This Simple Phrase Will Help Your Kids PR

Published April 16, 2025

Think about what you’ve asked your athletes to do to run PRs this time of year since they started training this winter.

Things like...

• A new warm-up
• New post-run work
• Workouts you didn’t do last spring that you knew could lead to PRs this spring

Hopefully, these adjustments have led to your athletes running fast and having fun.

Now that it’s mid-April, you will probably ask them to do things they’ve never done before so they can PR.

Perhaps you’ll ask them to...

• Go out faster in the first 200m or 400m of a race.
• Sit back longer and trust they can make a hard move later in the race.
• Run a different leg on the 4x800 than they’ve been running for a reason that is obvious to you but makes no sense to them.

When I look at a list like this, there is a simple phrase that encapsulates what you’re asking them to do:

“If you want to do things you’ve never done before, then you’ve got to do things you’ve never done before.” 

New Race Plans Can Lead To New PRs 

I’ll never forget the snowy day late in my senior year of track when my coach told me, “You’re stuck at 4:40. Run 68s today.” 

I was scared and didn’t think I could run 68s/4:32 pace.

I didn’t think I could do it and didn’t like the plan, but I did what he suggested, ran alone in the snow, and came through the 400m and 800m on pace.

I ran 4:32.

A few weeks later, I ran 4:25. That was fast enough—in the mid-1990s—for me to barely get a walk-on spot at the University of Colorado.

What a gift it was to have my coach give me a plan I didn’t think I could run.

Back to the phrase...

“If you want to do things you’ve never done before, you’ve got to do things you’ve never done before.”  

I don’t know how best to use this with each athlete, but with a handful of weeks left in the season, now is the time to take a risk and set them up for a breakthrough race.

"That's great - but do you have any coaching tips for me to keep in mind at this point in the season?"

I do! 😀

If you follow these two pieces of advice, kids will run fast for the rest of the season.

1. Workouts must end fast

Said another way, the fastest running of the workout happens at the end of the session.

In the ​Track Training System​, every workout, whether 800m or 3200m, has kids running their fastest reps at the end.

And yes, the Fast, Faster, Fastest approach applies to all the 1600m and 3200m workouts.

If a 3200m runner is running 500s or 600s, and the last 100m of the final rep is their fastest of the day, they’ve accomplished the goal.

If they looked fantastic and were running close to 800m pace, then we’d skip the 2 x 120m that we’d typically end with. They just ran fast—and looked great doing it!—so why do we need to do more?

You can get the Fast, Faster, Fastest chapter from ​Consistency Is Key:15 Ways to Unlock Your Potential as a High School Runner​ for free ​here​.

2. Athletes must have fresh legs to run fast 

Training through races might have made sense in the first half of the season, but in my 20+ years of coaching, it’s clear that the best coaches have their athletes ready to run fast at each meet.

If you buy into this concept, then you need to look at all the training you’re assigning – the running, post-run work, and any weight room work – and make sure that their legs will feel good on race day.

Some kids are going to end their season in a few weeks. Some kids might run until mid-June. The first group needs to feel good for the rest of their season, while the second group will have some days where their legs feel a little heavy (though I'm not sure any athlete needs their legs to feel heavy the rest of the season).

The point I want you to embrace is that if you want an athlete to race to their fitness level – which will often mean running a PR – then you need to ensure they don’t show up to the meet with their quads feeling like lead.

A phrase I developed a decade ago to help adult runners who were always overtraining was When In Doubt, Do Less. #WIDDL 

Keep that phrase in the back of your mind for the rest of the season, and be willing to change things mid-practice if a kid looks tired.

In Case You Missed Them... 

Here are the last recent newsletters – click the title to read the email, all of which are less than a 3-minute read.

 ​1600m Racing: When Should Your Athletes Make a Move?​ 

 ​When Kids Are Running Two Races Have Them Do This Warm-up​ 

 ​Should You Be Cutting The Long Run Now?​ 

I wish you and your athletes the best in your upcoming meets.

April 16th's Too Late, But...

It's April 16th and it's too late to learn the ​Track Training System​ and implement all the training and all the workouts. But I want to share some results from a coach who's in their second season using the training.

I'll preface this by saying this is a coach who has been successful for over a decade and has had teams win the state championship. I'm so impressed that they were willing to do things differently so that their kids could achieve at a high level at this point in the season.

The reason to bring this up now is that at the end of the track season you'll have an opportunity to transform your cross-country program with the ​XC Training System​.

If you've got some kids injured or if kids aren't running as fast as you'd like them to right now, just know that if we fast forward to mid September and early October of 2025, your cross country program can be in the best position it's ever been going into the championship season.

This coach sent me this email after just winning their home meet over a rival who they hadn't beaten since 2018:

Distance crew won the 400-800-1600-3200, including 1-2 in 400, 1-2-3 in 800, 1-3 in 1600 and 1st in 3200.

My senior girl, who went down on the last lap of Monday's meet, came back strong yesterday. She ran an 11:28 3200 (she ran just to win for the team points but looked really strong and ran 79-78 in the last two laps just because she felt so good) and then came back and ran 5:06 in the 1600 (her PR had been 5:19).

My junior girl ran 5:20 (PR coming into this year was 5:32).

6 girls under 2:27 in 800 right now, and 6 under 1:02 in 400.

And staying healthy!!

It's worth mentioning that this school has an enrollment of roughly 1,600 kids.

To be clear, this coach is having success because of their coaching ability and ability to get kids to work hard all winter and spring.

But it also highlights that with the help of the ​Track Training System​, they were able to run faster the first week of April than they have in the past. What an exciting time for this coach and their athletes!

Obviously, you should focus on the rest of the track season, and I'll focus on helping coaches in the Track Training System for the remainder of the season.

But know that in the first week of June, I'll be sharing some free training that you can use to set up your kids for your program's best cross-country season ever.

I wish you and your athletes the best in your next meet.

Let's Go!

Jay

PS—If you have an athlete in a slower heat of the 800m who will need to get out and likely run the race alone, ​this is the video to show them​.