Kim McConnell – Peak to Peak Charter School (CO)
Kim McConnell is the boys and girls head cross-country and track coach at Peak to Peak Charter School in Colorado. Previously she coached at Great Hills Christian School in Austin, TX and The Episcopal School (boys’ team), Houston, TX.
Kim’s highest goals for her student-athletes are that they would become well-rounded, happy, healthy, giving members of society. Her highest aim is to develop the whole person.
Athletically, Kim’s Great Hills boys won the TX State private school cross country championship (1997) and also hold the still standing TX Class 2A 4 x 400 meter relay record set in 1997. Her current Peak to Peak boys team most recently placed 3rd at the CO State 3A XC Championship.
Kim’s Peak to Peak girls XC team has been ranked as high as #1 nationally on RunnerSpace for small schools. Her most recent girls’ team is the two time defending State XC 3A champions (led in 2017 by a 1-2-3 sweep). In track they are the four-time defending 4 x 800 meter relay champions and currently hold the 3A All Time 4 x 8 record of 9:12.
Kim has coached two individual female NXN qualifiers including her daughter Quinn (All-American at NXN 2016) who has also raced the Brooks PR mile and was a member of the silver medal junior team at the World Mountain Running Championships (2017). In track, her athletes have won multiple state titles.
Key Workout
This is done in General and Specific Prep to build aerobic capacity.
First, “leg swings and hip things” (this is leg swings in all directions and then standing hip circles, forward and back). We are also going to add back the lunge matrix this year.
20 minute aerobic run/last 5 minutes “up tempo”
Full set of drills (Butt kicks, A’s, B’s, A’s with a huge hop, very fast feet running high knees, backwards running, ankle flips, straight leg bounding, karaoke step overs, side skipping) 2 x 20 meters each drill with short run out at end. Note – later in season once we have done a plyometric progression, we would add in bounding, bouncing, hopping, etc.
4 x 20 seconds, each one getting faster, jog recoveries between each. NOTE: on a warm day we might do H.I.T. which is 3 x 10 seconds flat out w/30 second floats between each.
This workout done on a 1 km flat loop or flat out/back (1 km each way).
Done continuously (i.e. no rest or jogs): 1k at current 5k race pace – 1k at 85-88% of vVO2 (% depending on where we are in the season) – 1k at 5k race pace – 1k at 85-88% – 1k faster than 5k pace (closer to 3k). Then, 1 minute rest. “Tag” 200. (I am mentored by Dr Joe Vigil who uses the term “tag”. It simply means a very very fast rep tacked on to the end of the session.)
Depending on how much mileage we want for the day, they’ll do 1-2 miles easy cool down.
We would follow this session with body-building type strength (i.e. overall full body strength work).