Morton Relays & getting ready for the end of the season

Sorry about the delay getting this updated guys.

Morton Relays was an awesome race. Everyone ran a personal best or within a few seconds of their best. The only people who didn't set a best either had to run more than one race or were returning from time off due to an injury.

In the 4x800:
Nick ran a 2:25 personal best
Stuart ran a 2:36 personal best
Joe ran a 2:32, while saving for the 1600
Nathan Smith ran a 2:25 while saving for another 800

In the 1600 medley:
Nathan ran a 2:20 personal best, after an earlier 800

In the team 1600:
Dave ran a 4:51 official personal best, and only a few seconds behind his relay split before he got hurt
Nathan Young ran a 4:52 dropping 7 seconds off of his best
Joe ran a 5:15, only a few seconds from his best, after an 800 earlier

In addition, Nathan Smith, Nathan Young, and Dave came back for the 4x400s very soon after their other races and ran very well for the short recovery. Nathan Young set a season (personal?) best with a 58.9 split.

It was a great meet, and we're not even done yet, guys. We've still been working you hard, and we're just now ready to rest you for the last few meets. This morning was our last really hard workout. Now we're going to drop the total mileage some, and drop the intensity of the hard workouts. We've got you guys fit, now we just need to get you used to smoothly running at speed, and let the energy pile up. To use a cheesy car analogy, we've already built and tuned up the engine, now it's just time to change the tires and and fill up the gas tank to get that last little bit of performance. I couldn't call myself any sort of coach if I didn't use cheesy analogies and sayings, could I?

I've put up a few more photos as well, from the Morton Relays and from the meet with Washington and Pekin. They aren't anywhere near as good as the first set, and there aren't as many, because I quickly got frustrated with my junky camera.

Here are some better pictures of the Morton Relays from a Washington fan (who knew there could be such a thing?) Even if they do support Washington, their pictures are more plentiful and of a higher quality than mine from last night. If you click the 'Home' button near the top, you get the index, and see that this person's taken pictures of a lot of meets in the area, including the girls Mid-Illini meet the other night.

Update: Apparently, people from Washington are good at taking pictures. Here are some more.

Some of you were interested in my photos from the air show a few weeks ago. I've put up some of the better pictures from that as well. Those were taken with my brother's Nikon, so even though we don't know how to use the thing yet, there are still some good ones in there. I put the full resolution versions up, so if you click to download the full version, you can see a lot of detail on some of them. All those people you don't know would be members of my family:)

I handed out sheets at practice today with this weeks workouts and conference selections. However, since some people couldn't be there, I'm going to copy that up onto the site here so everyone knows what we're doing this week, and what they're running at Conference.

Workouts for the week:
We’re cutting back the total amount of running that we’re doing and the amount of intense fast stuff. We are going to focus still on making sure that you spend some time running at race pace so that you feel smooth and comfortable at those speeds. Next week we’re going to cut back even more so we should be really rested for Sectional. Everyone should get a chance to run at Sectional, but not necessarily in the event they wish, since there are only 2 spots in each race.

Monday easy 3-5 miles + strides (Dave, bike for 40-60 minutes easy)
Tuesday 2x1200 meters threshold pace with 60 second recovery
4x200 race pace with full recovery
Wednesday easy 2-3 miles + strides
Thursday Mid Illini Conference Championships
Friday easy 2-3 miles + strides
Saturday 8x300 meters

For the 1200s and 200s, use the following paces:
Nathan Young and Dave – 1200s at 4:20, 200s at 35-36
Nick, Joe, Nathan Smith – 1200s at 4:40, 200s at 37-39
Mark – 1200s at 4:50, 200s at 34-36
Stuart – 1200s at 5:00, 200s at 37-39

For the strides, do 6 of them and hit top speed for 30-40 meters on the 3rd and 4th strides. Don’t do go so hard that you get tired, but try to smoothly go as fast as you can.


Conference meet:
This was a tough decision guys. There are only four spots for the 1600: 2 Varsity and 2 F/S. I had promised early in the season that everyone would get chances near the end to run in fast races at their goal distance. Unfortunately, we’ve had several of those meets canceled and so this is the last meet that has any F/S spots for the 1600. In order to keep that promise, I decided to let Nathan Smith and Nick run the F/S 1600 because they have not had the opportunities lately to run a 1600 that Joe has had. I’m putting Joe in the 3200 and I think he’s ready for an improvement in that event, as are Nathan and Nick in the 1600.

I am considering running an end of season time trial to give everyone one more chance to meet their goals. This would be unofficial, and only for the personal satisfaction of meeting your goals. Nothing’s worse than ending a season thinking you could have gone faster, but you just didn’t have the opportunities. Let me know if this is something you would be interested in. It'll only work if you're onboard and pumped up for it, so if it's not of interest, we won't bother.

4x800 V ---
4x800 FS ---
3200 V ---
3200 FS Joe
800 V Mark
800 FS Stuart
1600 V Dave, Nathan Young
1600 FS Nathan Smith, Nick

everybody keep saying it...

Morton Relays will not be canceled.
Morton Relays will not be canceled.
Morton Relays will not be canceled.

Unfortunately in the past few days, we've had two of our better opportunities to run fast taken away from us by mother nature...or the perception of mother nature. Third time's the charm though, so we're going to ignore the forecast for rain and run fast on Friday.

Here's the distance events.
4x800 Varsity
1600 medley (varsity: 200, 200, 400, 800)
Team Mile (3 guys)
4x400 relay (fresh/soph)
4x400 relay (varsity)

So we need 3 milers, 4-5 800 guys, and everyone needs to be ready to run a 400 leg if called for.

First off, the one I've been talking about for weeks, the Team Mile:
Dave (if healthy)
Nathan Young
Joe
Nick (alternate)

For the 800 legs, one of you guys may be running two 800s, one on the 4x800, one on the 1600 medley:
Nathan Smith
Nick
Mark
Stuart

I haven't talked to Coach Chiodo about all the spots yet, but everyone needs to be prepared to run a 400 on those relays at the end of the meet.

For the rest of the week:
Tuesday - long easy 5-7 miles easy + warmup/cooldown
Wednesday - threshold 3x1600 with 60-90 second recovery. Nathan Young - 6:00, Joe, Nick, Nathan Smith 6:20-25, Mark & Stuart 6:40ish. 4x200 goal race pace with full recovery. Nathan Young 36-37, Joe, Stuart 37-38, Nick, Nathan Smith, Mark 33-35
Thursday - easy 3-5 miles + strides
Friday - Race that won't be canceled
Saturday - last 400 workout before we start cutting back to be sharp and rested for Conference and Sectionals

For the 200s on Wednesday remember full recovery means full recovery. It may seem long to take a 5-7 minute break between 200s, but if that's what it takes, that's what it takes to get recovered. These are not suppsoed to be hard. The point is to get used to running smoothly at the pace you're racing at. So if you're not recovered, you end up not running them smoothly and efficiently. Focus on form, keep shoulders relaxed and not hunched up, keep your head level, try and use as little energy as possible to run at that speed. Exactly as you would want to run the first half of a race at that pace. The guys running 800s on Friday are running these 200s pretty quick, so they might need a little extra recovery compared to the guys running the mile. Guys who practice at the same time, try and start them altogether. It won't hurt you to have a little extra recovery, and it's good to run as a team, and good to learn to run in a crowd, which is a racing skill we haven't had much of a chance to deal with yet.

So far we've had almost everyone on the team reach their initial season goal, and the last person is very very close. I think that as we get into these last few races, we're going to be more prepared than we were earlier, we should get good, packed races with lots of people, and we're going to be rested. I think you guys are going to run much faster this second half of the season. It's frustrating that the races are getting few and far between, but we're going to make sure that these last few races are good ones.

Dave - I got your email tonight, and I'm glad there was no pain. I still want to be cautious, though. So for now, stick to doing your running on soft, even surfaces. Either the track, or some even, level grass. It may get monotonous, but it's probably better than the stationary bike:) If, at any point, the pain starts flaring up again, you're done running and cross training again. It's better to miss Morton Relays than to miss Sectional. Continue to ice and stretch in the evening when you can as well.

We're going to try and slowly increase your running over the next few days so that we can build you up without hammering you so hard that your leg is hurt again before we realize it. Hopefully this means you'll get to race on Friday.

Tuesday - do 20 minutes running and try to get in 30-40 minutes on the bike or 20-30 on the elliptical.

Wednesday - 800 to 1200 warmup, 1600 threshold (try and run Nathan Young's 1st one with him, but since you haven't been running, that might not quite feel comfortable. If it's too hard - remember we want comfortably hard - then go with Joe, Nick and Nathan Smith), 4x200 at goal race pace (36-37) with full recovery. Cooldown after that with 20 minutes easy on the bike. If you can do this without any pain, we should be good to go for Friday

Thursday - Easy 1200 warmup, 4-6 easy 50-75 meter strides, easy 1200 cooldown.

Friday - race Team Mile. I don't want you to run you on any of the 400s afterwards, so probably just the one race for you.

Saturday - we'll evaluate after Friday and decide then, but I'm very wary of running you in those hard 400s.

Peace Out! I'll see you all on Friday.