Season 3 Archives - Page 5 of 5 - High School Running Coach

Dave Frank – Bio and Key Workout

Dave Frank is in his 18^th year at Central Catholic after eleven years at Saint Francis in Mountain View, CA.

As the head boys cross country coach (13 years) his teams have won nine State Championships (in Oregon’s largest classification – although CCHS has just 900 students) and have never finished worse than second at the State Meet. His boys have qualified for NXN three times (2005, 2007, 2013). He has coached four individual State Champions (Kenny Klotz – 2005, Taylor Morgan – 2006, Kyle Thompson – 2011 & 2013) and 19 First Team All State runners (63 total All State athletes). Klotz also finished 4^th at Footlocker in 2005.

On the track his boys have run 7:40.68 (4 x 800m – 3^rd at Nike Outdoors in 2006), 10:09.82 (DMR – 2^nd at Arcadia 2014), and 17:22.43 (4 x 1600m – 2^nd at Arcadia 2014). Klotz was the State Meet champ at 1500m & 3000m in 2006. Morgan won the 800m in 2007, and Andy Bennison won the 1500m in 2011.

He was the assistant coach from 2000-2004 and had a front row seat to Galen Rupp’s high school years.

Key Workout

Washington Park Fartlek

Years ago – in the 1980s, long before the Oregon Project or the Bowerman Track Club – there were many outstanding post-collegiate runners in Portland. Most of them raced primarily on the roads, but each year they also ran the XC Nationals (which is now known as USATF Club Nationals). To prepare for XC Nationals they began a weekly fartlek workout in Forest Park (miles and miles of amazing trails). When I came home in the summers I’d join this group for this *challenging* workout.

When I returned to coach at Central Catholic a group was still doing this workout – although less regularly. I considered using it with our team, but was initially deterred by the effort it might take to implement it properly. After conversations with a few people I saw the light, and it’s been a staple of our summer program for over a decade now. [Read more…]

by Jay Johnson

Mark Popp – Bio and Key workout

Mark Popp started teaching and coaching at Wayzata High School (which routinely has around 100 HS boys participating in Cross Country) in 2008, shortly after graduating from North Dakota State University. He assisted the successful and highly-regarded Bill Miles for seven years before taking over the program in 2015. In the last three years, Wayzata has won the State AA MN Championship twice and advanced to Nike Nationals each year, finishing 14^th, 10^th, and 11^th. In 2015 and 2017 respectively, Jaret Carpenter (4^th) and Khalid Hussein (10^th) were NXN All-Americans.

In the spring, Popp has coached sprinters since 2011, where his athletes have earned All-State honors 17 times in the sprint relays and 9 times individually. This year, he will continue to hand off distance coaching duties to Eric Jahn and Brandon Heebink, both of whom assist with the Cross Country team in the fall.

Key Workout

Cruise Intervals (Threshold)

One of the staples of our training at Wayzata is Cruise Interval training. We incorporate this a little bit in the summer in order to add a little quality to our base training. Running mostly on feel in the summer, our boys will build to 2 x 12’ at threshold effort with a 2’ recovery. During the season, we try to get between 7k-9k worth of threshold in over the course of a workout. The intervals themselves can be as short as 3:20 (roughly 1k) or as long as 10:00 (roughly 3k). The running surface might be the track, the roads, or dirt/gravel paths, depending on the conditions. In early to mid-September, we try to get a 4x2k workout in. We have 2k loop that is about 1200 of winding gravel path, and 800 of a paved residential street. Our time target ends up being the same as a Cruise 1000s track workout from week 1…but due to the more challenging running surface and turns, slightly shorter recovery ratio, this workout is more demanding. [Read more…]