Peaking (1)

One of the most vexing question for any runner or coach is how to be at one's best for the biggest meets. Everyone has an opinion about how much work to do in the final weeks and days leading up to a big race, and often these opinions differ a great deal. Another question that is fiercely debated is how many races to run, and whether to limit the number of races within a competitive season.

Before I offer MY opinion on these issues, let's consider the NNHS season...

Official practice begins the week before Labor Day. This year, the first day of practice was August 29th. The first race, a tri-meet against Needham and Framingham, took place 15 days later on September 13. Including that first meet, the other seven dual meets, the league meet, and the State Coaches meet on Nov. 5th, there have been 10 scheduled meets in 54 days; one meet every 5.5 days. That doesn't count two fixtures in the calendar, the Brown Invitational (North's boys varsity ran there on Oct 8) and the Bay State Invitational (North's girls ran there on Oct. 1). That makes 11 meets in 54 days, more than one meet every 5 days.

So what's wrong with that? Aren't meets opportunities to get faster and get more experience racing? Why shouldn't we take the attitude that the more meets, the better? Well, some coaches DO take that attitude.

And some don't. The ones who don't counter-argue that too much racing a) cuts into the time available for building up endurance, as well as muscle and tendon strength for injury prevention, and b) leads to mental staleness and a lack of racing success at just the point when mental freshness is needed.

What makes this argument hard to decide is that different runners react differently to the stresses of training and racing. Also, runners sometimes skip races, or take them very easily. This is a luxury that the NNHS teams have enjoyed for years. The Tiger have many meets a year in which thet are so much better than their rivals that they can rest (i.e., train) their top runners, or just run relaxed and still win. For most of his Senior year, Chris Barnicle trained right through races without easing up on his other workouts, or running particularly hard in the meets. He wanted to save his best for the biggest meets. It's common practice among the better runners in the state. On the other hand, too little racing runs the risk of leaving runners less than sharp for the competitive pressures of racing. It's a really fine line, and the placement of that line is not the same for every runner.

I said I would offer my opinion: I think there are too many races squeezed into a short season, with inadequate pre-season for building up endurance and strength. It is maddening to me to have otherwise healthy teenagers waylaid with so many preventable injuries. But the occurrence of the injuries is predictable: they are the result of building up mileage and speedwork too quickly, without adequate time for the tendons and ligaments and muscles to get used to a higher training load.

I would argue that XC runners should, on average, race no more than once a week, skipping some weeks entirely. This is what almost all colleges do. Why do HS runners race far more often than college runners?

Among other things, racing less often allows a coach and a team to implement a true peaking strategy for the big races. In my next post I'll talk about what such a strategy might look like.