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Tony Holler – Part 1 of 2 – Episode 014 – Coaching Runners Podcast

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Note: This episode contains explicit content.

Tony Holler (@pntrack) is the head track coach at Plainfield North High School in the Chicago area. Tony Holler has coached track for 38 years, football for 28, and basketball for 15. In June of 2019, Tony retired after his 38th year of teaching (Chemistry). He remains as the head track coach.

Holler’s teams have won three state championships. In 2018, his Plainfield North team swept the sprints in Illinois, winning the 100m, 200m, 4×1, and 4×2, setting new state records in the 100m and 4×1. In 2019, Plainfield North again featured the state champion in both the 100 and 200.

Tony Holler and Chris Korfist own the Track Football Consortium, providing education for coaches twice a year (December and June). TFC will expand in 2020 to Dallas (Jan 25-26) and St. Louis (Feb 7-8).

Tony Holler is the originator of “Feed the Cats” and speaks at clinics and seminars from coast to coast. In September of 2019, Holler did a five workshop “Feed the Cats Tour” in England and Ireland, hosted by Jonas Dodoo.

Tony Holler produced a track and field video for Championship Productions in 2019, Feed the Cats: A Complete Sprint Training Program. The DVD/VIDEO was the #1 seller of all the videos sold for Championship Productions, ALL SPORTS.

You can also purchase over 5 hours of video from the Boulder Running Clinics where Tony Explains in four presentations and a Q&A his Feed the Cats system. Click here to learn more.

Holler is also the author of nearly 200 articles about coaching, high performance, and education.

Scott Steffen – Episode 013 – Coaching Runners Podcast

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Scott Steffen is the boy’s and girl’s coach at Concordia Lutheran High School in Fort Wayne, IN.

His boy’s team won the state cross country championship in 2019. Indiana has a single classification championship and Concordia Lutheran has an enrollment of just over 700 students. His boys went on to finish 4th at the NXR in unquestionably one of the toughest regions.

In this podcast, Scott talks about the challenges of coaching at a small school and the challenges of having a small team.

Scott is a member of all three seasons of High School Running Coach and he talks about how that resource and the Fundamentals Education Course have impacted his coaching.

Enjoy!

Tonya McDonough – Episode 007 – Coaching Runners Podcast

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Tonya McDonough is the girls cross country and distance coach at Iowa City Liberty High School in Iowa City, Iowa.

This conversation focuses on summer training for high school girls, specifically Tonya’s three juniors who want to make a jump this summer.

The starting point for the conversation is a brief overview of the concepts she learned in my Fundamentals Education Course, then the two go in-depth about factors that must be considered regarding summer training: heat and humidity, volume, the importance of strides and non-running work, the importance of the long run and the importance being mindful of the girl’s long-term development, given that they all want to run in college.

Enjoy!

Howard Russ – Episode 006 – Coaching Runners Podcast

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Howard Russ just completed his 11th season as men’s and women’s head coach for Beavercreek High School in Beavercreek, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton.

In 2018, Russ’s girls won their first OHSAA Division One state
championship, and Russ had his first state champion individual with junior Taylor Ewert. Ewert is a 4-time All-American including a 3rd place finish at NXN and 4th place at Footlocker in 2018. She was also the New Balance Outdoor National champion in 2000 meter steeplechase in 2018.

In this interview, Howard shares how he’s used the information from High School Running Coach and the Boulder Running Clinics to inform his training and improve as a coach.

He talks about Timo Mostert’s 2-mile power runs, and Dan Iverson’s distinction between goals and targets. Just two of Howard’s take-home messages from these two resources.

Thanks Howard for taking the time to talk.

Learn how to become a member of High School Running Coach here. If you would like to purchase the videos from the Boulder Clinics 2018 High School clinic click here.

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