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A HSRC member’s take on Coach Adam Kedge’s progam

This guest post is by Doug Petrick, a member of HSRC, and the boys and girls track and cross country coach at Upper St. Clair High School, in Pennsylvania.

Albuquerque Academy has won 23 New Mexico High School State Championships in cross country and track and field. To have that level of consistency and success in High School Sports is a major achievement. By having a membership to High School Running Coach, I am able to learn about the culture and training that Coach Adam Kedge has used at the helm of Albuquerque Academy. Through the site, a podcast, training calendar, Q&A forum, and key workouts are available for members. These are all ways I’ve been able to learn from Coach Kedge, one of the premier high school running coaches in the US.

Coach Adam Kedge of Albuquerque Academy has a gift for creating a culture that breeds success. Kids in his program love running and the atmosphere around the team. One reason for this is his approach; Coach Kedge always makes decisions based upon the best interest of the kid as a person first, then as an athlete second. As a result, the Chargers of Albuquerque Academy strive to perform for Coach Kedge.  

Small incentives are another way he uses to keep things fun at practice and races- whether it’s a shirt for hitting a milestone or a verbal acknowledgement in front of the group. Being singled out in a front of your peers for a positive achievement is a powerful tool to build an athlete’s self-esteem and build your program. Little things like this keep the Charger culture alive and thriving. Everyone has a place on the team, regardless of ability level. [Read more…]

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Adam Kedge – Training Summary

Adam Kedge is a culture guy. What does that mean? Coach Kedge spends a lot of time talking about the culture he tries to bring to the program. Culture for his program is not only the running culture, and being a good teammate, as you would expect in any successful high school distance program, but Coach Kedge also stresses being a good student and being active in other areas of the school.

Adam does not exclude anyone. Coach Kedge designs a system that allows everyone to participate with different workouts depending on where the athlete currently is in their formation. Adam and his coaches work on individualizing each kid’s workouts depending on what they need.

Some key points about Coach Kedge and his program [Read more…]

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Adam Kedge – 3,200m Workout

Coach Kedge has shared with us one of his key workouts, a workout that he uses in the track season for his 3,200m runners.

Objective: For kids to “see” what goal 2 mile pace is.  I use this workout during the mid-season period of training to develop speed, a sense of pace, and confidence for 3200 meter runners.

Pace set up:  Athletic tape and think markers are used to place goal pace marking on the track in lane 1.  See calculation table below.  

Time period:  

  1. The workout is usually scheduled in the meat of the season as kids are progressing from mid- competitive season into early peak season.  Estimated time period is about 4 – 6 weeks from the State Track Meet.
  2. Workout is usually done on a Monday or Tuesday of an invitational week (Saturday meet)

Warm up: 

  • 10 minute warm-up run
  • Dynamic flexibility
  • Sprint drills (grass or track)
  • 2 x 50 m accelerations

Running workout-

10 x :90 seconds for distance track repeats at goal 3200 meter pace with :90 seconds walk back to 400 meter start line.  See calculation table below.  

  • Note: I usually let kids get carried away with the workout and run it on the harder edge of effort instead of completely controlling the pace – I let them “go for it” if they feel good.   

Post workout: 

  • 10 minute jog cool down
  • Static stretch

 

Modifications:

Workout can be modified the following ways:

  1. to fit a 1600 meter goal pace workout by doing 5 – 6 x 90 seconds at 1600 meter pace by taking 2:30 recovery instead of 1:30 recovery. Our middle school team traditionally does this with marker that range between 7:00 / 1600 m pace down to 5:00 / 1600 m pace.  
  2. to fit a faster or slower runner by simply extending the pace chart – calculation process listed above.
  3. to fit a 5K or 5K cross-country workout by moving to grass surface, using a wheel or GPS watch to mark distances, and adjusting to 12 x 90 second repeats.   Time markers can then reflect 5K XC goal times.  Time markers can be posted with cones. 

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