Back when Phil and I started coaching together in 1991, one of our primary training venues was the Vanderbilt Mansion, a National Park historic site in Hyde Park. We would typically do 1,000-meter threshold repeats on the grassy fields on the top portion of the mansion, and also mile repeats on the river trail at the bottom portion of the park.
As the years wore on, we started using Vanderbilt less and less. We found other parks at which to train, and the river trail often proved to rocky, rooty and unwieldy for the growing size of our team.
But fortunately, since I run in the park several mornings a week with my Fast Friends, we have seen the transformation of the river trail. The park service worked hard on it this spring and summer, and the resulting finished product is a well-groomed, smooth and clean footing pathway. We brought the men there today for a semi-hard, continuous 8.5-mile tempoish workout, and they loved every step of it -- although the 7:15 a.m. wakeup call was met with much harrumphing from our grumpy boys.
And so, it looks like we will go back to the future and visit Vanderbilt more frequently during the fall XC training season.
Back to Minnewaska for more mountain trails on Thursday ...
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