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Recruiting Give and Take: Part 1

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In this feature, Alan Versaw, girls and boys coach of The Classical Acadamy in Colorado Springs and editor of co.milesplit.us and I exchange information and perspectives on the college track and field/cross country recruiting process. The “give and take” will continue over the next few weeks as we seek to make the process both more productive and more transparent for all concerned. [Read more…]

Posture

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Last summer I had lunch with one of the best HS coaches in the state of Colorado. The name of a local runner, who also happened to be a national-class runner, came up and the HS coach noted, “he’s really good, but he needs to work on his form.”

“He leans forward to much,” I ventured.

“How’d you know?” blurted the HS coach, “have you seen him run?”

I had not, but my guess that his problem is his forward lean is correct over 90% of the time (at least when a coach thinks a particular runner should work on their form). [Read more…]

Training Video – Atacama Sand Routine

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The idea that you would do plyometrics in the sand was foreign to me before Mike had athletes demonstrate these sand routines for our second DVD.  The idea is simply that plyometrics, in the most simple terms, are any activity that has a quick coupling of eccentric and concentric contraction…which makes sprinting arguable the most intense plyometric activity a distance runner would ever undertake. Take a look at the Atacama routine.

We’re giving away 4 DVDs each week to people who write in questions on Runerspace’s Tuesday Tips so feel free to write in with a question if you want a DVD (you also have to sign up as a fan RunningDVDs)

Fall Running Thoughts

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One of my favorite memories as a collegiate track athlete came one fall. Following a cross country workout my coach, Mark Wetmore, commented on the light and how it was different than just a few days earlier and how it reminded him of Emily Dickinson’s poem, “There’s a certain slant of light.” He then went on to talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), simply making the point that we all sense the “slant of light” and that for many people it has consequences. What’s my point?  If you’re in the northern hemisphere, chances are that you’ll soon be dealing with inclement running weather as well as fewer daylight hours to get your run in (though I know that many people are forced to get their daily run in during the dark hours). Thus, my suggestion is twofold.

First, make sure that you not only find the time to run the next couple of weeks, but that you fully appreciate the air, the smells and the environment around you, even if you don’t like running in your current climate’s weather. That brings me to my second point—you as a runner have a unique opportunity to experience weather and nature all year long. Now, I must admit that I hate both sub-freezing long runs in January as well as any days where I’m running and it’s over 85 degrees (obviously I’d struggle to live a lot of place with that second one), but I truly enjoy the opportunity to run in all of the conditions that my climate has to offer.

I’ll be coming back to this idea in a few weeks with training tips especially for cold weather training. In the mean time you can enjoy these photos of Fall from various parts of the northern hemisphere (from the Boston Globe’s Big Picture page).

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