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Post by mr. excellent on Jul 24, 2016 22:30:02 GMT -5
Talk about anything endurance sport related: marathons, spartan competitions, triathalons, biking, whatever...
I'm currently starting my 4th year in coaching my school's cross country team (7th and 8th graders). There are a couple pretty talented kids out here, as I have the fastest girl in the league and potentially the fastest boy. I'm actually looking to pass the torch and slip into more of a volunteer role though. There are also a few kids with a hint of talent and a lot of heart that I'm really looking forward to working with this season. It'll be interesting to see how much improvement I can get out of them. There's this one in particular who I'm hoping to help improve from 10 minutes for 1.25 miles to about 8 minutes 30 seconds. It'll be tough to get them to bring their time down a whole minute and 30 seconds in less than 3 months, but I think we can do it.
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Post by brotherandbassist on Jul 30, 2016 1:44:23 GMT -5
The fastest mile I ever ran was like nine minutes and thirty seconds. Idk if that's good or bad? haha
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Post by mr. excellent on Jul 30, 2016 11:38:42 GMT -5
It's not bad. In P.E. in California I think they still tell kids the goal is 8 minutes, which is kind of fast for the average person in my opinion. Like, almost no one runs if it's not for another sport, so an 8 minute mile is tough.
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Post by mr. excellent on Sept 17, 2016 15:32:40 GMT -5
Looking back at that post from July 24th, we've been running 8 weeks now. Some of the kids who came out during the summer decided they had too many other things on their plate, but I realize now how far the ones who stuck with it have come. That boy I spoke of earlier was actually at 9 minutes for 1.25 miles, so I was mistaken on him, but I realize I set the bar way too low weeks back (when I said he'd hit 8:30). In practice 2 weeks ago he hit 7 minutes 30 seconds on the track for 5 laps. That's a 6 minute mile, plus 1 lap extra, so he's already shattered his time. We've had 2 races so far, and the way it works is that all of the schools in our league show up to every race. I love it, because there's 100 + girls in the girls race, and 100 + boys in the boys race. Kids this age will lament on how boring running is, until they get on the starting line with an army of other kids and no one to hide behind, haha. But it's good times tho (literally, good fast times) with them. My girls team won 2nd out of 9 schools, and took 1st and 2nd place individually, with my others getting some good finishes and running strong. Not sure how my boys did because the coach hosting the race hadn't calculated the boys' team scores yet. Overall tho, my top 2 boys got 3rd and 8th place out of 100 + runners. I'm training all of them to be champions (I do mean literally, but it sounds funny in a sentence), but I love the way the individual 1st and 2nd place boys (from competing schools) ran. They took off like if they were only running a short race, dug down and hung on to a ridiculous pace the whole race, and then managed to battle it out at the end. I know my boy who got 3rd place has the talent to hang in there with them, but I'm really excited for the kid who came in 8th place. The winners I spoke of were also the top 2 finishers last year, and they've somehow managed to 1 up themselves. At this age, when you are able to run that fast that early, you don't see a lot of improvement until maybe year 2 or 3 in high school. Yet, here they are, even faster and stronger than last year. My 8th place wasn't even in their world last year, now he's on the verge of giving them a run for their money. Hard work beats talent that doesn't work hard. Fortunately and unfortunately for us, those boys do work hard and it supplements their talent. We just have to out work them, but be strategic in the way that we exercise. More running doesn't equal success if it's implemented poorly. Okay, I'm done. I need to stop.
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Post by brotherandbassist on Sept 17, 2016 20:16:35 GMT -5
It's great that they are making good progress! I won't be running anywhere for a while, I'm pretty sure I broke a bone in my foot. I was stomping the carpet today to try and stop my foot from being numb and when I did, the top of my foot and my big toe hit the ground instead of the bottom of it. Needless to say, I cussed out my foot lol
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Post by mr. excellent on Sept 18, 2016 11:43:39 GMT -5
Ouch man! Sorry to hear about that.
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Post by mr. excellent on Sept 29, 2016 23:06:44 GMT -5
Super excited today. My girls did very well overall. Top 2 finishers 1st and 2nd place, and some very good placement for the rest of the ladies as well, in terms of how they've ranked in the past. The boys did well too. The best take away for us today is that one of our boys took 1st for the whole thing. It was against those super talented runners I was talking about 2 posts above. We trained specifically to match up with their style, which I've never done before with my kids, but it worked! It came down to the wire, but our boy leaned at the end and took first! Our second boy came in 8th out of 100 + runners, and did very well for himself. I'm hoping that come these next 3-4 months, he'll continue to improve and challenge the lot of them for that coveted top spot. It's competitive for sure tho.
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Post by Webber3000 on Sept 29, 2016 23:44:09 GMT -5
Congrats!
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Post by brotherandbassist on Sept 30, 2016 14:46:17 GMT -5
Proud of ya man, sounds like you're a good coach!
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Post by mr. excellent on Nov 12, 2016 17:28:12 GMT -5
I can't believe I never responded to this. Thank you for the compliment. I kind of have that Rocky mentality when it comes to my runners. If you want something bad enough, have a lot of heart and devote yourself to being your absolute best, you can overcome just about anything. I'm currently only training 2 kids because the season ended, but we're trying to get them to a whole other level before the start of track season. Today, only 1 runner was able to make it (people traveling for the 3 day weekend and whatnot) but boy did we run. He did 38 minutes of steep hill running, just up and down. Running down hill isn't too great on the legs, so I had him run on his toes on the way down to reduce the impact and have reduce the chance of slipping. I did more than half of it with him, but I'm not improving as fast as he is. Guess me being 29, I'm not as resilient as I thought I was, haha. We're trying to bring his 400m (1 lap) time down to 1 minute flat so we can build all of his other events off of that. He has the speed and the stamina, but there's something about that 1 minute barrier for 8th grade boys that's hard to over come.
Enter intense hill training. I don't think that barrier stands a chance, but it'll take time to get there. Both of my runners ran a 5k (or 3.1 miles) yesterday for Veteran's day. The girl did it in 20 min. 12 sec. while the boy did it in 18 min. 53 sec.; his first 5k ever. I'm thinking that by July of 2017 he'll be in the mid 17 minute range, maybe better. You never can tell when it comes to kids this age. They throw on a growth spurt, then everything gets all out of whack until they get used to their body. It's just fun working with people who are super dedicated. The real goal for the boy is to go under 5 minutes for 1 mile, and for the girl to hit 5:30.
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Post by mr. excellent on May 14, 2017 15:15:15 GMT -5
So, the season is finally over, what with the valley championships being yesterday and now state competition this year. My boy did 10:18 for 3000m, which is half a lap short of 2 miles.* At the speed he was going, he would've broke 11:00 for the full 2 miles, which is like hitting 5:30 for 1 mile twice in a row. He got 7th out of 16 of the Valley's fastest runners. Mind you, this is the part of California that contains McFarland USA for which the movie is based off of. This is huge. A year ago, he got 7th or 8th place at our local qualifier and didn't make it to valley at all. To put Valley into context, the champions and runner ups from 7 county qualifier meets all meet up at the valley championships to race. This year, he came in 2nd at our local qualifier (on 4/28) with a time of 10:47. The kid who beat him that day ran a 10:37. So for my boy to then 2 weeks later run a 10:18 was kind of nice, winning in a rematch. It was exciting too. A lot of local kids get lapped when they go to the big races like these, but he was within 200m of the winner, and well ahead of the back half the pack. Everyone, including last place, were good runners to even be there. One of the things that is surprising for people when they witness these kids of races is that the distance races are kind of fun to watch. You get to see kids challenge each other all throughout the race, sling shot past 5 or 6 people, only to have someone sling shot past them. Battles start brewing 2 or 3 laps before the finish and people gas out trying to build a strong lead too early. It was a great race.
*Why they don't do the full 3200m (or 2 miles) I'll never know. Just some weird AAU league thing I guess.
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Post by Webber3000 on May 14, 2017 23:49:37 GMT -5
Wow, these are very impressive times; congratulations!
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Post by mr. excellent on May 15, 2017 20:35:34 GMT -5
Thank you sir.
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