Cross country, as some of you learned today, can be a difficult sport. While the football and soccer teams were on the turf focusing on drills with plenty of breaks for instructional purposes, you were asked to work relatively hard for 90 minutes with little or no down time other than water and bathroom breaks. We coaches were impressed with the effort and attitudes of all of you. On Day #1 our primary objective was to determine the current abilities of our athletes. At 2:30 we took attendance, held a brief discussion, and following a team warmup, all athletes were asked to run a portion of our course (the entire course can be viewed at the link above). The mile run was completed by all with times ranging from 5+ to 13 minutes, and there were a lot of smiles at the end. The next step in the process was to breakout in groups of comparable ability to again determine the current fitness of each of the athletes. We did this with some "circuit" training in which those with more experience and a solid base of summer running, ran 700-meter repeats at a comfortable pace broken up by 4 circuits of 4 exercises apiece. The less experienced athletes completed the same circuits with one exception. They ran 300-meter repeats. Following the circuits, each group stretched with his/her coach and practice ended at 4:30. Two hours of work and everybody responded that they felt good following practice. Day 1 was in the books.
I think the practice pointed out that while we have many capable young student-athletes we have quite a spread in ability at this point. That should surprise nobody. We have team members who have run hundreds of miles over the summer, and many who have completed far less. Today the groups to which you have either been assigned or which you've selected will be completing runs and workouts designed with that in mind. It won't be long before there is some movement among the groups, but early on we want to ensure the safety and enjoyment of each of you. Tuesday we'll again focus on newer athletes learning the course with easy running, while others will be running easy at distances based on his/her summer training. They will be heading off campus for their run. Today, by the way, the weather will be much better for training with low humidity and temperatures in the 70s.
For you newer runners, my guess is that you may feel or have already felt some discomfort. Don't be discouraged or put off by that. It is part of the process. I promise you that you'll feel much looser following warmup today and the running portion of your practice will be such that you'll feel only mild muscle discomfort and you'll have ample breaks for recovery. We don't have to hurry with your training. Whitman-Hanson has one of the few full 5K (3.1 miles) courses in the Patriot League. In our first meet you can opt for the shorter 3K (1.85 miles) course. You ran a mile+ yesterday. That 3K will be a piece of cake come September 7, more than 2 weeks away. We're really looking forward to seeing you at 2:30 Tuesday afternoon!
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