The First Week of Outdoor Track

Published February 8, 2026

Hello!

In last week's email, I talked about your kids who haven't been training this winter. This could be kids in another sport — the basketball player or the swimmer — and there are different reasons to be cautious with their training in the first couple weeks. Then there's the other type: kids who ran cross country for you in the fall but didn't do a thing this winter and were sedentary.

If you missed that email, click here to check it out.

Today I want to talk about what you're going to do the first week of official state sanctioned practice with kids who did nothing this winter. These are the cross country kids who didn't run this work or kids who've never run track before.

The first thing I want you to acknowledge is that these kids are coming out for track to have fun and hopefully to race and enjoy competition. They didn't come out to put in hard training days — though we're going to have them do that once they start to fall in love with the sport - and they definitely didn't come out to do 10-15-20 minutes of post-run work after workouts to stay injury-free.

Can we agree that the number one goal in February and in early March is to keep these kids injury-free?

Before we go day by day, you definitely need to check out Jeff Boelé's warm-up. I've got some information later in this email about what Jeff and his team at Elevated Performance are doing for high school running. They're absolutely fantastic. This warm-up is great, and you need to check it out.

Okay, let's go day by day...

Monday

Pre-Run: Jeff Boelé's Warm-Up

Workout: 6 x 100m strides on the turf with 60 seconds recovery

Post-Run: Red Easy

We're not doing a run. We're doing strides. Six 100m strides on the turf, not the track.

The post-run work is Red Easy. That's our easiest level of post-run routines. The post-run routines are like the colors in the rainbow. Red is the easiest. Orange is a little bit harder.

You can get all of those routines for free at the link I'm sharing at the end of this email. In my Track Training System, we do the Yellow routine next, which is very challenging, and then we end with Green. A lot of programs won't even get to Green over a 12 or 16 week period.

Tuesday

Pre-Run: Jeff Boelé's Warm-Up

Workout: 200m, 200m, 150m, 150m with jogging recoveries

Post-Run: Red Easy

Tuesdays are typically challenging days in our system. We're not going to do a hard aerobic workout. Rather, we're going to stay at the track and do just little bit of running today.

Now, if you're thinking, "Wait, we're going to the track this early? Does this mean we're going to peak too early?" Absolutely not! Much of the reason your kids are getting shin splints and lower leg injuries in weeks 2-4 of the track season is that they didn't go to the track early enough. Please get this idea out of your mind that they're going to "peak too early" if they go to the track the second day of practice. It's simply not true.

The workout is simple: 5 laps of running.

Have them start at the start-finish line and jog 180m, then speed up for 20m, then run a 200m at a pace that feels fun and challenging. After that, they keep moving — they don't slow down to walk. They can jog as slow as they need to, as long as they keep moving.

Before the 200m mark they again speed up for 20m and run another 200m at a pace that's fun and challenging.

After this 200m, they keep jogging (and if the job is slow that's fine).

We end with two 150s.

We're giving them a 20m run-in again, so you could argue it's more like 2 x 170m. They're jogging as easy as they want and then the 150m is "fun fast." and should be faster than the 200s.

They jog after that — they're probably getting pretty tired — and they end with one more 150m that's "fun fast."

Even though the race pace reps are done, you should have them jog one more lap. Why? Their heart rate is elevated and it will extend the aerobic stimulus a little bit. If you want to learn about extending the aerobic stimulus, which is a key concept in my training, you should definitely ready this article and understand that concept.

The key with this workout I want you to understand is that for a kid who's been sedentary all winter, they were moving constantly for 5 laps and they got in 700m at a pace that's probably faster than 3200m pace — probably averaging 1600m pace. For kids who got after it a little bit, the average is between 1600m pace and 800m pace. Great first "hard day" of the season!

Wednesday

Pre-Run: Jeff Boelé's Warm-Up

Workout: 6 x 100m strides on the turf with 60 seconds recovery

Post-Run: Red Easy

Following the concept I talk about chapter 9 of Consistency Is Key: 15 Ways to Unlock Your Potential as a High School Runner you've got to keep your easy days easy so your hard days can be hard. Wednesday is an easy day, same as Monday. After every hard day in my training systems, we take an easy day.

Thursday

Pre-Run: Jeff Boelé's Warm-Up

Workout: 10-minute run with friends, then 6 x 100m strides on the turf with 60 seconds recovery

Post-Run: Red Easy

This is where a lot of coaches would get greedy and come back with another hard day. That's a huge mistake.

You probably know about DOMS — delayed onset muscle soreness — and if they're going to be sore from Tuesday's workout, they might feel it more on Thursday than they did on Wednesday.

So we keep it easy. A 10-minute run with friends. Let them talk. Let them enjoy being out there. Then strides and Red Easy post-run.

Friday

Pre-Run: Jeff Boelé's Warm-Up

Workout: Circuit for 20 minutes for younger kids, and as long as 30 minutes for dual-sport kids who are mentally tough. Circuit with 200s or 250s — not 300s as shown in the video.

Post-Run: Barefoot Routine

Tuesday was challenging, but Wednesday and Thursday were easy. So Friday we can come back with a hard day, and this is where we're doing a circuit for 20 minutes.

A circuit is really challenging, and without going into too much detail here, just know there are videos you can watch here and you can read the description of it. The bottom line is their heart rate is going to be elevated for 20 minutes and they're going to be working hard with their teammates. It's a really fun day.

The kids who were training all winter are probably on the track this day as well, or at least going out for a fartlek or a progression run and coming back for post-run work. If they are, what's nice for you is you can stay at the track and focus on the kids doing the circuit.

I'm sure some of you will say, "Jay, our weather is bad and we can't do the circuit outside." I understand those issues, so you'll have to get creative — maybe do some of this inside, or go for a short progression run. Every situation is different. I'm proposing what would be ideal in most climates.

if you're wondering what the barefoot routine is and why we're not doing our normal post-run work, if you think about it, they did a ton of general strength during the circuit. So we don't want to add more of that work at the end of this workout. The barefoot routine is awesome and again, it's from Jeff Boelé.

Saturday — Off

Ideally, a brisk walk or an easy bike ride if they live in a climate where they can ride. Both of those are great. And yet, if they take Saturday completely off — which let's be honest, they probably will — that's fine.

Sunday — Off

Same thing. They can take it off.

The Big Picture

If you look at what happened this week, these kids did a lot more exercise than they typically would have. Their heart rate has been elevated because they went from the warm-up directly into the run, directly into the post-run work. But they weren't doing a ton of running.

What you did this first week is you had them learn the warm-up. You had them get used to the idea that there's no break between the warm-up and the running and no break between the running and the post-run work. Hopefully they had some fun and are meeting new friends.

Don't get greedy in Week 1. If you want to study what we're doing in Weeks 2 and 3 today, great — download the full 21-day plan here. If not, next Sunday I'll go through what we're doing in those weeks.

Meet the Elevated Performance Team

I'm really excited to share what three outstanding people are doing at Elevated Performance this spring.

You know Jeff Boelé from the warm-up and barefoot routine.

You may have heard of John O'Malley, the head coach at Sandburg High School. For close to two decades average boys 4x800 time is 7:46...so 1:56 a guy. Absolutely unbelievable. He's also the only person to have coached two Foot Locker champions.

Katie Follett is a mental skills expert and therapist who is featured in the Complete High School Runner course. Her section is one of the most impactful parts of that course.

I hold all three of these people in high regard, and you can't go wrong working with any of them this year.

Elevated Performance's staff offers:

​Movement and Injury Assessment (Jeff Boelé)

​Mentorship Services (John O'Malley)

​Mental Skills Coaching (Katie Follett).

For the next month, Katie is offering a special to newsletter subscribers. Use code "JJNLFriends" to get $100 OFF Katie's video course or $50 OFF a live team presentation.

​Contact Katie to learn more and mention this!

Katie has helped numerous individuals and teams develop essential mental skills for high level performance. Here's what one coach has to say about working with Katie...

"Katie recently did an interactive class with my entire team prior to our State Championship meet. Sharing her own personal experiences & stories as well as her knowledge of mindset skills for athletes was a true gift! The time she spent with us really set us up with a positive mindset and gave my athletes the tools they needed during the championship season!
​
In addition to working with my team, Katie has been helping one of my best athletes one-on-one. This has completely transformed how she approaches training & racing and has helped her work through the anxieties & pressures of being a high performing student-athlete.”
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-Jennifer Found, Little Rock AK

I'll be in touch next week with part three of this series.

Let's go!

Jay

PS — You can download the full No Prior Training PDF here and watch the 30-minute video walkthrough here.

And if you're curious what's in my book Consistency Is Key, here's six free chapters. You can share these with your athletes and their parents, but please don't use this anywhere else. Thanks!