News and Announcements

Annual end of season awards banquet will be this coming Tuesday (11/10/09) from 6:15-7:30 in the HS cafeteria.  Dinner is being catered and a donation will be collected at that time.  Uniforms are being collected this Friday and next Monday outside the locker room.  Please make every attempt to get your uniform turned in prior to the banquet on Tuesday! 

Please check your emails for further information!...Or ask for the girls xc flyer at the office window. 

Hope to see everyone on Tuesday evening!
Coach

OFF-SEASON TRAINING--Is there such a thing?

by Cathie Twomey Bellamy  (reprinted from Track & Field News)

It is hard to believe that there is actually more time between the
cross country season and the start of the track & field season than
there is between track and the start of cross country. We think of
summer as the lazy time when school is over and sleeping in takes its
place.

Well,
off-season really does not mean summertime because the summer months
are normally spent getting ready for the upcoming cross country season.
What can be counted as the off-season are those dreary winter months
when cross country training and racing halts for an appropriate length
of time and then shifts to base work for track & field.

What
to do during this period is the subject of much debate and some
controversy. Some states have their high school federation guidelines
to follow which curtail organized, formal practices and leave the
athletes to fend for themselves while others can work with a very small
number of athletes at one time. What is considered conditioning vs.
training is a very vague area and one that many coaches do not want to
deal with.

Some athletes choose to do a winter
sport such as basketball, wrestling or swimming while others look to
bridge cross country and track with off-season type training.

November
through February is a great time to address foundation work. This block
of time can be used to work on mileage and strength running as well as
a return to weight training. Runs done over hilly terrain as well as
hill repeats are a great way to work on the anaerobic end of the
continuum without doing track intervals, something that can hammer the
musculo-skeletal system and, oddly enough, get the young athlete in too
good of shape too soon.

Winter is also a good
time to build in the anaerobic threshold work--aka, tempo
work--something that is difficult to do while in the middle of a
competitive season. Tempo work can be done as simply as setting out on
a run and inserting 20:00 at an elevated pace within that run; or, it
can be done over hilly terrain where the effort is sustained over
rolling hills for the designated 20:00. Either way, one should be aware
of keeping the heart rate in the 85% range and not ever feel the run to
be as stressful as racing.

Plyometric work and
agility drills can also be done at this time, within a fun, progressive
workout that addresses muscles not ordinarily used in distance
training, thus awakening the neurological pathways and getting them to
fire rapidly.

The basic idea for the off-season
is to work on building strength and covering all bases by addressing
weaknesses in a relaxed block of time when competition is not looming.

At
Marist High School, I recommend all athletes take a complete break from
training for at least 2-3 weeks at the end of the cross country season.

After that break, they will meet to run
regularly, slowly building mileage over the winter. Some runs will be
done over hilly terrain while others are done on a flat, bark chipped,
trail. Added dimensions, such as circuit drills, plyometrics and
stadium stairs are incorporated one or two times weekly to help keep
the training spiced. Timed intervals are not done during this phase of
training.

Most high school athletes are not
experienced enough to be able to handle the mental tenacity of a full
year's worth of intense training. Thus, the winter months are used for
more of a relaxed, strength building phase.

Weight training, which had been shut down for the two weeks prior to our district meet, is also resumed at this time.

Abdominal
strengthening is a major part of this training since core strength is
vital to strong, proper biomechanical running. We do a variety of group
abdominal exercises as well as leg-strengthening exercises for the
abductors and adductors. Many times these areas are overlooked thus
creating weaker finishes with lackluster accelerations. Shifting to
multiple gears requires great strength. These exercises address this
need.

Bottom line: November through February is
a time for both the coach and the athletes to relax and have fun with
less intense training. Shifting the focus of training helps to keep
attitudes and body fresh.

[About the author:
During her competitive career, Cathie Twomey Bellamy was one of the
best and most versatile runners in the United States. A veteran of
three U.S. Olympic Trials finals, in events from the 1500 to 10,000,
Twomey Bellamy also ran the marathon in the '87 World Championships and
was a member of the gold-medal winning U.S. team at the '84 World Cross
Country Championships.

She is now the
co-head track coach and head cross country coach at Marist High School
in Eugene, Oregon. Over the past 7 years, her athletes have won dozens
of league championships and 3A state titles from 400 to 3000 meters on
the track, and her cross country teams are perennially among the best
in Oregon.]

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