Long runs for Junior High School

Defining long runs for junior high school athletes can drive a coach slightly batty. At one end of the spectrum, you have the kids that are natural runners and, in some cases, already ran on a regular basis before the cross country season started. The other end of that spectrum is occupied by the kids that are doing this for the first time and for whom a jog around the block may be the furthest they've ever run.

In Asotin, even with a very young team - we have no eighth grade girls and the boys team has only two- we have both, just as every school does. A difference for us is that some of our seventh graders were with us last year and bought into running - and baseball for the boys.

So we've adopted two strategies. The first was to take the strongest of the experienced runners and let them run with the high school team on the easy days for the high school. Even that is a bit much for them but an occasional dose - and exposure to the work ethic that our high school athletes have - is meaningful for them.

The other strategy we used yesterday is to let the kids segregate into groups - for the most part, we let them self-select - and each coach plus a volunteer, my daughter Sara, took a group out. Different paces, different distances, different goals.

For the speedy Gonzalez's, it was about 4.5 miles at 9 minute pace. Some of the kids bit off a touch more than they could chew and eased into the park at the end at a walk. One kid, feeling a twinge, wisely did the same after 3.5 miles.

I ran with the middle group. These were mostly kids that are new to running (one was an eighth grade boy that I wanted in the group for some leadership) and we discovered all sorts of things on a 3.25 mile jaunt at 'Coach Paul' pace. One girl noticed another constantly speeding up and then stopping to walk - understandable as she is a sprinter on the track team. Pacing is new to her but I was tickled that I wasn't the one that pointed it out to her but a teammate did. One of the sixth grade boys had never run this far so he got a PR on distance - it certainly won't be his last.

The final group, led by Sara, was on a mission: Run without walking. It doesn't seem like an ambitious goal for athletes but for kids that have no base of running, learning that they can do this is huge. The emphasis is not speed but perseverance. For most, it was a success.

Since we're dealing with young athletes, we don't do many long runs and, obviously, what is a long run to the kids now will someday be a short easy day. When we plan long runs for junior high athletes we take the long view and make sure that we give them just enough of a challenge to help them develop and not so much that we kill the run or injury the runner.

Because, in the long run, we want them to be runners for life.

The Starter - A Guy with a (Fake) Gun

Cross country season is off to a great start - not in small part due to the volunteers that help staff the meets here such as Les - today's starter at the Seaport Invite in Clarkston, Washington. I've watched Les start races in the Inland Northwest for about a decade and always wondered at his easy disposition and calming effect on a mob of athletes itching to sprint away. Today was nice because I had a chance to chat with him briefly after the junior varsity race got under way since I was the backup timer today and didn't have to call splits at the mile mark.

This marks the 28th year that Les has acted as a race official, working both cross country and track. Before that, he coached for a couple of decades - between the two, he has five decades of experience which is a stunning concept, at least for me (having just reached my fiftieth year - it means he started coaching the year I was born.) He plans on sticking around for at least a few more years so that number will only grow. Like Ripken's consecutive game streak in baseball or Coach K's wins in college basketball, it's a record that's going to be awfully hard to beat.

Interestingly enough, he grew up in Maryland, not far from where I grew up. Both of us were children of people in government service - his father was military, mine Department of Defense and we've both been to Okinawa. It's an odd feeling - a touch of nostalgia - to meet someone from that neck of the woods when I've left it far behind, both in distance and in time.

Les projects an old-fashioned graciousness and warmth and I suspect that aspect of his personality is what gets the races off to such smooth starts. Listening to parents compare him to other starters just reinforces the importance of the role that he plays - whether he knows it or not - to the community and to the athletes.

I also suspect that if you brought you his role, he'd tell you that it's all about the kids and the joy that they bring as they compete against each other and themselves. It certainly wouldn't be about Les and five decades of service to these youngsters. The Starter is that kind of man.

Asotin Island Run

The first meet of the year for the Asotin teams - the Asotin Island Run - runs on Chief Timothy Island in Clarkston, Washington on September 14th.

The course is short of the full 5K distance used for championship meets which is a definite advantage early in the season when the kids are still working on fitness. Tim Gundy, the head coach at Asotin, set up the race in 2007 and it's become a regional favorite for small schools with teams coming down from Moscow, Idaho and up from Enterprise, Oregon.

The course for the high school does a pair of laps - a shorter 1 mile loop along the west end of the island that returns the runners to the start line then sends them on a longer 1.6 mile loop. Two-thirds of the course is on dirt track and has small rolling hills. The backside of the big loop does have one short hard climb. The junior high teams - and there is usually a good turnout here as well - runs just the longer loop.

The race finishes under the trees of the park and there is plenty of grassy space for the teams to spread out under the shade. Many teams take advantage of the water and splash in the river before loading up and heading home.

Spectators are always welcome and there is usually good crowd to cheer the runners on.

More info on the Asotin Island Run can be found at athletic.net

Asotin Cross Country is Nearly Here

I admit it - I'm excited that the Asotin cross country season is nearly here. This will be the first year that I don't have any children of my own on the team but I'll be helping out with the junior high squad again. Coaching the kids keeps me a touch younger and, at the junior high level, most of them run because they enjoy it - they haven't gotten to the stage where each race counts in some standing. They do still care, passionately, about how they do. My job, even part-time, is to help them reach for their limits.

The other job is to keep them injury-free. The Asotin cross country teams have been remarkable blessed to have some fine runners among the fine people and we hate to see one of them hurting. At the junior high level, we work to teach them how to run with as little harm to their joints and tissues, focusing on form and listening to their bodies.

This year, I think I'll introduce them to Emil Zatopek, the great post WWII Czech runner - who had perhaps the worst form ever for a world record holder. Every picture I've seen of Zatopek makes him look as though he's just been kicked by a mule but, oh my, could the man run. At his peak, he held nine separate World Records.

Zatopek was a master of listening.

The message to the Asotin cross country kids is to not freak about form - you have to be true to your body. If you run best flopping an elbow, don't tuck it in. Listen. Your body will let you know when you have it right.

And when you have it right, you'll be faster and you'll be far less likely to be injured.

Rainier to Pacific

Running the Rainier to Pacific Relay in 2008 was a bit of good fortune. It started with a phone call from my daughter asking if it was okay that she run the relay. Since she was 17, she needed permission and my reputation around the house is Mr. Softee - the kids know it as does the dog.

"Sure," I said, "but if you don't really want to, tell them I'll run."

"I told them you would," she said. "They need two runners."

So we ran the Rainier to Pacific relay together. It was the first of four relays that I ran with my daughters - the youngest daughter ran Spokane to Sandpoint with me last year. The first couple of years my middle daughter was in the same van as me. The last year we ran together, she needed space and ran in the other van, hanging with folks closer to her age.

No worries, thinks the dad. I was tickled that we got to share these relays. I ran with them when they were little waifs and cheered at their cross country meets. I was always their biggest fan...

Funny thing - when you run with your babies, they keep growing. You run with them as young kids, then as young adults and the next thing you know, you're cheering for them from a distance. Now, I'm looking at joining Lyn in the stroller division...and it's just...wow...

Running Times Magazine for a Buck

I just set up a new subscription for Running Times - probably the best race-oriented running magazine on the planet - and was slightly stunned at the cost. A buck an issue.

I'm no economist and the business I run is smaller and serviced based but I can't figure out how they're going to make any money like that unless the ad revenue is just out of sight.

I knew Sidney Harman purchased Newsweek - the whole operation, not just a copy - for a buck and probably over-paid but Running Times is a quality publication. It's apples and lemons.

The top article that caught my eye? History, in the form of a 17 year old girl, breaking a 31 year old record in the 800 meters.  Mary Cain dueled the National Champion to the finish line.

"That last 100 I saw Alysia there and I said 'That's our national champion. I am getting on her and she's going to pull me (under) that two minutes.' I just tried to fight it out," Cain said. "When I crossed the line and heard I broke two (minutes), I was ecstatic."

Imagine Montano's feeling, as the high school junior pulled even and slightly ahead. Montano dug a little deeper and beat Cain by less than a tenth of a second. Afterward, Montano took the red orchid out of her hair and pinned it over Cain's ear.

For runners at the high school level, there is no better magazine - both for technique and training but also motivation and a chance to cheer. Running Times is it.