A few years ago, I watched one of the most talented athletes I’ve ever coached lose an entire outdoor season in 21 days. She’d just run 2:18 in the 800m indoors as a junior—a time that should’ve launched her into elite company by spring. College coaches were already calling. Her trajectory was set. Then she…
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,…
A Coach’s Guide to Breaking Through Self-Limiting Beliefs in Distance Runners The snow was coming down sideways, the kind of February afternoon in New Hampshire where the wind makes the windows rattle and you’re grateful to be inside. I sat across from one of my runners—let’s call her Clara—talking about her cross country season and…
The Chimp Paradox for Runners: Master Your Mental Game Mile 2 of your 5K race. Your legs are screaming. Your chimp brain is throwing a full-blown tantrum: “Why are we doing this? This is stupid. We should stop. We could just walk. We can just say we are hurt or sick. No one would judge…
Featuring OLYMPIC insights from Coach Mike Scannell Look, I’m going to be straight with you. We’ve got a problem in high school distance running, and it’s not what you think. It’s not a lack of talent or “soft kids.” It’s us—the coaches. We are so busy following our beautiful, color-coded training plans that we’ve forgotten…
The honeymoon is over. The warm, conversational miles of August are gone. The “first day of school” excitement has faded into the routine of homework and darkness falling a little earlier every day. The leaves in New Hampshire are starting to turn, and so is the mood of the season. We are now in the…
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