our guys team. This was the type of meet that was a great prep for our conference meet and regional’s. On both sides we had people in there mixing it up with some of the best runners in the nation and the world, you cant ask for much more than that. If we can continue down the path we are on we are going to have a very good November.

After the meet we made the 2 hour drive back to Portland because of an early flight the next day, and boy was it an early morning and a long day of travel, 4 am rolls around very quick. We arrived back in Wichita about 2 pm safe and sound and ready to get back to work with a great experience and a nice step forward toward the goal of winning MVC championship in Terre Haute in November.

writers block

I am supposed to write a blog entry for Wichita State track blog, but I am having some serious writers block. I have not had not had issues with this in a very long time. Not very fun. I get a chance to write for something outside of my own blog and help the program and nothing.

developing the whole athlete

I know I have written about this before but the more I work with distance runners and especially distance runners of the computer age I realize that you need to develop athleticism. As distance runners we spend so much time moving in the sagittal plane and some don’t even do that properly. There needs to be time spent working on becoming more athletic. Now don’t get me wrong you don’t get better at running by doing drills. But the more you can do the more you can do. If you cant stay healthy running miles you will never reach your full potential. In order to stay healthy or get stronger so you can run more you need to spend time doing functional strength and conditioning. I think you can do a lot of functional strength through incorporating into warm up and cool down activities. You can do a different series before easy runs, long runs, workouts, weight sessions. You can make some of these movements or drills core work, plyos, flexibility all wrapped into one. Functional strength should be worked on daily. Like running this is not something that can be improved immediately but you need to pay attention and make deposits in the bank often. Start simple and work to complex when the movements are mastered. Just remember the more you can do the more you can do. My two cents for the day.

Self education, expanding my horizons

I am trying to take advantage of this time as a volunteer coach at a D I school to expand my horizons as much as a can. We have such a great staff at Wichita State and I am very fortunate that most are willing to share there knowledge with me. Some areas I am trying to expand on are functional strength training, new/different methods of athletic training, marketing of track meets and recruiting.

Weight Room
Being down in the weight room while other teams are lifting has afforded me the opportunity to watch Adam Ringler http://www.adamringler.com/in action. Every time I see his groups at work I pick up some new things. He has been nice enough to let me pick his brain and is going to teach me the basics of Functional Movement Screen and go over some of the basics of his philosophy. I get to do this tomorrow and I am very excited. This is an area I feel I have a good grasp on but could use some work on how to “put it all together.”

Training room
Our training staff does some very cool things that previous schools I have worked for have not done. Mainly Graston and Kinesio taping. I have been teaching myself how to use Kinesio tape on myself and some of the kids on my team last year. I have some basics down but hope to pick the brains of Jeff Deits http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=athletictraining&p=/FacultyandStaff/Staff/jdeits/ who has more practice and has read more about the subjuect. He also said he would be willing to spend some time teaching me some of Graston techniques using Guasha tools http://guashatools.com/ So I am excited for some of these new lessons.

Marketing
I have been put in charge of coming up with creative ideas on how to get peoples butts in the stadium at our home meets. We have some good ideas but we have 2 home indoor, 2 outdoor regular season and our conference meet. Ideas range from HS invite sections at indoor meets, to tailgate party, carnival and music at outdoor meets. There are a lot of conversations I need to have but it should be very interested to see where it all goes from here.

Recruiting
I am not allowed to recruit. Which for me kind of stinks. But I am involved in conversations and brain storming sessions with fellow coaches in the office at practice or lunch and have been coming up with some good ideas.. Coach Wise also let me barrow Meat Market which is a book about college football recruiting, great stuff.

All of these have been in addition to reading as many articles and journals as I can find about all things running etc… I feel like I am expanding and become more educated so if and when I get a more permanent gig I will be able to have informed conversations with all the different people Coaches have to interact with on a daily basis.

new goals, fresh starts

Wow, it has been a very long time since I have updated this blog. I have a new goal of writing in here every day. So along with my goal of reading more everyday we shall see how this goes.

Since I last wrote in here Becky got a new job working for Sedgwick Co in the city of Wichita, so we have moved to Wichita and I have started as a Volunteer coach at Wichita State University with the cross country and track and field program. I have had people since I started coaching 7 years ago tell me that I needed to move to Division I. That was easier said than done, but WSU was nice enough to bring me on and it has been a terrific experience so far. Their coaching staff has over 90 years total experience at DI level and I have been trying to soak in as much as I can from the whole staff. I find myself following the different coaches around at fall track practice asking questions ranging from why this drill to what is next, and how do you progress from here.

So from here on out my goal is to write about my thoughts and experiences with this level. I hope you like it and if there is something you would like me to write about please let me know. I am excited to get back to writing. until next time......