S3 E5: Dave Van Sickle

Dave Van Sickle

• From Iowa, did track to stay in shape for football
• DII football and track athlete
• Moved to Arizona in 1982 to see how fast could run post-college
• Started coaching in 1983
• Started middle distance coaching in high school then local community college needed a coach and took over their cross country program, not knowing how to score a cross country meet
• After 3-4 years there moved around the country for a few years 
• in 1990, at age of 30, got a full-time job a Xavier High School in Phoenix and been there since
• Sponge for learning and sat with Arthur Lydiard for 3 hours

Stephanie  Bruce

• Ran for Dave and Xavier in high school 1998-2002
• She came on as an unfocused freshman
• Eating habits were horrible
• Was stuck at 5:28 for a few years before breaking through as a senior with 4:54 in just a few weeks
• When asked how that happened, she thought she was running hard, now knew what running hard was
• Doing the basics, but with super motivation and you can have breakthroughs
• Things were kept simple

Training

• Early in career SebCo was a big influence and trained like him with circuits and low miles
• Mid-distance kids had success but the long distance was not having the success
• Later in 80's started learning more about aerobic component
• First-year Xavier only 5 girls and only 5 could run 3 miles
• Woke me up to the importance of being an aerobic distance coach
• Late 90's saw an advertisement for Jack Daniels looking for research subjects and volunteered
• Learned energy systems from Jack and touching on all of them in every phase
• Had to slow the kids down, they were running too hard

Coaching Girls

• Girls are easier, generally listen better and loyal and will give it everything they have
• Girls tougher
• Girls will go through a year where they don't get better
• When they become a woman it gets harder for them and they need to get through it
• Prepare them for it

What does season look like?

• Start in May 1-2 weeks off after track State meet
• Long progression start 25 minutes for the first two weeks and then add minutes
• Start hill sprints early
• Tempo runs start at 10 minutes
• If vacation still responsible to run and communicate what they did
• End of summer camp

Week

• Monday do about 5 miles progression runs, then hill sprints with long recovery to hit hard
  • Will work up to 16-20 hills with walk down, 30-second hill
  • Total for day around 8 miles
• Tuesday we get up to 60-minutes recovery
• Wednesday steady over rolling hills up to 75-minutes probably 9 miles
• Thursday hard effort day 5xmile 5-6 seconds slower than race pace 400 recovery or something like fast mile, tempo, end 400s
• Friday OYO
• Saturday long run up to 100 minutes with tempo work, 10 sets of 10 minutes with last two minutes of each segment tempo