-
-
How Cross Country Scoring Works: A Parent’s Guide
How Cross Country Meets Are Scored: A Parent’s Guide to Understanding the Numbers Your kid just finished their first cross country race. You saw them cross the finish line somewhere in the middle of the pack, collapse on the grass, and now you’re staring at a results sheet covered in numbers that might as well…
-
Building a Culture of Excellence in High School Running
Building a Championship XC Culture: Lessons from F-M, Niwot & Newbury Park If you study the nation’s most dominant high school distance programs—places like Fayetteville-Manlius, Newbury Park, Niwot, and Southlake Carroll—you start to notice something: their secret to success is hiding in plain sight. It’s visible in every practice, every conversation, and goes into every…
-
The 5 Mistakes New Distance Coaches Make
The 5 Mistakes New Distance Coaches Make I still remember my first season as a head cross country coach. I hadn’t planned for it to happen. I was a competitive masters road racer who had been recruited by the outgoing coach. I already worked at the high school, and my daughter was a sophomore on…
-
The Three-Ring Circus: How to Coach Multiple Training Groups Without Losing Your Mind (Or Your Athletes)
The Three-Ring Circus: How to Coach Multiple Training Groups It’s 2:50 PM on a Tuesday. The bell has rung, the locker room doors are banging open, and sixty high schoolers are spilling onto the track. You have your Varsity squad looking to qualify for States, a solid JV group that needs development, and a dozen…
-
How to Structure the Perfect XC Practice
How to Structure the Perfect XC Practice: A Daily Blueprint for High School Distance Programs The season was three weeks old when I realized we were wasting an hour every day. Athletes trickled in across a 20-minute window. Kids disappeared to the trainer one at a time, each taking 15 minutes. Warmup was chaotic—some kids…
