I want to fess up right away Peter reached out to me regarding “The Winter Forge” article being added to the other NHCC/NHTF offerings on the website. Not only was I excited but I encouraged him to add more, figuring having another voice penning articles would help offset those that feel they already get too much “wisdom” from me. I mean, it’s always great to get another perspective, even if they don’t always mesh with the way you might think. Stretching our boundaries is what this sport is all about.
I’ve known Peter tangentially for a while now, each of us sharing a mutual “friend” who shall remain nameless for fear he finds out we mentioned him his head might swell beyond the confines of his silly jeep truck. I’ve also known his sister, Kim Najem, er Emerson, for a longer while now, having served as an assistant and then middle school coach to what for us back in the mid 2000’s was our biggest rival, Hopkinton. And while we remained rivals right up until I finished up coaching in 2024, the hard edge had softened and I would have considered us friendly rivals towards the end. It wasn’t uncommon at that time for Kim and I to exchange pleasantries course-side while Rich Welch was losing his mind somewhere else.
Anyways, I passed along Peter’s article to another Tim, Tim Cox, managing editor/NHTF guru/website savant and thanked Peter for reaching out. I had read the article prior to passing it on, not so much to vet it but because I simply was interested in seeing how another individual saw indoor track through their eyes. I’m going to say straight up I loved the article, in agreement with the author on many of the points used to emphasize why indoor track is important. I agree indoor track is and can be a tremendous tool on the way for athletes to truly test their mettle, a tip of the hat to the title of the article.
But I’d like to also allow for a different perspective. I do believe winter or indoor track is an excellent way to become used to many of the aspects of spring or outdoor track in some ways in a lower stakes environment. I mean if you can figure out indoor, with the 160 meter track at UNH, along with the hyper intensity which exists simply because you have hundreds of HS athletes and their families crammed into an area where the meet has to be finished within a certain time frame as the next session is lurking on the horizon, outdoor should be a breeze.
I also agree the various race distances allow for athletes to try new events out in a way which doesn’t always happen in outdoor. For distance kids, something we always had plenty of, with the restrictions on how many events they could run between the 1000, 1500 and 3000, if they wanted to run a second event they almost always had to run quite a bit shorter than they would generally choose given the opportunity. We’d put together 4x160s and 4×400’s in ways we generally would not.
But we de-emphasized indoor track. Not because there is no value in it, there certainly is, even if it’s simply the bridge to the next season. However we had other reasons to play the season down, not just because we seem to grow mostly distance runners.
I learned to seek downplaying the season primarily because we often had no control on whether we had practice or didn’t. When I inherited the program the team met everyday after school, utilizing the 147 meter rectangular hallway with the inside wall curved such that at 1000 meter pacing and up you could essentially do work at race pace without concern you might careen into the lockers or worse, a display case. We’d try to figure stuff out for our shorter distance athletes, and those who would throw and jump as well. Our 55 meter sprinters could fit their race distance in the long hallways, however they’d either need to brake hard or roll through a corner to avoid collisions. And speaking of collisions, we’d need to do all this while the teachers were walking through the building, some more careful than others.
I quickly found there were limits to what the distance kids could handle in terms of multiple laps, five days a week running on concrete with a thin industrial rug pulled over it, or what happens to ankle ligaments making the tighter turns repeat after repeat. I learned to limit all running work to no more than 5 miles inside per day in an effort to save the joints of the athletes.
It was early on that I changed the practice schedule from five days a week to three days a week, working out Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with Fridays off in the event we were racing on Saturday such that we could get three days of work in. Eventually, with almost all my athletes being distance runners we even went to Tuesday and Thursdays for practice, in a better effort to allow my longest distance athletes a better opportunity to get their mileage in by running from home. Our school sits at the top of a hill on the busiest road in town. Once the snow flies and there are snowbanks we do not hold “practice” on the roads.
Over the last ten years I coached, we hosted one practice a week at 6am, so as not to encounter teachers and we’d use that morning workout to practice goal race pacing with just the team in the building. Our other day would be outside, no matter what the temperature was, doing tempo in the parking lot. Safe to say the athletes grow to hate the parking lot over their four years.
So the difficulty in doing really good track workouts is one of the reasons we de-emphasize indoor, but the weather is another one. I distinctly recall one of the years we were on this repeating pattern of afternoon snow storms which cancelled after school activities on practice Tuesday like five times in a row. Or the parking lot conditions being so bad we either switched over to snowshoeing or nordic skiing due to the conditions. One could argue those are great cross training activities and I’d be hard pressed to argue; however, learning to nordic ski for the first time in 2 feet of ungroomed heavy snow certainly can spike the heart rate, even if you spend most of your time on your butt.
So again, we de-emphasized it, but we didn’t ignore it. We’d figure out what the athlete’s goal pace would likely be for their chosen event for spring, figure what that meant in the indoor distances they’d race, and set those as goals for the indoor season. While we always hoped to qualify for the State Championships, being a D4 sized school competing in D2, we recognized we were lucky when we got athletes to the championships.
And we did. Just like in cross country and outdoor track, we regularly had athletes competing at the indoor championships. I recall the first time we were looking to broadcast the meet up at Dartmouth, I offered to commentate once Tim decided he was thinking of doing so. He said he’d take me up on doing Division 1 but he’d try to find someone to cover Division 2 as I most certainly had an athlete that would qualify. And while that was true (Jake Movsessian finished third and was the 7th fastest in the 3K that day, just missing out on a trip to New Englands), I said I’d still commentate as Jake was a veteran and we only really “played” indoor track.
But again, even with all the reasons I’ve just outlined why we downplay it, I’ve been involved coaching indoor track pretty much as long as I’ve done outdoor and cross country. I’ve always wanted my athletes to have the opportunity to run track, to practice track, especially if they don’t have another sport calling to them. When covid hit and we missed two seasons, I encouraged my runners to take up swimming that second year (everything was canceled in 2020) in an effort to have something to help bridge the gap. When we got indoor back, I encouraged them to continue swimming, working out the practice schedule to allow for both, as the swimming seemingly enhanced the running in the ways which the five day a week practices had detracted from it. Nothing like letting the swim coach help develop their aerobic fitness!
I like the opportunity for my athletes to learn the long cold road, both figuratively and literally, of what it means to be a distance runner here in the Northeast. The dark days, the snowy roads and the chilling air; these are the conditions which are your destiny if you’re going to stick with it, and it tempers you in a way warm weather athletes simply can’t even envision or simulate. It helps develop focus, grit and determination so we learned to lean on the lonely aspect of training in the cold.
But we utilized what we were given with indoor track, enjoying the opportunity to dust off the race shoes, strip down to a singlet and shorts, and get after some quick turnover and fast times. Even if it comes at 18.75 laps on a 160 meter track.
So I hope Peter and everyone doesn’t see this article to be in contrast with the first article. To the contrary I feel it bolsters the concept of indoor being an important tool to taking that next step. If you’re a cross country athlete planning to run outdoor and aren’t involved with some other athletic endeavor, you should be running indoor, no doubt about it. Sure there’s the indoor hack you get from running with heavy exertion but the benefits go beyond the simple participation. It steels you for greater things to come.
Pete and I will see you out there.
