North Dakota Preps

Track season is approaching very quickly, feb. 28 to be exact.
Anyone have any news, thoughts, predictions to share???

Track in the eastern half of the state is going to probably be delayed when flooding begins...especially for those in the southern Red River valley.

Let's hope not.

We can't forget about indoor also. Good barometer to see who has been doin' work in the off-season.

ndtrack3 wrote:We can't forget about indoor also. Good barometer to see who has been doin' work in the off-season.

I would actually argue the opposite. Those who do well at the beginning of the season seem to be the kids who didn't train, but as the season goes on those who did work in the off-season start to pull away.

That's interesting. If a kid has been training the whole off-season, how do you figure he won't do well coming out at the beginning of the season??

The Perfect Storm09 wrote:That's interesting. If a kid has been training the whole off-season, how do you figure he won't do well coming out at the beginning of the season??

He's just stating that those who have been training in the off-season may not be near the top during the indoor season...but because of their enhanced training for their respected events in the off-season...those athletes will be near the top at season's end.

theman - Am I on the right page there?

Run4Fun2009 wrote:

The Perfect Storm09 wrote:That's interesting. If a kid has been training the whole off-season, how do you figure he won't do well coming out at the beginning of the season??

He's just stating that those who have been training in the off-season may not be near the top during the indoor season...but because of their enhanced training for their respected events in the off-season...those athletes will be near the top at season's end.

theman - Am I on the right page there?

Pretty much. Look at it this way: the kids who have not been training still have pretty fresh bodies. The kids who have been training should be drained, like they should be. But as the season progresses you'll be able to see who trained and who didn't. I know people, like myself, who do very poorly at the beginning of the season, but always come around about 3/4 through the season.

I understand where you're coming from. But I don't agree with your theory.
A kid training in the off-season OBVIOUSLY has the edge..right. But saying that they should be "drained" is false. You don't train all off-season to come into the season "drained." If an athlete is smart, they would give their body a rest for about a week or more before the season starts. Thus being as PRIMED as they possibly can to begin the season and be ready to bust their stuff they've been working for all off-season.

The Perfect Storm09 wrote:I understand where you're coming from. But I don't agree with your theory.
A kid training in the off-season OBVIOUSLY has the edge..right. But saying that they should be "drained" is false. You don't train all off-season to come into the season "drained." If an athlete is smart, they would give their body a rest for about a week or more before the season starts. Thus being as PRIMED as they possibly can to begin the season and be ready to bust their stuff they've been working for all off-season.

Look at results. How many kids are in the top 10 or 20 at the beginning of the year, but are invisible once state comes around?

Right, but people in the high teens probably aren't even in contention for state anyway. Also, if you were to look at the main threats i.e. leingang, neumiller, barnes, its not like they weren't near the top at the beginning of the year. It's not like they come out of nowhere. My point is that the people that train hard are definitely going to be near the top, especially at the beginning of the season. AND THEN they will pull away even more.

How about in Cross Country last year? One of the top 5 runners wasn't even ranked in the top 10 until halfway through the season. How do you explain that? I bet he worked pretty hard in the summer!

Yeah you're right. I guess it can vary by event too though. You're a distance runner i'm guessing, and I don't know too much about that so maybe its different. All in all, whoever has worked hard, it will show in their performances.

theman wrote:

Run4Fun2009 wrote:

The Perfect Storm09 wrote:That's interesting. If a kid has been training the whole off-season, how do you figure he won't do well coming out at the beginning of the season??

He's just stating that those who have been training in the off-season may not be near the top during the indoor season...but because of their enhanced training for their respected events in the off-season...those athletes will be near the top at season's end.

theman - Am I on the right page there?

Pretty much. Look at it this way: the kids who have not been training still have pretty fresh bodies. The kids who have been training should be drained, like they should be. But as the season progresses you'll be able to see who trained and who didn't. I know people, like myself, who do very poorly at the beginning of the season, but always come around about 3/4 through the season.

All in all i think that those who have been training in the off-season will prove to have a little better edge at the begining of the season, also i think they will be able to improve more as the season progresses. But then again with athletes this young its hard to tell. Anything can happen. Lets just wait and find out.

If you train in the off season it will show early. The kids who come out of the bushes late in the season are usually the ones who didn't train in the winter. but thats just my opinion. But with indoor meets it's tough to tell. It's hard for HS guys to run well indoors when they don't hardly get any experience with it. Anyone know the dates of some good indoor meets? when is the ND State Indoor and who is expected to show up?

RunOrDie wrote:If you train in the off season it will show early. The kids who come out of the bushes late in the season are usually the ones who didn't train in the winter. but thats just my opinion. But with indoor meets it's tough to tell. It's hard for HS guys to run well indoors when they don't hardly get any experience with it. Anyone know the dates of some good indoor meets? when is the ND State Indoor and who is expected to show up?

So basically what you are saying is that if you don't take off-season training seriously, you still do well at the end of the season? Nope. You start to burn out. I see it every year.

I'd like to disagree with theman's theory on training. I had trained excessively hard over the offseason last year, came into indoor and beat quite a few people that I had never beat before, then as we progressed to outdoors my times barely dropped because I was already in shape, while the people I was beating got into shape and proceeded to beat me consistently like they had previous years (albeit not by near as much). I'm a sprinter though and not a distance runner, so maybe there's some difference there.

Baller_2010 wrote:I'd like to disagree with theman's theory on training. I had trained excessively hard over the offseason last year, came into indoor and beat quite a few people that I had never beat before, then as we progressed to outdoors my times barely dropped because I was already in shape, while the people I was beating got into shape and proceeded to beat me consistently like they had previous years (albeit not by near as much). I'm a sprinter though and not a distance runner, so maybe there's some difference there.

You are right about one thing: you cannot compare distance to sprints. Not even close.

It seems like there is something that needs to be cleared up, we have began talking about two different things, those being 'burning out' and 'reaching best potential'. these are two very different subjects. with the question of off season training, I believe that if you put in a good off season you will reach a higher potential at the end than if you didn't have a good off season. But, I also believe that with the length of the track season, if you have a poor off season there is enough time to get into good shape, it just won't be your best shape. thats what I was meaning with my earlier post. now as for the subject of 'burning out', I don't think that has to do at all with the off season training. It's all about good coaching. A great coach will never overtrain his athletes and have them burn out at the end of the season. If a guy doesn't train in the off season the coach should know that and design a workout regime that will have him peaking at the end of the season.