I always enjoy picking the brains of my colleagues and other aspiring coaches. Luckily I work with some fantastic coaches in the sport, like our middle distance coach Tim Bayley. He was an All American in the 800m at Iona College with a personal best of 1:46. Tim’s middle distance crew had an amazing indoor…
Archives for coaching mid distance
Running in the Modern World- Runner Safety
Responsible coaches are many things to their athletes. Most of the focus of responsibility concerns teaching the athletes the skills that allow them to be successful. All coaches recognize the dangers in their sport, with some scenarios more obvious than others. A track coach may briefly explain a few rules about runner safety, running on…
Training Plan Components for Middle Distance Runners
Everything important in life deserves a plan. But what really is a plan? There should be general components in a training plan, these can than be mixed with specific directions and could lead to an attainable goal or end-result to the plan. It is also important psychologically, developmentally, and strategically to have the plan in…
Goal-Setting for Athletes
Before the track season begins to stir with physical activity is an important time for the middle distance coach to establish oneself as a psychological leader. It is a time for long-term planning of coach directed individual motivation issues. It is a time to establish a list of performance and training goals for each athlete. …
Structuring a Middle Distance Workout Session
The useful thing about modern training theory is that it was put together by scientists using empirical and replicable evidence rather than a hodge-podge of ideas and intellectual artifacts advanced by coaches. Because it is rooted in science, training theory is an ever-changing set of principles and concepts that evolve as better scientific testing is…
Understanding Workout Fatigue
In the 1950’s a pioneering German in athletics by the name of Woldemar Gerschler worked as a physical educator, track and field coach, and Director of the Freiburg Institute for Physical Education. He is considered the father of interval training. Gerschler was certainly the first to organize training into a systematic organization of all the…