S3 E2: Timo Mostert

Introduction to Coach Timo Mostert

• Great up in Illinois and ran at BYU
• 1998 moved to American Fork
• 8 State Championships over last 9 years
• 8 NXN trips with an average place 5th and lowest 8th,
• 2nd place 3 times in the last six years

School demographics

• 2400 students in 3 grades
• In our school district 3 other schools who have made it to Nike Cross
• Team averages 30 boys, 40 this year is the largest ever

When did you decide you wanted to coach?

• Very early had great coaches
• After the freshman year in college got into education with hopes of being a coach

What do you want to talk about in this podcast, what is important to building a program?

• Did coaching clinics the last few years
• How we changed from a good program to national contender
• Going back to basics (Lydiard)
• Develop aerobic engine

How do we develop a good aerobic engine?

• Good base in summer
• Need to work on all phases of training all the time, just different emphasis
• Early in base still doing stride laps
• Aerobic speed can be developed and can still have a kick

You have a first-year kid where do you start at and develop the newbie

• June may start out 4 miles a day and build up no more than 10% a week
• Saturday run do one more mile than the longest run of the week
• By August can do 10 miles
• Still hold back daily miles

Do you give them specific paces or do you run by feel for beginners?

• Do what you can early
• Friday's do mountain runs in summer to get them in nature

What 2 track workouts do you during the summer?

• The week before the first race will do 16x400 start 3200 pace and get faster 2:30 rest
• Rest walk around, jog around, clear legs
• Newer kids do less than 16
• Build aerobic engine and less anaerobic work
• Get them to feel the pace and after 3-mile time trial they get paces to hit

You focus on taking out some of those faster 400 workouts and doing more aerobic. Your goal is to increase the long run

• Varsity kids coming out of track will pick back up quickly where they were
• Our goal for veterans are 750 miles from memorial day to labor day with top end about 60
• Capillary runs are 70-90 minutes for a long run develop more capillaries into the tissue
• It is the oxygen transportation system
• Longest run used to be 10 miles but were not getting to 70+ minutes

What else are the veterans doing for a harder workout?

• Grinder 3 miles to a mountain, 1.3 miles up 500 feet in altitude
• Awards for under 9 minutes
• July after camp start incorporating a longer repeat workout like 4x1200 or 3xmile
• Lydiard called time trials, we call power runs, AT runs not a real time trial in August

For your veterans are you getting more than the one run over an hour?

• 6-8 miles is a typical day

Do you assign paces on easy and recovery days?

• Varsity boys know we are trying to hit aerobic threshold pace
• Varsity boys average 6-6:15 per mile, recovery 8minutes per mile

Doubles?

• Doubles all year long
• Double at recovery run pace
• Morning recovery run helps them get ready for the run later in the day

How much do you talk about things outside of running like sleep and nutrition?

• Summer camp we have classes
• We talk about our philosophy and what is expected
• Day before a meet we will talk again about preparing

On a race day, what does your race day prep look like?

• We will do a morning run and then we will go through the visualization
• When we get to meet have boy in charge of warmups and cooldowns in each race
• 1-mile warmup, do pullouts (working on perfect form), high knees
• After a race 2 mile cool down and team stretch

Good mix of old school and new school. What do you do about form?

• Form with pullouts
• Run a lot of hills
• Try to land midfoot
• Heel strikers are usually hips tilted forward and work on that and strong core

A week in mid-September

• Race Friday
• Monday 3x1mile with 5:00 rest negative split it start 3-mile race pace and negative
• 7 miles and strides on Tuesday
• Wednesday 2 mile warm up and 2-mile power AT run with 2 miles cooldown
• Thursday 4.5 miles of jogging
• Friday race
• Saturday ran 6 miles and easy
• Plus 30 minutes every morning
• Total 60 miles

What is your hardest session and when does it fall?

• 16x400 slight negative splits (12x400 for newer kids)
• Tough fartlek on mile loop 3 miles of :30/:30 hard easy

You are doing what most coaches are doing, but you have all this success, what do you think you are doing differently?

• Coaches do too many intervals too fast with too little rest
• We always preach negative splits even on steady runs out and back
• Practice over and over again negative splits so second nature in race

To get the job done at a national level there has to be a race strategy, how do you deal with that?

• You race how you train
• NXN not a speed course
• Have to have confidence you will work up when everyone else goes fast
• Even-keeled first mile, know where you can pass and make moves
• Teach them to run hills

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