Summer training
“Truck-training” — summer 2022
Coach Darren emailed a summer training schedule starting in June with a 25-mile week. Within a couple weeks the mileage began to increase. Higher-intensity workouts were included as well as a weekly long run starting with nine miles.
Four years of high-school coaching experience now all seemed to lead to this summer of preparing Harrison to run at the next level. I knew that he could run forever, but increasing his leg speed was going to be the key to success in college. I quickly realized that it would be difficult for Harrison to do some of these harder workouts from our home because of the hilly terrain and also the higher altitude at 8,600 feet.
Another challenge was meshing the time required for these training sessions with the rest of our lives. We had to approach it like a part-time job. Each day had a specific plan with six days on and Mondays off. There also were mobility exercises and strength-training sessions.
I came up with some creative work-arounds. One thing I liked about Darren’s workout plans was there was always a decent amount of warmup and cooldown time. For some of these workouts we’d warm up around here and then I would have Harrison do the faster running on a long slight downhill to improve leg turnover, with the cooldown period being back up the hill. Sometimes I even had him do the warmup, then paced him with my truck on the downhill, keeping the speedometer at 9-10 mph.
For more specific interval workouts we drove to Westcliffe, where the altitude was about 1,000 feet lower, and used the high school’s dirt track with warmup and cooldown around town. Another regular hard workout was a tempo run with a 1.5-mile warmup and cooldown, and a three-mile run at about six-minute per mile pace sandwiched between. For this workout we would drive out Hermit Road east of Westcliffe in the Wet Mountain Valley, and park at the junction with Kettle Lane, a north-south thoroughfare. I chose this spot because it’s about the lowest altitude and flattest piece of dirt road in the valley. Since I could not keep up with Harrison for the tempo run I would bring a bike. I would run the warmup with him, jump on the bike to pace him through the tempo phase of the workout, then dismount and run the cooldown. As the summer wore on, this tempo run would increase to a three-mile warmup and cooldown with a five-mile tempo run for 11 miles total. The long run increased to 12 miles. By then the weekly total had doubled from 25 miles to 50.
It was a much more rigorous program, with more mileage and more intensity than Harrison had ever done in high school. The cross-country distance in college was typically 8K rather than 5K, and the competition would surely be more fierce as well. Harrison seemed to adapt to the program well, though there were some days when the speed work didn’t go quite as planned. A side-stitch would slow him down, or his legs felt tired from the accumulated training load. Sometimes he would become angry in frustration. One day we were attacked by swarms of biting flies, and we realized they were attracted to the brightly colored bandanas I was having him carry to improve his hand swing.
But he stuck with the program. Soon he would be meeting some of his new teammates as Darren had a team activity planned in connection with the Leadville Race Series, which hosts the Leadville Trail 100 and other events.
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