Adam Kedge is the head cross country coach for boys and girls and head track coach for boys at Albuquerque Academy in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Kedge’s teams have won 20 New Mexico State titles in the past 18 years.
Kedge’s cross country team is consistently one of the best teams in the nation. The Chargers have competed in five Nike Cross Nationals. Academy harriers have been Foot Locker, USATF, and Nike Cross All-Americans. In track Kedge has coached two different national record holders and numerous individual state champs. In 2011, Kedge was named the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Boys National Cross Country Coach of the Year.
His key workout is meant for the track, but it can be adapted to the cross country course as well.
Key workout: 3200-meter pace workout
The Workout:
Warm up:
• 10-minute run
• Dynamic flexibility (rope stretching, leg swings, etc.)
• Sprint drills (grass or track)
• 2 x 50m accelerations
Then, jump into the workout:
10 x 1:30 on the track at goal 3200m pace with 1:30 walk back to 400-meter start line.
If the goal is to run 10:00 for 3200m, then the runner will want to make it 480m in the 1:30. (See calculation table below. Make marks on the track with cones or tape so that the kids can run 80m past the finish line and know whether they’re hitting goal pace or not.) In their 1:30 rest, they need to walk back to the start line and be ready to start all over again.
Post workout:
• 10-minute jog cool down
• Static stretching
Objective: For kids to “see” what goal 3200-meter pace is. “I use this workout during the mid-season period of training to develop speed, a sense of pace and confidence for my distance runners,” Kedge says.
Time period: The workout is usually scheduled in the meat of the season, as kids are progressing from mid-competitive season into early peak season. The estimated time period for the workout is about four to six weeks from the state track meet. It is usually done on a Monday or Tuesday of a week with an invitational on Saturday.
Coach Kedge says, “I usually let kids get carried away with the workout and run it on the harder edge of effort instead of completely controlling the pace. I let them ‘go for it’ if they feel good.”
This calculation table shows the distance for each goal pace (mark our 480m with a cone so the athlete can see the goal):
* to fit a faster or slower runner by simply extending the pace chart – calculation process listed above.
The workout can be modified to accommodate for different distances and for cross country:
- To fit a 5K or 5K cross country workout, move to a grass surface, using a wheel or GPS watch to mark distances. (If you can’t make a loop on the grass, mark out the distance and have athletes run back and forth for reps—just make sure they’re walking around during their recovery.) Then, adjust to 12 x 90 second repeats. Time markers can then reflect 5K cross country goal times. Time markers can be posted with cones.
For more, go to HighSchoolRunningCoach.com.
Jay Johnson ran at the University of Colorado and was featured in the book Running with the Buffaloes. Johnson has a masters degree in Kinesiology and Applied Physiology. He works with high school athletes as the director of the Boulder Running Camps, the nation's premier running camp. Johnson blogs regularly at CoachJayJohnson.com and tweets at @coachjayjohnson.
