3 Mile Time Trial
History and Philosophy:
For much longer than I have been coaching at Saline, there has been a 3 mile time trial at the start of the season. It's used as a test of athletes fitness and helps to identify any tweaks the coaches need to make to the training plan. We also use the time trial to establish our training groups.
Training groups are fluid. Just because the time trial places an athlete in a certain training group does not mean they are locked in for the remainder of the season. Coaches Harrison, Lagerquist and I will move athletes around as we see results in practice and races. Training in groups allows the coaches the opportunity to dial in the workouts to maximize outcomes. In case you're wondering, our groups are Nike, Hoka and Brooks. Athletes will learn their group assignment between now and Monday.
Rankings:
If you're into pre-season polls (I am not), they have Saline ranked 2nd (MI XC Speed Ratings) and 4th (Jacob Tanner) (no offense to the 2 gentlemen who create these rankings, I just want to see it before I believe it). We discussed this as a team this week. We reviewed our responsibility to each other as teammates. While only seven runners can start the state meet on 11/4/2023 at MIS, they represent the entire team. Our entire team will contribute to the overall success of this program. For some, that will be keeping the mood light in tense situations. For others, that will be pushing those top seven in workouts and races to make sure they get the best from themselves so they can best represent the team. Lastly, but among the most important, we discussed the need to remain humble. We will be guests of many schools this fall as we travel to their home courses. It is our responsibility to be respectful of their property and understand we have a job to do when we get to their course. There is no course where anything is guaranteed.
Get to it! what about the race and results??
Why did I write all of this before I started the time trial write up? Because all of what we have asked the team to do was on full display Friday night. We had athlete's battling nerves with teammates helping them. We had other athletes keeping the mood light and making sure our newer runners were cared for. We had everyone pushing teammates forward like they never have. This time trial was the fastest run on this particular course (according to statistics on athletic.net which we started using ~3 years ago when this course was created).
For context, before last night, the previous course record was set in 2021 by Maddie Stern at 18:23. She was followed closely by Lydia Alig (18:33). There were 8 runners that year that ran sub 20:00 and Grace Roth, a freshman, was just outside of that time at 20:02. In 2023, Kate Munson, a freshman, won the race in a new course record of 18:12 with senior Laney Alig close behind at 18:14. we had 6 athletes (Corynn Gady, Mackenzie Sellenraad, Sophie Roth (a freshman) and Grace Oberski) under 20:00 with Nancy Gage and Grace Roth just outside of it at 20:04 and 20:19 respectively. Lily Schlack and Abby Roth rounded out our top 10. We have watched these 10 athletes all summer and are confident that all 10 will be under 20:00 before the end of the season.
At 2am Saturday morning, I woke up with the idea of taking the times from 2021, 2022 and 2023 and comparing them for the athletes who ran in those races. The results were astounding and really speak to the fact that this team is ready to push from within to help themselves and their teammates get better. Some highlights of the analysis:
Laney Alig – 1:02 improvement over 2022
Corynn Gady – 1:29 improvement over 2022 and 2:10 since 2021
Grace Oberski – 2:54 improvement over 2022
Nancy Gage – 1:53 over 2022, 3:16 since 2021
Neva Rognes – 1:27 improvement over 2022, 3:22 since 2021
Mara McClellan – 3:23 improvement over 2022
Kylie Warner – 3:29 improvement over 2021
Megan Sweet - 3:04 improvement over 2022
Grace Youngs – 1:51 improvement over 2022, 4:47 since 2021
Lindsey Clarke – 2:45 improvement over 2022
This is amazing improvement for these ladies! To break it down even further, for those athletes that ran in 2022 and 2023, only two athletes did not run faster in 2023. Both of those athletes ran within a few seconds of the time they ran in 2022.
The coaches are very proud of what we saw during the time trial. The team is doing everything well, taking care of themselves and each other. We're excited to officially open the season at Birch Run this week.
Full results of the time trial can be found here. Throughout the season, you will be able to find results on athletic.net.
If you have read this far, thank you for doing so. The team appreciates your support at the time trial. Events like that cannot happen without the parents running the show. Coaches get busy with timing, course set up and management of athletes. Allowing us to focus in those areas is key to the success of the athletes and is overall very beneficial to our program.