Need for Speed in Distance Running
by Mike Farthing

Before coaching cross country at the high school level, I coached sprinters, jumpers, and hurdlers for ten years.  My only experience coaching cross country was two years as a volunteer right out of college and three years at the junior high cross level with moderate success.  For the past three seasons, I have found myself making the transition from a sprint coach to a distance coach at Downers Grove South.

Prior to this cross country season, our girls team has had consistent success at the state cross country meet placing 4th in 2016 and 5th in 2017 but only 10 points away from being in the top three.  When you are that close, you start looking for answers.

Last January, I attended the ITCCCA clinic and had the chance to listen to two distance presenters on Friday night, John Sipple and Jonathan Dalby from Mountain Vista H.S. in Colorado.  The two things that stood out in their presentations were team culture and how everything needs to be present in training. When I reviewed our training plans from the past two seasons, we were not addressing speed until too late in our season.  Our team could run solid races, but we needed to improve at getting out in better position and finishing stronger.

This past summer, I made revisions to our team’s strength and conditioning camp to include one sprint session per week.  The format included three basic components: form drills, mini-hurdle drills, and flys. I made the mistake of starting with 30 and 20 meter flys thinking longer sprints the better.  During the sprints, girls’ form broke down and I wasn’t seeing improvement in times over the first 3 weeks. Out of frustration, I spoke with a colleague of mine, Glenn Messmer, and he stated how distance runners are poor accelerators because it’s a skill not address in distance running which was why they were slowing down well before they finished.  He suggested giving them a shorter build-up and shorten the fly distance. Therefore, I moved down to 10 meter flys the following weeks. I saw improvements in 10 meter flys in just 3 sessions over the following few weeks because it was just long enough to hold their top end speed.

During the cross country season, I read Chris Korfist’s article What a Sprint Coach Can Teach A Distance Coach. I read about how he worked with an athlete who improved his 10 meter fly, thus, lowering his mile time from 4:35 to 4:11.  I went back to the 10 meter fly times I collected over the summer and compared it to three mile season bests of 17 girls who regularly attended strength and conditioning camp.  My conclusion, the girls who ran the fastest three mile times also typically ran the faster 10 meter fly times. Below is the data after the conclusion of the state meet where our program won its first state trophy finishing 3rd in class 3A.

Over the course of the season, we have continued to address speed by including sprinting with max effort in short intervals and longer intervals as the core of some workouts.  The results of our entire team, not just the top seven, have been phenomenal. We’ve had ten girls break 19 minutes and 15 who have run under 20 minutes. Coach Doug Plunkett, who has been head coach at Downers Grove South since 2005, has stated this is the fastest team he has ever coached.  Below are the improvements of our seven runners who ran at the state meet.

Season Bests

*freshman, 1st race of season

Upon reflecting on this past season, I have clearly seen the improvements from including speed, specifically pure speed and mechanics, into a training plan for cross country runners.  Sprinting is high intensity strength training. Yes, mileage and tempo runs are important during the summer months to build a base, but speed should also be a part of the equation and needs to be present throughout a season.

I’d like to thank Coach Plunkett for always willing to take risks to better our program. It was an incredible experience this season to earn our program’s first state trophy with my mentor and friend.  

Mike Farthing
Assistant Girls Cross Country Coach
Downers Grove South H.S.