Running is good for me right now. I've lost 77 pounds and every pound seems to make me faster. The summer running did me a lot of good and I've knocked nearly 10 minutes off of my 5K team.
The thing is, the summer running will do our young runners even better. It's not a coincidence that our 2 fastest boys and 2 fastest girls are the ones who followed their plans all summer. It's too late to do your summer running now, but vow to yourself that you won't skip a run or workout during the season and you'll get
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In a lot of ways I'm very excited about the 2011 cross country season. It's obvious to me from the Ragged Mountain Cup that most of our returning runners, and in particular the ones who went to camp, are much improved from last year. Eric, Patrick, Seth, Helen and Rain all seem poised to blow away times they ran in 2010. Kauri also had an impressive race at Ragged Mountain, but we really don't have a benchmark time for her in the two-mile to know how this will translate to the longer runs. We've also got new, dedicated runners in Cecil, Amanda, Zach and Caroline and they will probably be dropping a lot of time as hard as they've worked since practice began. I look for us to win our first couple dual meets and to make some of our best showings in the invitationals that come later. We have dedicated runners, not kids going through the motions.
On the other hand, I am frustrated by a couple of things. First of all, this $100 pay to play fee is not helping us at all. It's not easy for a kid to come out for cross country for the first time and if they're on the fence then $100 might push them over the edge (not to mention that we then make them sell a $100 raffle ticket). This fee has got to be keeping our numbers down. Speaking of numbers, this is my second frustration. We are a AAA school with 1600 students. We showed up at Ragged Mountain with a team of 5 varsity boys and 5 varsity girls. The single A schools easily had triple our numbers. This is embarrassing and it says something about our community I've yet totally to figure out. I joke with the other coaches that our "bottom" five will beat their bottom five, but it's not funny; it's a shame. We lost two runners who would have had big years this fall and looking at the performances of an elite boy and an elite girl from Albemarle and Western who missed cross country last year and came back this year, it appears that a year off from cross country is a loss that is incredibly hard to almost impossible to make up. Only having five or six kids on the teams leaves us with no margin for injury and causes kids to try to race on injuries because they don't want to let the team down. These low numbers are, quite frankly, dangerous. I think my biggest frustration was that we had to decide last year whether or not Helen should practice for track at the middle school or at the high school. She ended up deciding to practice at the middle school (and likely cost herself some seconds off her mile and 2-mile time as a result) to drum up support for cross country this year. No less than 7 kids at the middle school and 4 at the high school that looked me in the eye and said with conviction they were running cross country never came out. To be fair, I don't blame the kids: I blame the parents. Either it's inconvenient to get them to practice (it really isn't--as I told every one of them I'd pick them up and bring them to practice), or it's expensive (who would let the fact that they're too proud to apply for a scholarship for the $100 pay-to-play fee keep their kid from doing something that's good for them). I think I will forever be thinking in Helen's junior and senior year that we could have been so much better (district championship or even more) if these kids' parents had got on ball and made sure their kids were ready to go on August 8th. Then we have the whole, "I play soccer (or whatever sport) instead," line. This is such a joke I don't even know where to begin. The schools that will be kicking our soccer, tennis, baseball, basketball, and wrestling teams' butts this year will be the teams that have 80 running cross country because the soccer, tennis, baseball, basketball and wrestling coaches strongly encourage their kids to run cross country. At some schools you are automatically cut for some sports if you can't run a mile or 2-miles in a certain time. I know the argument is that if you want to get better at sport x then time spent practicing and playing sport x will make you better at sport x than at sport y, and I agree if all things are equa. So why is it that in almost every sport that kids who end up with college scholarships are much more like to have run cross country than kids who play the sport and and don't get scholarships? Well high schools with winning sports programs and college recruiters have figured out that it's real simple. Kids playing rec league aren't getting much out of it in most cases. It's not every day...the coaches aren't experts on conditioning like the cross country coaches. The competition is spotty. The bottom line is that if a kid runs cross country they REALLY train hard for three months, and if you're honest with yourself you'll admit that you don't train that hard in rec league or on your own (except for super rare personality types). You're a big kid now; let's play big kid sports. Western Albmarle probably has beaten us 80% of the time over the years if we're considering all sports. Here's the secret (everyone always asks what it is): they're beating us with their cross country team. That's right, Western's cross country team is better at just about every sport than our team in that sport is. It's even worse in the Commonwealth district where a boatload of kids actually run cross country AND play another sport in the fall. They get to skip conditioning at field hockey practice, or whatever, because they do the cross country workout. I used to coach football and baseball. I used to think I was practically committing child abuse on my kids because our conditioning was so tough. After seeing cross country workouts I can only say that my 10-0 football teams and 19-1 baseball teams weren't in shape at all. If they had run a little cross country I doubt I would have had to do any conditioning at all. We've got a lot to work on at Orange if we're ever going to be competitive in AAA. It starts with kids running cross country or track in the off seasons of their sports. You'd be surprised how fast we'll be competitive if we'll just make that little step. A beloved member of the Locust Grove Middle School track team, died in a dirt bike injury this past Sunday. As soon as I heard the name I remembered which kid it was. He had a lot of heart and seemed to be very happy at the meets I saw him in. My heart is broken for the family and all who knew and loved him. This is a great loss and there is nothing I can say to do justice to the young man, but the Orange Running Club and track and field teams will try to justice to his memory. God bless the family.
That's right, I stepped on my bathroom scales on May 12 and it said, "287.8." This was quite a bit heavier than I'd ever been before. I had just been coming home from work exhausted and grabbing junk food and collapsing on the couch. This was after probably having eaten cookies for breakfast and fast food for lunch. Laziness and depression led to this state of affairs. I wasn't in the WORST shape possible...luckily I had started training for the men's 4-miler a few weeks before, but gout attacks (caused by weight) limited my progress there. The worst thing about all of this is that my son Hunter does what I do. When I model bad behavior he follows suit.
So I went on Atkins diet on May 12 and on May 23 running club started up and I really got back on the running horse. I'm not going to reach my goal for the men's 4-miler of actually running the whole way, but I can feel my breathing getting better already. I'm basically running 35 seconds and walking 55 seconds right now. I'm hoping to cover the 4-miles in under 1 hour. That'll be near last place, but it's a starting point. Yesterday I did 4 1/2 miles in 1:11. Not the pace to break an hour, but I've got 13 more days and hopefully knocking off another 5 pounds by then will give me the ability to do it. I don't want to quit on Father's day. I want to keep running. My goal after that will be to run the Constitution 5K in under 40 minutes in September. Then I can make a further goal. People I need to lose weight. Mr. Gilliam can be a lot more useful to all of you if he weighs 190 than 290. So far so good. I stepped on the scales this morning (June 6) and I weighed 263.6. This is still a pretty heavy weight and that weight still makes me quite obese, but I think I've dropped under the dreaded 40 BMI. 24.2 pounds lost in 25 days. I'll take it, but I've got a long way to go to get down to average. I need to keep running and eating right for the rest of life. Is it possible for me to ever run a 5K in under 30 minutes? That's the long term goal. Short term 4-miler in under 1 hour. Medium term Constitution 5K in under 40. Long term Any 5K in under 30 minutes. We'll see. This week I will log more miles than any time since college: Sunday: 4.5 miles Monday: 3 miles Tuesday: 1 mile Wednesday: 3 miles Thursday: 2.5 miles Saturday: 5 miles A 19 mile week is pretty good for me, even if it's walk/running. Hopefully by the time of the Constitution 5K I'll be able to do it without walking. Then I can work on more miles. I haven't posted here since Cross Country Season started, but now we're into Spring Track.
The fact is, I had a disappointing winter of running and I need to get back in shape. I've got to run. I enjoy watching the middle school and high school kids race, but now I've got to run. If you're reading this then you're probably connected to Orange County Schools running or you've run with the running club in the past. We can kill two birds with one stone this summer. We can improve the school's distance running and get ourselves in shape if we'll just come out and run. We'll be having lots of opportunities to run coming up soon so keep visiting the site to see what you might be able to join in on and run with us. We'll all feel a lot better. The first day of Cross Country practice was exciting to me. Why? Because we had kids. If everybody stays with it we'll have a complete girls team with runners to spare and 3 or 4 j.v. girls to go with them. The boys might have enough for Orange to actually enter an A and a B team in the Ragged Mountain Cup. After slogging through 2009 wondering if the girls would even have enough for a team this is really exciting. I hope all the kids stick with it and convince their friends to stick with it.
My thoughts on the girls' first day: Helen - Her summer work ethic really paid off and the practice seemed really easy for her. Lindsey - Lindsey is going to have a great year, but it might take another month to get her base built up to a point where her athleticism will take over. Anna and Emani - They'll be big plusses for the team if the Field Hockey coaches will let them run. Rain - She has a perfect runner's build. She'll be a big asset to the team and will amaze us with how fast she's going to improve. Kauri - I could tell she's been running. She's in good shape and she's going to be one of our best. Ashleigh - Big surprise here. She only ran a couple times this summer, but her mile time was good. If she works she could be qualifying for regionals in a year or two. Cheyenne - Once she learns how distance running "feels" she's going to be great. Emily - A little under confident right now. In October when Emily looks back on August she'll be stunned how far she has come. The boys are going to be great this year with all the returners going under 20:00 and some even faster than that. The three new gentlemen that came out all look like they have a lot of potential and will keep our program rolling after Avery and Adam graduate this year. I can't wait to track how much everyone improves this year. I would not consider the summer running club a BIG success, but I would consider it a success. We had around 25 people come run at least once and had as many as 17 at some meetings. There were a few days when it was really sparse out there, but in the end I think the club at least has accomplished the goal of getting a couple more girls out for the cross country team and has allowed a few of the kids to start to get in shape for the season. I saw a lot of improvements in some of the adults and can't wait to start a program this fall.
"The way to get faster is to run faster." While this sounds like a useless tautology there is some truth hidden in the statement. Many of us run for fitness, but it's probably true that we'd all like to get a little faster. Almost all running coaches agree that in order for a distance runner to get faster they need to do speed work. Speed work, to keep it simple, is a workout where a runner runs shorter distances than usual, but at faster speeds than usual. The key is to really push it. For almost all of us one day per week of speed work will do wonders (if we're building our base with long runs the rest of the week). The most common form of speed work is called intervals. Runners run a short distance (often 400 or 800 meters) at a goal pace and then take a short break (often walking, sometimes resting) and do it again. Eventually the body gets used to running at this quicker pace and the runner can run even farther at this pace.
By the way, if you're overweight (or even obese like me) speed work won't help near as much as losing weight. For every pound you lose you should be able to take 2 seconds off of your mile time. Drop 20 pounds and you've knocked 2 minutes of off a 5K. I mentioned the speed work because the Charlottesville Track Club is doing speed work at the UVA track every Wednesday morning this summer. The only drawback is the crazy 5:30 a.m. starting time. You will get a great coach, get to run in cooler temperatures and become faster. The program is free, but they suggest a donation of one pack of diapers a month to help young mothers with financial difficulties. If you live on the town of Orange, Gordansville, Barboursville side of town, I'll be glad to pick you up and take you, but it will be early. I struggle with gout. Brenda (my wife) has struggled with an injured ankle. We both seemed to have some complications from our "problems" this morning, but we both gave it the ol' college try and I have to say I feel better for it. The toe didn't bother me and Brenda didn't get any leg pain while we ran. It was good to see some newcomers (3) at our running club meeting.
There's a lot to blog about, but the first thing I wanted to talk about is a web page that is a favorite of mine.
The McMillan Running Calculator If you enter your best time in one distance race it will calculate how fast you should be able to run other races. It's pretty accurate for distance runners, but the sprints don't correlate near as much. I wanted to put up a link to the Ragged Mountain Running Shop. While they're not an official sponsor or anything they've been very supportive in helphing us get this club organized and they provided some of the "swag" we've given away at meetings. Finally, one thing I noticed that might be a tiny advantage to being a member of our club is that you can run in some events as a member of this club. It adds a little class when it says that you are running for the Orange Running Club vs. just as "unattached." It might be neat to enter some races as a team with members from here. Helen Gilliam is running in a track meet in Pennsylvania around July15 and if anyone else would like to go, I'd be glad to have them come along. All the runners could be listed as "Orange Running Club." There are also some relays in the Charlottesville Track Club's All-Comers track meet this summer and it might be fun for four of our members to enter as a team. |
AuthorMatt Gilliam is the slowest and heaviest member of the Orange Running Club, but he loves runners.. Archives
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