S3 E1: Colin Altevogt

Colin Altevogt, the boys XC coach at Carmel High in Indiana. Colin has been coaching in Indiana for the past 11 years, the last six years as a cross country coach at Carmel. The team has captured four state championships and two state runner-up titles with two qualifications for Nike Cross Nationals (2014 and 2017), including a tenth-place finish in 2017.

Background

• Ran in high school and college
• Taught at Avon right out of college
• 2011-2013 moved to Carmel as an assistant
• 2012 we trained training
• 2014 became head coach
• In the 6 years, we have 4 state titles and 2 runner-ups

Why did you get into high school coaching

• Always wanted to be a teacher and loved track
• When I was in college did volunteer coaching
• Always wanted to be a coach since he was in early teens

Speak to cross country and the traditions in the mid-west

• Our winters are fairly mild with just a few exceptions
• Summer we meet in the mornings so good running conditions

Summer Program

• June 2nd was State track meet
• June 4th was first practice for XC for those who did not run State
• We call threshold runs PPM's we don't give them a set pace
• Paces are based off hard threshold workouts we do once a week over summer

What is PPM

• Pace Per Mile
• Big difference with us is threshold workout
• They run it 'all-out' at a pace they can handle well
• We keep it simple instead of giving paces
• Need to learn how to run hard

Example 15:30 5k guy runs 5:00/mi what is this PPM workout for him?

• Varies a little by runner 800 guy may not be as fast as 3200 guy
• On a good day 5:20-5:30 for 8 miles

Workout structure

• Pace per mile is what they do is calculated after the workout
• The structure is to do best you can
• Senior boys maybe junior are doing 8 miles
• The freshman does maybe 2 miles hard and builds up to 5
• We had 2 boys this year build up to 9
• Week 1 may do 6 at 5:40 pace, then next week 7 at 5:45 pace then the next week maybe 7 again at 5:40
• They figure it out the hard way how to do these
• Ok with them going out too fast and adapt over time
• Paavo training technique 

Thresholds are an important part of your program, once in the season can you give us a weekly schedule?

• First meet right around Labor Day
• Up until first meet Long Run Monday, T/W milage, Th PPM, F milage, Sat building up volume
• July on Tuesday we may do short PPM in the middle maybe 2 miles for veterans
• Will work in repeat miles in August
• Once in season 400 intervals are CI, always the same pace for the season.
  • Low set and high set
  • 2-3 cycles.
  • Low set 4 less than high set
  • High set 1/2 distance of PPM so 8-mile PPM is 16x400 w/ recovery 3:00 jog rest to start
    • Find recovery loop and loop time will come down over the season on loop
  • Monday high set, Thursday low set is what do before big meet in season
  • 400 pace 6-8:00/mi is about 1:00/mi faster than that
  • 5:30 is 70second 400 
• On big race weeks go to the 2 CI and no PPM that week
• Once get to tournament week go from 1/4 to 1/3 of a mile so same pace for about an extra 25 seconds

Do you get requests for more variety?

• Not really
• They buy in
• Sometimes will do repeat miles or 2k's
• Report their times for 400s as 0, +2 or -1 not as 79 seconds

Racing during season

• Will run mileage on race day so can be a long run day
• Will sit the top 7 rotating at different points
• Races are already all out
• Racing is part of training