Greg Weich has accomplished a great deal in his coaching career, coaching five different Footlocker Finalists, including Katelyn Kaltenbach, who won in 2003.
Greg now coaches at Broomfield High School and his teams are consistently in the hunt for state cross country titles.
What follows is Q&A with Greg recorded a few years ago at the Boulder Running Camps. You can listen to the audio, or, at minimum, read the notes below.
Thanks Greg for your time, not only during this interview, but also for being part of Season 1 of HSRC.
NOTE: The following audio will be in a future episode of the Run Faster Podcast, which also features many HSRC coaches.
Download – Greg_Weich
When Do You Individualize Programs for Athletes and How Do you Do It?
- Greg gives an specific example of a CU runner demonstrating elite tendencies during his junior year in high school.
- Greg discusses extending a foundation period of training to prep for a specific meet at a certain location.
- Greg describes how the traits of motivation, personal goals, and skill set for each athlete will dictate the specific customizing of workouts.
How Has Running with Athletes Helped Your Program?
- He describes himself as an intuitive coach and how it is important to get athlete feedback as you run with them.
- On a run with athletes you can use cues such as breathing, mental readiness, physical readiness as a coach to determine the execution of that day’s workout.
- Running with athletes permits you to determine which athletes should work harder and which should ease up.
- Athletes typically give the coach a little more respect or understanding if they know he/she can do the workout too.
- Coaches running with athletes help build culture as motivation for the program
All of the Foot Locker Finalists Were Obviously Successful, What Were Their Strengths and Weaknesses and How did You Address Those?
- It’s enjoyable to coach athletes that are students of the sport, most high achieving athletes are highly motivated and passionate about the sport.
- Being highly motivated can be a gift and a curse during high school training for athletes (lack of rest).
- Some common strengths of high achieving athletes are having a large aerobic engine and having a high capacity to train daily.
- Some common weaknesses of high achieving athletes are not knowing when to back off, listen to your body, and rest.
- Having an athletic background is an important and unique criteria for success in distance runners.
- Transitioning from High School to College running can be a challenge for high achieving athletes that rarely lose in the High School setting.