Every March, I have the same conversation with about a dozen different families. It goes something like this: “Coach, my kid’s shin is killing him. He had a great indoor season and now we’re three weeks into outdoor practice and he can barely finish a workout.” I already know the answer before I hear the…
Three rules that look like paperwork. One of them could save your athlete’s season — or their life. It was a Tuesday dual meet at Exeter, a few springs back. Not a championship. Not a divisional. A regular-season meet on a cold April afternoon with rusty athletes and hopeful coaches. One of my girls hit…
Your athletes have the lungs of a D1 runner. Their tendons, bones, and stabilizers? Still running JV. It was late October, the week after our state qualifier, when I got a call from Jake’s college coach. Jake had been one of the best distance runners I’d ever coached. Talented freshman, improved every year, ran 15:02…
While everyone else is focused on the next 1600-meter race, the runners who win state in November are building the engine for it right now. I’ve watched a lot of November championship races from the sideline. The athletes who surge over the last half-mile while everyone else is hanging on? They didn’t find something extra…
A few years ago, one of the most talented athletes I’ve ever coached made a decision that quietly cost her an entire outdoor track season. She’d just run 2:19 in the 800m indoors as a junior—a time that had college coaches calling. All she had to do was keep the momentum going. Instead, she took…
It was mid October, more than halfway through cross country season and a week before Divisionals, and I was chatting with another coach after practice when Sarah’s mom called my cell. “Coach, can we talk?” Sarah was one of my varsity girls—a junior with legitimate talent. She’d been a standout freshman, improved her sophomore year,…
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