Summer Training 2013! http://www.swampscottxc.

com Twitter: SwampscottXC Girls Captains: Angela Baldacci, Sarah Kelley, Michelle Laconte, Meghan Mahoney Boys Captains: Noah Conti, Matt Mahoney, Marco Scibelli Head Coach Bartlett: mrbartletthealth@gmail.com & 978-270-8370 Assistant Coach Tenney: jojo10ebigblue@yahoo.com Assistant Coach Skelton Important Background Information (same as last year) Hydration. Drink plenty of uids throughout the day, especially after you run. Your body needs to replenish the water you lose through sweat. Water's the best bet, but Gatorade is okay, too. Recovery. Make stretching a consistent part of your routine. Learn the difference between being tired or sore and the pain of an oncoming injury. As a preventative measure, buy a pack of Dixie cups (you can buy 100 of them for like, a dollar). Fill them with water, and freeze them. After your run, before you go to bed, when you're watching those C.S.I. re-runs or just hanging out with your friends (because who doesn't ice and hang out with their friends?!) use them!!! Peel back the cup little by little and ice massage your legs: shins, ankles, calves, quads, hamstrings. This takes 5-10 minutes and can prevent nagging aches from becoming major problems. Make this a part of your routine, and your legs will thank you! Sleep. Teenager's bodies are wired differently, so sleep can sometimes be difcult to come by, but you need it! If you are sitting around late at night on Facebook, texting your friends, watching that YouTube viral sensation for the hundreth time...go to sleep! I mean, how many times do you have to see the newest spoof on Call Me Maybe? Your body regenerates during your sleep, so you need to get enough. Food. Food = Fuel. You wouldn't drive a car without gas, would you? Furthermore, you wouldn't drive your car until the fuel tank is empty and try to keep driving, right? EAT! Focus on good, quality, nutrient dense foods: whole grains, fruits and vegetables, plenty of water. Don't be afraid to eat sweets, (Without ice cream there would be darkness and chaos."--Don Kardong, Olympic Marathoner) but realize it's probably not the best fuel to eat before you run (but, a post-run ice cream sure does hit the spot!). I used to LOVE eating ice cream after runs (I still do!) Just make sure you EAT!!!! Road Races. Its okay to hop in a road race or two over the summer for motivation and to see gauge your tness level. Try to limit races to one or two; our racing is done in the fall. These would take the place of one of the light workouts you would do instead. In fact, wed love it if you could make the Firecracker Four Miler on July 4th. You can even run it as an easy run. And, if you cant make the distance without stopping now, I bet youll be able to during the XC season. I believe in gradual progress, in not rushing things, and in SMART work. Every single thing we do has a reason. Dont be afraid to ask why we are doing something!

Running My goal as a coach is to create a positive experience for you, and one in which you improve, have fun, and learn life lessons that help you become a better person. Anything else on top of that is icing on the cake. I want you to love XC, I want you to work hard, and I want you to look forward to coming to practice every day. If I want to build a house, I need to rst put in a foundation. If I dont, the house will topple over! And if I want to bake cookies, I need to make sure I have all the correct ingredients. I need to make sure I mix and blend all the ingredients together, or else they will end up too chewy of too crispy. Just two analogies I like to use in relation to training. Cross-country is a summer sport that is played out in the fall. In order to have the best XC season possible, it is important to run over the summer. Our races during the season are around 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) in length. Dont let this number scare you! Many athletes come into the season not able to fully run a 3.1 mile course, but by the time the season ends they are running that and much longer distances. In training for XC, we run different distances and run certain paces in workouts to stress the energy systems you will need to use in racing. Some days will be easy runs, other days may include hills or harder workouts. If you are new to the program, know that my goal is to get you to consistently improve over the course of the season and your four years as part of our program. I believe in doing this in a fun, safe, supportive environment that is catered to each individual. I believe in creating a program where EVERYONE can succeed. There are many different approaches to summer training for cross-country, but the most successful programs have many similarities: a focus on easy (aerobic) running, some form of strength work, and a gradual progression through minutes/mileage and light workouts. We are focusing on MINUTES this year, not miles. I dont want you to become a slave to hit a certain number of miles. Minutes allow you to slow down the pace if you need to and its easier to keep track of it you dont know how far youre going. This brings up the most important question: how many minutes should I run? The answer: the depends!! It depends on your age, your training experience, any injury history, what stage(s) of puberty youve gone through, etc etc. You know your body. It is important to nd the balance between too much and too little. Some of you have requested specic week-to-week plans. The build-up through minutes is gradual, taking 8-9 weeks to build up to the peak mileage you will be doing throughout the season. By the time we add in actual XC workouts during the season, your body will be used to the volume. For the rest of you, I have outlined some general training progressions in the chart below and on the following page. The chart below contains some GENERAL guidelines about the number of minutes you should ideally be able to comfortably run before the season begins. DO NOT WORRY IF YOU CANNOT HIT THESE TARGETS RIGHT AWAY!!! We will help guide you to your goals. We are putting our trust that you will put the work in over the summer, and we are asking for you to put your trust in us as a coaching staff. We've been there, in high school and college. Improvement comes if you work at it!! I was able to take 26 seconds off my mile time I ran when I was senior in high school to the mile I ran when I was a senior in college over four years of work. Throughout high school, my 5k was four minutes faster as a senior than it was as a freshman. Many of you had tremendous improvements last XC season as a result of the work you put in. If you work, you will see results.

Enjoy the summer and take time to relax and make responsible choice with friends. Be sure to get your running in. If you want to join our team running log, go to running2win.com, sign up, and click Join Teams. Enter this code and we will get you on the page: T-1214111406-02

GENERAL Minutes Guidelines (By End of Summer) Gender Male Female Freshman 30 min 25-30 min Sophomore 40-45 min 35-40 min Junior 50 min 45 min Senior 60 min 50 min

Ideally, you will be able to comfortably run these distances by the end of the summer. That is not to say you should be running this far every day, but it is a length that can serve as a goal for a longer run for the juniors/seniors, and a more consistent daily run for freshman/sophomores. And, if this is your rst year running as a junior, dont worry about having to hit 45-50 minutes. Start at the frosh/sophomore levels. July Runs. Run as many days as is appropriate to your level of tness, experience, and health. After three runs each week, do 4-6 x 100 meter strides, preferably on grass and barefoot if youd like. The strides should be a quick but controlled effort, fast and smooth, and you should take a full recovery between them. Your legs should not be burning during these. Focus on good form, quick turnover, and on staying smooth and relaxed. Thats it! Easy distance runs and strides. Around the third week in July, you should add a longer run to your running each week. Continue to do strides after two or three runs, too. A weekend day is a good idea for the longer run, as you will usually have some more time to recover afterwards, and can usually meet up with people to run. The distance of this run will vary based on your ability and tness level, but a general rule of thumb is 20% of your mileage/minutes for that week. If you are running 40 minutes a day over six days a week, that is a total of 240 minutes. A longer run of 20% of your weekly minutes would be about 48-50 minutes. This gives you room for making another run shorter, too. This is only a guideline and may not apply to you, especially if you arent running seven days a week. Use your best judgement! (Or ask Coach!) August Runs. Now that youre more consistent, and youve added a longer run, we are going to up the intensity slightly. You have two options, depending on how you feel. Continue to do strides after three runs a week, but run 6-8 x 100 meter strides, and keep the longer run going, too. Now, on another run, were going to mix it up. For this run, run it at an effort faster than your usual easy training pace but slower than a pace that will make your legs heavy. You should nish feeling invigorated and like you could keep going. Its okay if you dont have a set pace exactly...as someone once said, I want you to feel Kung Fu, not think it. Your second options is to gradually pick it up over the course of your run, a progression run. Each mile should be slightly faster than the last one, but you should pace yourself so you can nish the entire run getting faster each mile. Comfortably hard, yet relaxed...thats the zone we want you in. Additionally, try to run a second run over a hillier course. Newer runners should not worry so much about getting in these workouts, but more about running consistent, easy mileage. The August runs will help prime you for the work that will begin in September. As I said in our team meeting, the entire season will be planned out from day one. We will leave room for adaptation, but the main focus is on aerobic development and stamina. There will be few superstar workouts, we will instead run rockstar races. If you are a returning varsity runner, you will be put on a more specic plan.

Weight Room. Coach Tenney & Coach Bartlett will be supervising the weight room Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5:30-7:30. Distance circuit workouts and core work/upper body work will be the focus of these sessions. Typically, a run is involved as well. Injury prevention and strengthening specic muscle groups are the two big goals of these sessions. We encourage everyone to attend these sessions, as they contain the little bit of extra work that might propel you to the next level. So, where should you start? That depends. It might only be ten minutes, it might be thirty. Find a short loop, about a mile, and see if you can run that. Then try to keep going. If its difcult, slow down or even take a break. The goal is to be running more at the start of the season than you are now. Gradual progress is key! My contact information is listed above. Please do not hesitate to ask me any questions!! Additionally, please stay tuned to the Swampscott XC website for links and videos about core work and injury prevention exercises! Best of luck. I am VERY excited for this upcoming season!

Summer Training Challenges! (if you choose to accept...) Directions. Coach Bartlett wanted to do something different than a mileage club or minutes log like other teams do. Realizing that those contests may lead to injury, he came up with something a little more fun. Please read through the various training challenges below. You are not required to attempt or complete any of these challenges, but they are fun ways to mix up summer training and can be worked towards by runners from every level. There are prizes to be awarded the rst week of the season for those who accomplish one or more of the following! More details about prizes TBA! Window of completion is from July 1st to the day before the rst day of the season (August 21st). In order for you to get credit towards these accomplishments, they must be logged on the team running log, located at http://www.running2win.com This is a FREE website where teams can log their runs. Sign up on the homepage and then click the Teams/Groups link. Search for Swampscott XC and click to request to join our team. You can also enter our team code, T-1214111406-02. This is NOT required by any means. The Street Sweeper. According to Coachs resources, there are 259 unique street names in Swampscott. The Street Sweeper will run on ALL 259 streets in Swampscott over the course of the summer. This may require starting runs from different locations or creating many loops. It does not matter how many runs it takes, as long as it gets done. Ask Coach Bartlett for the list of streets if you need it, or go here: http:// www.melissadata.com/lookups/zipstreet.asp?InData=01907 The Cartographer. Starting from the high school (or the track at Jackson Park), create a new road running loop. These could be short (3 miles or less), medium (3-6 miles) or long (6-10) miles in length. Give the route a sweet name and map it out on MapMyRun.com Be sure to e-mail the link to Coach Bartlett so he can use it during the fall season! The Pathnder. The Pathnder will complete training runs on a variety of trails in the local area. State parks and trails are great places to meet up for runs! When Coach Bartlett was in college, they used to do their longer runs on trails as much as possible (hint hint). Trail running locations required for The Pathnder include include: 1. Salem Woods (Salem, MA) 2. Lynn Woods (Lynn, MA) 3. Breakheart Reservation (Saugus, MA) 4. Bradley Palmer State Park (Topseld, MA) 5. Maudslay State Park (Newburyport, MA) The Beachcomber. Run on all of Swampscotts beaches: Eisemans Beach, Fishermans Beach, Kings Beach, Philips Beach, Preston Beach, and Whales/New Ocean House Beach. Beaches DO NOT have to be completed in one run. The Social Buttery. How many runners from the Big Blue XC team can you run with? How many kids from other high schools or colleges can you run with this summer? Find out! Rules: It should be an easy distance run (or light workout towards the end of the summer) and no one hammers each other into the ground. One point for each different individual you run with. Only one run per individual counts.