007 Jeff Messer

Coach you won 6 state titles in a row in Arizona with the Xavier girls xc team then the next two years, you won back to back titles at Desert Vista. Last year you just missed your 9th state title in a row, but you are back on top this year ranked 3rd by Flotrack. How does the team look this year?

 

With the girls used to winning state titles and falling a little short last year, what did you need to do differently this year to get them ready?

 

How do you balance the science that you know with teaching the kids but not overwhelming them?

 

What does your HIIT training look like?

 

How often are you doing HIIT’s and how many do you do? 6x150 with full recovery 3x in a 22-weektraining cycle. After a moderate intensity or recovery distance run. One key is full recovery. You need full recovery so you can recruit more muscle fiber.

 

As soon as any coach becomes successful the peanut gallery starts talking about how the team is overtraining, recruiting or any other excuse for a teams success. In a few selected cases that may be true, but Ive talked to you enough about training to know that is not the case with you, can you talk about the type of volume your athletes are doing?

 

You have had a lot of runners who went on and had a lot of success at the next level and as professionals. How rewarding is it to see them go on and have success?

 

We are coming toward the end of the season where you just had City, getting ready for sectionals, then state and then two weeks later Nike Cross Regionals. How do you manage peaking and maintaining it for that long?

 

If you have a 20-week training cycle, how do you space out your workouts and how varied are your workouts over those 20 weeks? 2-week cycle will try to get in a tempo run, a progression run, two long runs and 2 repetition sessions. If we get in five, that is fine. At most six. in the Phoenix summer it may be 2-4.

 

What pace is your repetition workouts at? 7+7=7 workout, 7x800 plus 7x200 is 7,000m of work. Those 800s will be cut down pacing and the average may be 2:43 for a varsity girl. And 200s may be 34-35.5. Somewhere around goal race pace average on the 800s and faster on the 200s. 5600m of the 7k will be mostly aerobic.

 

On the 800s will cut down pace and cut down race so may start with 3:00 and end up 1:45-2:00 rest.

 

Compare your reasoning to what Tinman does with the CV pacing. - Early in the summer we spend a lot of time close to that CV range, the faster stuff will be later and we get there with the cutdown start 2:52 and end 2:35

 

Does this workout play into your race strategy of negative splits and how does a race strategy change for someone who is a mid-pack runner who’s strategy may not change based on who is leading the race? - Last mile, best mile, fastest mile.

 

How has it worked over the years when you get to a big race where position becomes so important and you may need to be more aggressive?

 

How big is your team?

 

Can you talk to us about the structure of your program and how you deal with those many athletes?

 

Talking to the coaches over the last few weeks what we notice is the coaches and the programs that work hard and have high goals and love to win and do hard workouts are the ones that end up with big teams, not the ones who relax and always only focus on fun. The kids seem to want to work hard, what are your thoughts?

 

You mentioned warm up routines. Most teams have a set of drills that they do, you have multiple sets, why do you change it up so much?

 

No one I know reads as many research studies as you do. You do it for your career as well as for your coaching. what have you learned in the last 6-12 months. that is new  you have incorporated?

 

We all learn from each other, so talk about some of your influences in the coaching world.