Blogs : NCAA Division III Blog

Interviews: Will Freeman of Grinnell

(Photo courtesy of the Grinnell College athletics website)

Coach Freeman has been the head cross country coach at Grinnell College since 1984.  He has guided the men's team to 20 Midwest Conference wins in the past 21 years.  Last year at the 2005 NCAA Division III Central Regional the men's team finished 10th overall.  This past weekend the men's team finished in a first-place tie with Monmouth College at the Midwest Conference Championships.

By: Derick Lawrence (10/21/2006)

What made you want to become a collegiate cross country coach and what steps did you take in achieving this goal?

I came to Grinnell in 1980 as the track coach and had football as a 2^nd sport.  I only planned to stay a year for a break between my Masters work and the Doctoral program in Biomechanics at Indiana University.  I just wanted a break from studies and had no money, so my wife and I thought a year at Grinnell would be nice to put a little money in the bank and then go back to IU.  I had an assistantship in the Doctoral program…and obviously never made it back. I was given the CC job in place of FB in 1984 to add continuity to the track program.  Best thing that ever happened to me.

In your profile on the Grinnell College athletics website it states that you attended the University of Florida where you competed as a nationally ranked pole vaulter receiving All-America recognition and competing at two Olympic Trials.  Tell us about your collegiate career and how your experiences as an athlete have transferred to your coaching.

I grew up in KY.  After winning the state vault title in 1972, Florida (and coach Jimmy Carnes) took a chance on this hillbilly. I was very fortunate to run at Florida at a very special time.  My training partners during my time at Gainesville were Mike Cotton (AAU national vault champ and 5^th-ranked in the world) and Dave Roberts (world-record holder and Olympic medalist).  Between them and my coaches (Jimmy Carnes and Walter Welsch), I couldn’t have had a better environment.  The early 70’s were also a  great  time for distance running in Gainesville:  Shorter, Bacheler, Mizner, Liquori, Buerkle… among others. Pretty amazing.  Jimmy Carnes had started the Florida Track Club and it was not uncommon to vault at  a small all-comers meet on a Thurs evening and watch a sub 4:00 mile be run!

What I learned at Florida as an athlete was that there is no shortcut to success.  Roberts, especially, showed me that. Yes, to some degree you have to pick the right parents,  but you must be willing to train hard and train smart to be successful.  One think I have learned is that you cannot force inspiration on people.  They have to want to be good on an internal level.  I try to recruit that kind of person.  I’ll take the less athletic runner every time, if he has more of that inner drive to succeed.

Along with being a full-time coach at Grinnell, you are an associate professor of physical education.  Tell us about the courses that you teach, in particular the Theory of Cross Country and Track and Field course.

I teach a popular course in Foundations of Sport Psychology.  It is a sociologically-based course in sport psych.  We study why people are so interested in sports and why it is so important that we excel when we do participate.  Of course, it also has  the requisite elements of psychological performance enhancement skills. It is writing-intensive, as are most of the courses at Grinnell.  

I also co-teach courses in Wellness and a course in track and Field/CC theory.  This course is basically a USATF Level I course with an added section in CC.

Would you briefly describe your program's training philosophy (volume, intensity, frequency, etc.)?

In brief:

1. The program is a 4 year progressive model that builds vol. over the four years.  Except for minor adjustments between seasons, there is no real break in this progression.
2. I believe strongly in a long run day each week.  Ours is on Sundays and is from 11-18 miles depending on the runner and is always at Rock Creek State Park on rolling trails.
3. The intensity of the training is dictated by the day within the microcycle.  We use a 14 day microcyle in both CC and track seasons. 
4. We try to race the runners no more than every other week (1 x every 14 days max). 
5. We have intensive days on Tue and Fri of the off-week and Tue and Sat (race) of the race week.
6. As far as frequency, we do run am runs on the days following hard days. Since I consider Sun. a hard day due to volumetric considerations, we run in the morning on Mon and again on Wed (the day after our hardest day of the week).  These am runs are very good for restoring the body from the hard day.  So frequency of training:  18 sessions (including race) in the 14 day cycle.

Who has influenced you the most in your coaching?

No doubt Arthur Lydiard. He had it right long before we “got it” in this country.  I also hold   Joe Vigil, Joe Newton and Jack Daniels in high regard.  My coach at Florida, Jimmy Carnes taught me that I could be anything if I wanted it bad enough. He was a great example to follow. I had no idea that I would every coach when I was there…but I had a good model to emulate.

Could you give us an example of a typical microcycle in your training program from September to mid-October of a cross country season?

Mon:   

am: ET easy 3-4          

pm: Normal ET at Krumm nature preserve with strides, skips and waterpumps.

Tue:     

Hard day (a progressive intensity model here.  Always of 8k in distance (10 x 800, 8 x 1k, 20 x 400, 5 x mile, etc).  First half of season, we focus on threshold pace intervals with short recoveries.  Second half of season, move to race pace intervals with “anaerobic hammers”on selected intervals.  These are done to reflect “the demand of the race”, what the runner goes through both physiologically and psychologically during a race.  This demand must be faced in training.

Wed:   

am:  ET 3-4                 

pm: Normal ET at Krumm nature preserve with strides, skips and waterpumps.

Thurs:  ET from campus (athletes on own today since I am with them on Sunday for the long run and they have to have a day off from me)

Fri: on off-race weeks:  a Kenyan run (increasing tempo run of 5 miles).  At beginning of season, start at ET pace and progress to race pace (about 20 sec drop per mile).  As season progresses, begin at threshold pace and drop to below RP for the last one.  This is a critical run for us and one that teaches the athlete that “increasing effort” is the key to racing fast.

Sat:  Either a race or a recovery day (ET) if not racing.

The Tue hard day, the Fri Kenyan run (every other week) and the Sun long run are the critical components.  The other days are used to “restore” the body.

Could you tell us about your team this cross country season (returning upperclassmen, incoming freshmen, how your season has been going so far, upcoming meets, etc.)?

MWC Championships

(Photo courtesy of the Grinnell College athletics website) 

We have a solid, young team this year.  Two juniors in the top 9.  All others are sophomores or freshmen.  They are developing nicely,  but I think they are probably a year away from being a national-type team.  Drake Ballew (SO) is developing very nicely in this system.  He could be a big surprise on the national level this year.  Very disciplined!  Charlie Knuth (JR) and David Mongomery (FR) from York HS (9:11 last year indoors!) are a solid 2-3.  Henry Reich (SO) and Sam Calsisch (FR) are really closing the gap to Knuth and Monty.  All of these guys have great work ethic and loads of talent.  We started a bit slow, but improved a lot from Griak to Pre-Regionals.  Due to a tough mid-term schedule here, we chose to pass on LaCrosse and ran a very good Kenyan run at Knox College.  I just felt that too little sleep and a tough academic week did not make for a good performance if we had gone to LaCrosse.  Conference is up next.  Then regionals.

Is there any running related training material (books, scientific journal articles, etc.) that you commonly refer to throughout a cross country season?

My most-used references are Vigil (Road to the Top), Lydiard (Running to the Top), Daniels (Daniels Running Formula) and Harre (Principles of Sport Training).

I also pick up the phone to call someone if I have questions.  Scott Simmons has been a great help.

What are your thoughts about the new qualifying procedures for the 2006 NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships?

I guess I have a “wait and see” attitude.  I think it could ultimately make it tougher for both the Central and Midwest Regions, two very strong regions historically.  Hopefully we will be adding teams to the championships to help offset this.

What are 2 key workouts that you incorporate into the peaking period of a cross country season?

First, I do not believe in peaking.  We have tried this and failed on several occasions.  The question one must ask is this “If what I am doing is working and my runners are progressing nicely, why would I mess with it?”  We often look for the magic answer in a taper or peaking phase of training.  When we drop mileage too much we send a message that we do not need as much blood volume, and the body listens and adjusts down. It takes a long time to train aerobic capacity and we do not want to give it up.  The only change we make (and only in the target week) is this:  Drop the Sun run preceding the target meet by no more than 25%,  and we do a half dose of intervals on Tue (with full active recoveries…this is to make sure we do not have lactic acid in the system).  Otherwise, it is a normal week…with the precaution that the runner do NOT runner faster than normal ET pace.

Grinnell College will be the site for the 2007 National Distance Running Summit from January 5-6^th.  Tell us about those coaches that will be presenting and what a coach or athlete could learn from attending this summit.

I cannot give a strong enough endorsement of coaching education.  I was a pole vaulter who now speaks far more often on distance running than vaulting.  When I started coaching CC in 1984, I was clueless about it.  But I was motivated to learn and I started calling folks, going to clinics and reading everything I could find. The best professional experience I ever had was attending the USATF Level II school back in 1989.  I was blown away with how much the staff knew…  and how little I knew.  It inspired me.  I’ve been an active student since!

I wanted to offer something at Grinnell that could really help coaches of the endurance events.  My first call was to Joe Vigil, with whom I spent a week out at Adams State a few years ago.  He is one who “gets it”.  Once he was on board,  Joe Newton, Scott Simmons, Larry Wieczorek and Bill Terriquez followed.  All have something to offer the attending coach.  I asked each to speak on particular topics that would all fit together and that I felt could help coaches of all levels. Longer sessions (so the coaches can really get into material), quality notes packets and round-table discussions (these are where some of the best learning can occur!) all will add to the experience.  I am thrilled to have these folks to Grinnell for the summit.  I think their energy and knowledge will play off each other and the attending coaches will no doubt benefit. Serious runners might also consider attending.  There will be plenty to learn, a few sacred cows killed and some light bulbs going on. 

You’ve spoken at clinics around the U.S. and internationally as well as having written two books and authoring 19 coaching videos.  You recently co-authored a book with Scott Simmons, Take The Lead: A Revolutionary Approach To Coaching Cross Country.  Tell us about this new book and what your most memorable experiences have been while speaking at those clinics throughout the U.S. and world.

Take the Lead has been a wonderful experience for me.  Scott Simmons asked me to come up to Minot State several years ago to give a clinic for his assistant coaches. We hit it off right away.  He was asking the right questions and we had long talks about training endurance runners.  At the end of this visit, I asked him to consider writing an article with me.  He said, “why not a book,  we have more ideas than we can get into an article.”  Over the next two and a half years, we stayed in contact.  I then spent a week in VA at his home where we began writing.  He then came down to FL for a week where we commandeered a friends cabin in Vero Beach so we could finish the book.

The book is based on three basic premises:

1. Training must be progressive
2. Training must reflect the demand of the race
3. An athlete-centered model is superior to a coach-centered model.

Once these were clarified, the writing came easy.

What concepts do you believe are necessary for success of a collegiate distance runner?

1. Discipline (I’ve been lucky to recruit someone of Adam Booth’s or David Montgomery’s HS talent to Grinnell.  We have had far more of good HS runners make it to be national D3 runners because they bought into the training and had the discipline to see it through.  Jonathan Lave (3:48) John Aerni (9:07 Steeple) are two examples.
2. Patience  My dear old Granddad said best “Nothing worth doing will come easy or fast.”  How true that is with distance running.  Without patience you have frustration and injury. With it, you have progression and ultimately the chance to reach potential.
3. Balance   Running is just that.  It is important, but it is just a piece of a much larger puzzle and needs to fit into that puzzle.  One of the concepts we push in our Wellness classes is that of finding balance in one’s life.  Training, restoration, nutrition, social life and academics all impact a runner’s performance.  The role of the coach is to help the runner find a balance between these that works for that runner.

For those that are aspiring to become a collegiate cross country coach, what would be the best piece of advice you would give them?

I try not to give advice unless asked.  Since you asked:

1. Read, study and learn….but then the next step is the most important…use common sense when using what you have learned.  A little bit of knowledge can be lethal to a runner’s season.  If you are not sure, pick up the phone and call someone you trust.
2. Don’t over-race.  Enough said.
3. Learn from your mistakes….you will learn far more from the mistakes than the successes.
4. Reconsider the myth of “peaking” for the long-distance runner.  This may work somewhat for the 800-1500, but tapering has hurt more performances than it has helped.  I’ve learned this the hard way.
5. Learn about restoration, it is the side of training we least understand.
6. Balance is the key to staying on an even keel.  See question above.
7. Come to the Endurance Summit in Grinnell Jan 5-6^th!

Thanks to Coach Freeman for a great interview.

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hI cOACH
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