Colin Altevogt is the head boys cross country coach and assistant boys track coach at Carmel High School in Indiana. He has been coaching high school distance running in Indiana for the past 11 years. In his four years as the head cross country coach at Carmel, the team has captured two state championships (2015 and 2017), two state runner-up titles, and two qualifications for Nike Cross Nationals (2014 and 2017), including a tenth-place finish in 2017. The program has grown from 96 to 159 athletes in those four years.

In the spring, Colin coaches athletes in distances 400 meters and farther. Carmel has won the last three state championships (2015, 2016, 2017) in track & field after finishing second in

2014. In the 2017 season, Carmel athletes qualified for the state finals in Indiana’s single-classification system in all individual and relay events that he coaches, including winning the state title in the 4×800 relay in 7:43.

Colin teaches Spanish at Carmel High School and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in secondary education.

Key Workout

Split 800s

This is a 500 and then a 300 with only a minute rest between run pretty close to 800 meter race pace. We usually do three of them in total with eight to ten minutes between each split 800 (but only the 60 seconds between the 500 and 300 to “split” it). We typically get to this workout about a month out from the state meet once we’ve had opportunities to do a couple 800 pace workouts like repeat 300s. Those preceding workouts make the speed of this manageable, but the volume is the real challenge.

This is primarily a workout for 800 runners—Indiana scores the 4×8 at the state meet—but longer distance runners and even 400 guys can benefit. We occasionally have more sprinter-types that run on the 4×4 and 4×8 so we might adjust their workouts to do the first and the third with a bigger break in the middle.

Last year we had four guys average 1:59 or 2:00 for the three split 800s, and those four ran 7:43 in the 4×8 at the state meet so it’s probably four to six seconds slower per 800 than eventual race pace. Our best 400 guy ran 1:57 and 1:56 for two with the big break in the middle, and he ran 1:56 in the open 800 in the regular season and 48.78 in the open 400 at the state meet.