Continuing to reinvent the wheel

In our never-ending quest for new workout ideas and venues -- not having facilities for our sport constantly keeps us vigilant in the ways to get the job done -- we broke some new ground (sort of) last Friday. For the men's distance team, the goal for the day was to get some strength-based hill running work accomplished. The week prior, we headed to the Luty Loops (named after the loop road in the Town of Hyde Park), and I was brainstorming a few alternatives.

A few athletes -- spearheaded by grad student Will Griffin -- suggested Quiet Cove, that small patch of parkland situated just north of the Marist campus along the riverfront, on the very northern edge of the Town of Poughkeepsie. Quiet Cove has always been known as an excellent venue for short, pre-meet runs -- again, there's not much there, but what's there is nice. A quick visit to Quiet Cove the day before revealed an almost perfect, half-mile loop that included a somewhat challenging gravel hill.

Boom! A new workout was born. The loop is about half gravel road and half paved road, up and down, hidden and traffic free. Sometimes, the most obvious things are hidden right under your nose all along. And so, we we went there and did eight continuous QC loops for 4 miles of somewhat hard running. There was some divergence as to the intention of the workout -- half the group did it in hill repeat fashion, the other half did it as a mostly continuous hill tempo. All good to me. Work is work.

A few guys opted to go to Luty and did their hill there. That group's de facto leader was Salek, as he is the undisputed King of the Luty Loops -- he loves them, and he drills them good and fast. And still a smaller group of mid distance guys opted for MidRise Hills. The beauty of our sport is its individual nature. Figure out what needs to be accomplished, and get it accomplished in ways that suit athletes' needs. Or, to put it simply: There's more than one way to skin a cat.

In the afternoon, we headed over to Franny Reese Park -- "under the bridge" trails, in team parlance -- in Highland, where the ladies did some uphill extended strides in the middle of a distance run. Coach Chuck remembers when his old college coach (that would be ME) would have the team do this, and we called it "Skull and Crossbones." Of course, this idea was borrowed from old Marist xc coach Rich Stevens from the 1970s and then again late 1980s. What comes around goes around ...

Again, this time of year, work is work. We're just trying to reinvent the wheel, doing things that have been done for generations and generations, in the most creative ways possible. For the distance crew, we're simply trying to rebuild base and strength and keep things interesting. Work is work is work. Last Tuesday, we headed to the track; not necessarily because it was a great idea, but because it was 60 degrees and the calendar said early December, and, well, you do what you can when you can.