It has been two weeks since the state meet, and I still haven't blogged about how I feel afterward. I try to be very analytical about it. I thought it would be good to share how I as a coach, feel going into the state meet, afterward and how I review the season, basically the coaches perspective.
After the boys and girls races were completed the first thing I think all of the coaches felt was: relief. As a coach, you want nothing more than for your athletes to run their best at the end of the season, to finish with a performance that you and they felt they were capable of running. It's a tight rope you are walking with them over the last two weeks of the season and as you walk to the starting line you want to talk about the race, give them strategies, but also have them just run, not think too much, treat it like just another race. You want to make them feel confident, excited, but also keep emotions at a controlled level. Our goal as coaches, is bring them to the line healthy, physically and mentally ready to run. Everyone of them reacts different to the pressures of the state meet. You tell them its just another race, but everyone knows it's not, the goal is to just relax and run like it is, let the training and the sharpening that has been done work.
Most of the runners who competed at the state meet had run all summer, 5 months of training, hundred of miles, all with the goal of competing well on this particular day. Some have been training year round, and the state meet in cross country is their most important race of the year. There is pressure on our end as coaches to make sure we have done the right things to help them be successful for the big day. For me I know leading up to the meet I always start rethinking each workout we did, the progression of each speed workout, the total mileage, and the sharpening over the last few weeks leading up to the big race. Did we do the right things? Should I have told them something different as a race strategy? Did I tell them too much? Should we have rested more or less?
I sit down at the beginning of each summer and create the outline/map of what I think is best for the upcoming season for each member of the team, concerning their mileage, reasonable goals, and what workouts will achieve them. At the end of the season I sit down and look at the numbers, the results, that is my measuring stick of how we as coaches have done. Numbers don't lie. Over the last 20 years we have had results that have caused me to change our workouts throughout the year, We consistantly make little tweeks, and sometimes we have made a complete overhall of the way we do things to keep us competitive through out the state. Below are the facts I looked at of how we competed throughout the year, and especially how we ran at the state meet
After the boys and girls races were completed the first thing I think all of the coaches felt was: relief. As a coach, you want nothing more than for your athletes to run their best at the end of the season, to finish with a performance that you and they felt they were capable of running. It's a tight rope you are walking with them over the last two weeks of the season and as you walk to the starting line you want to talk about the race, give them strategies, but also have them just run, not think too much, treat it like just another race. You want to make them feel confident, excited, but also keep emotions at a controlled level. Our goal as coaches, is bring them to the line healthy, physically and mentally ready to run. Everyone of them reacts different to the pressures of the state meet. You tell them its just another race, but everyone knows it's not, the goal is to just relax and run like it is, let the training and the sharpening that has been done work.
Most of the runners who competed at the state meet had run all summer, 5 months of training, hundred of miles, all with the goal of competing well on this particular day. Some have been training year round, and the state meet in cross country is their most important race of the year. There is pressure on our end as coaches to make sure we have done the right things to help them be successful for the big day. For me I know leading up to the meet I always start rethinking each workout we did, the progression of each speed workout, the total mileage, and the sharpening over the last few weeks leading up to the big race. Did we do the right things? Should I have told them something different as a race strategy? Did I tell them too much? Should we have rested more or less?
I sit down at the beginning of each summer and create the outline/map of what I think is best for the upcoming season for each member of the team, concerning their mileage, reasonable goals, and what workouts will achieve them. At the end of the season I sit down and look at the numbers, the results, that is my measuring stick of how we as coaches have done. Numbers don't lie. Over the last 20 years we have had results that have caused me to change our workouts throughout the year, We consistantly make little tweeks, and sometimes we have made a complete overhall of the way we do things to keep us competitive through out the state. Below are the facts I looked at of how we competed throughout the year, and especially how we ran at the state meet
| Boys Team EDC placing All-Conference Runners State Meet Placing All - State Runners PR's run at state meet Team 5k Average Top 7 Runners PR's Leif Larsen David Hettich Shay Doward Richie Osborn Zach Nelson Cedric Reese Cole Oen | 2013 3rd, 84 points 3 4th, 159 points 2 3 17:03 Returned 3 of top 5 Returned 5 of top 10 16:35 17:52 19:24 19:13 22:03 21:19 23:36 | 2014 5th, 102 points (tied for 4th, lost to 6th runner) 4 6th , 207 points 2 6 17:11 Returned 1 out of top 5 Returned 2 out of top 10 15:58 16:41 17:24 17:25 18:27 19:46 19:46 Note: 9 of the Boys ran the Minot Pre -State Meet Race, 4 weeks later all 9 of them ran faster at the State Meet. The group cut 2:25 |
| Girls Team EDC placing All-Conference Runners State Meet Placing All - State Runners PR's run at state meet Team 4k Average Top 7 Runners PR's Karly Ackley Alexis Roehl Mandy Williamson Rachel Torrey Grace Roehl Rachel Cox Maggie Powell Alexis Spinetta | 2013 1st, 40 points 5 5th, 133 points 1 8 15:40 Returned 3 of top 5 Returned 7 of top 10 14:52 15:38 16:25 16:10 15:33 16:09 17:01 DNR | 2014 1st, 35 points 6 2nd, 80 points 3 5 14:58 Returned 5 out of top 5 Returned 9 out of top 10 13:57 14:43 15:09 15:24 15:38 15:51 16:52 17:05 Note: 8 of the Girls ran the Minot Pre -State Meet Race, 4 weeks later 6 of them ran faster at the State Meet. The group cut 1:24 |
The one thing all of these numbers can measure is the desire to compete. How do your athletes compete? How do they handle the pressure of having big expectations put on them? We as coaches can help them learn to handle those expectations, we can talk about the pressures of others looking at them and expecting them to perform. But the bottom line is there has to be desire coming from the athlete to want to improve, to push themselves. And I know I have a group that handled those pressures this year. Each team had different pressures to cope with.
The boys had to start from scratch, only 2 returning varsity runners, the rest had basically been JV runners in 2013, who were thrust onto the varsity, expecting to continue a tradition of having very good boys teams, teams that consistanly look to place in the top 5 at state. They also had learn how to handle being the in the shadow of the girls team, a complete flip of the way things had gone in the past. The boys maybe had the biggest improvement of a team I have ever had. The team captains, Leif and David, did a great job of pushing everyone to improve and understand that they were going to be better in October than they were at the beginning of the season. To finish 6th at the state meet, with basically a new team, was an amazing achievement that most people will never see or understand how they worked to finish that high. The 2015 season for this group will be fun if they put in the same effort and desire that they did in 2014.
The girls team came into the season as defending EDC champions, who placed 5th at the state meet, and returned all of their scorers. The expectations were high, which puts a new kind of pressure to perform well, all the time! Some teams will start to have internal drama, upset with who is top 5 and who is not, worried if someone new is going to jump up and take their spotlight. At practice and races this group of girls is the most supportive of each other than any other team I have ever had. They came to practice ready to work and have fun doing it. They understood completely what they had to do and just relaxed and did it each day. As the season went along and the victories kept happening, they took it in stride and understood they needed to keep improving still each race. Sometimes the hardest time to compete well is when its expected, and anything other than a "win" is a failure. This is a group of girls that love to train and compete, together, and 2015 the expectations will increase, and this group will smile and continue on and compete.
The boys had to start from scratch, only 2 returning varsity runners, the rest had basically been JV runners in 2013, who were thrust onto the varsity, expecting to continue a tradition of having very good boys teams, teams that consistanly look to place in the top 5 at state. They also had learn how to handle being the in the shadow of the girls team, a complete flip of the way things had gone in the past. The boys maybe had the biggest improvement of a team I have ever had. The team captains, Leif and David, did a great job of pushing everyone to improve and understand that they were going to be better in October than they were at the beginning of the season. To finish 6th at the state meet, with basically a new team, was an amazing achievement that most people will never see or understand how they worked to finish that high. The 2015 season for this group will be fun if they put in the same effort and desire that they did in 2014.
The girls team came into the season as defending EDC champions, who placed 5th at the state meet, and returned all of their scorers. The expectations were high, which puts a new kind of pressure to perform well, all the time! Some teams will start to have internal drama, upset with who is top 5 and who is not, worried if someone new is going to jump up and take their spotlight. At practice and races this group of girls is the most supportive of each other than any other team I have ever had. They came to practice ready to work and have fun doing it. They understood completely what they had to do and just relaxed and did it each day. As the season went along and the victories kept happening, they took it in stride and understood they needed to keep improving still each race. Sometimes the hardest time to compete well is when its expected, and anything other than a "win" is a failure. This is a group of girls that love to train and compete, together, and 2015 the expectations will increase, and this group will smile and continue on and compete.
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