Guide To Running

One question that I would like to know the answer to is how a coach can bring about the most potential out of a high school aged runner. I find myself asking this question because I am considering coaching as my future. I found that I have a passion for both distance running, whether cross country or track, and a special passion for competition, and I am writing this paper to further my knowledge on the subject, and to enlighten those who read it with the insights of a distance runner and the sport that he loves.

The first factor which determines how good a runner can be is competitiveness. If a runner is not competitive, he will not drive himself to the extremes of training and/or racing that the more competitive runners do. "Where there is a will, there is a way" ... but with a half-assed will, you’ll only get half way. This holds true not just in distance running, but in every facet of life that one experiences. What you put into something is all that you get out of it. I think one phrase that can pretty much sum it up is one that can be found on a No Fear poster. "You must always push the limits, because if you never fail, you will never succeed." That pretty much sums up what you need to do if you want to be a successful distance runner, or successful at anything in life. Push the limits and see just how far you can really go, don’t settle for what’s easy. If you have never tasted failure, how can you know that you have pushed yourself as far as you can go? Only when a runner applies this philosophy to his training will he ever achieve anything close to his or her potential.

Unfortunately for a coach, that is one thing you cannot simply tell your runners to do. You have to lead by example and instill that value in everything you do; in hopes they will understand and accept it as their own, too. It’s not just a lesson in how to become a good runner, but a lesson on how you should live your life. Don’t settle for less than your best, be all that you can be and you can succeed.

Another key to success is to learn the value of patience. Both in a race and through practice, a runner needs to learn that patience is key to success. Don’t rush things and you will find you can do better than if you forced your way into the situation. In racing, if you start off too fast, you will get into oxygen debt sooner and it will drastically effect your race efforts. In practice, not in a daily sense but in a weekly sense, rushing into things will overstress your body and you will either get injured or burn out too soon. Patience, in this and most other facets of life, is vital to success. All good things are worth waiting for.

Activation regulation is also important to an athlete’s performance. Activation regulation is the amount of stress in your muscles and your anxiety level. Intensity of this stress and anxiety can be graphed against performance and you would get a curve describing what would be an athlete’s peak performance and what would lead to bad performance. Generally, the peak will be in a moderate intensity of stress and anxiety. As to why this is, think of cracking an egg. If you apply too much force, the egg will break open but the yolk will spill or the shell will shatter into the frying pan. If you don’t apply enough force, then the egg won’t break open. The perfect pressure has to be applied in order to get the best result, releasing the yolk without getting eggshell in the frying pan. In sports, the yolk is the performance an athlete puts out, and the shells are the mistakes one makes, or the things that drag down on the performance. Just a few ways to help yourself relax would be to take a nap, read or watch a movie, take a walk or play with a child, draw or write in a journal, laugh smile or play, or meditate. Pretty much anything that will lower your heart beat and bring your breathing to a more controlled level. Not all techniques available have to happen before you race, you can also lower this stress level by thinking relaxing images during your performance. Ways to increase stress level and anxiety is to “pump yourself up” with music that gets your heart pounding, chants that raise your spirits, and encouraging yourself. As a coach, you have to know how to apply all this when it is needed, whether it is during practice, before or after a meet or game, or even if it is during a meet or game. There aren’t any time outs in running, but you can still give encouragement by talking with your runners as they run past.

Imagery, goal setting and confidence are also vital to bringing an athlete to the best of their abilities. Imagining what they are about to do can help prepare them for what is ahead, and give them confidence that they can do it. Goal setting is similar because you are looking ahead at what you are planning to do, and work to reach for it. Confidence is important because you have to believe that you can do anything, or else you will accomplish nothing. One of the beauties of cross-country and track is that it is so overwhelmingly determined by yourself, both physically and mentally. They say that a runner’s performance is nearly 90% mental and 10% physical, because you have to be able to push yourself through the pain and focus on the goal until the race is over. If you let up, you haven’t done your best. A mark of a true runner is collapsing after you finish, or puking during a race because of the pure intensity of what you are doing to your body. You can’t reach the point where you do either of those if you can’t push yourself to your limits and beyond.

One good way to make sure all of this is included in an athlete’s routine is to do this imagery at the end of the practice prior to a competition, or on the way to the competition, or a combination of the two. What my high school coach did was have us lie on our backs for the last 10 minutes of practice before every meet and imagine what it is going to be like. We included everything from the sights around us, the weather, how we feel, the smell of the air around us, the texture of the ground beneath our feet, colors we see around us, and what our internal external senses are telling us. That, along with the competition and ourselves competing to the best of our potential, of course.

For goal setting, every year just before the season began, we would get together and write down our goals for the season. We would write out three qualitative goals, three quantitative goals, and then discuss them with our coach. Good goals are attainable, vivid and clear, and most importantly is challenging so that you have to work hard to achieve. One way of doing this would be in your three goals, make sure that one of them is challenging, but