Athlete Survey Worksheet - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Athlete Survey WorksheetSlide2

Athlete Survey

While at camp, we will be doing Mentor Group analytics on the

Athlete’s Survey

each of you completed just before you downloaded all of your camp documents: The Required USOTC and High Peaks documents.

An article from

Runners World

, “Why are these teens so fast?” will be the focus on introspecting your Athletes Survey.

In the article, Marc Bloom, a former English Teacher from NYC, and

NY Times

h

igh school Sportswriter--one of the most learned high school sports writers in the country--has explained the improvement in running these past several decades. Even though his focus is more on the distaff side of the improvement, the boys’ improvement has none-the-less been just as profound.Slide3

Athletes Survey

It occurred to several of the camp coaches what Bloom discusses, outlined below from the article, is clearly germane to the

Mission Statement of the High Peaks Elite Distance Camp

: Each clinics’ focus delivered pertinent information to everyone at camp. The Daily Agenda, in a way, is an outline of sorts to what Marc Bloom notes as the cause of the tremendous surge effect in high school distance running. The article, “Why are these teens so fast” will be the lens through which we will analyze the Athletes Survey in one camp clinic. More on that at later.

However, before we get to the clinic, we have outlined the reasons why the tremendous “teen improvement” has been going on for the past two decades. This outline gives a strong sense of Bloom’s focus as the “why” of this surge. Interestingly enough, this surge can be witnessed in the current crop of the USA’s best athletes seen at the USATF Senior National Championships recently: Many medals won in international competition.Slide4

Athletes Survey

One of our own Mentor coaches at one of the July camps, Jess Garn, competed at those championships. In February 2015 at the Iowa

State

Invitational, Garn ran the 800m in 1:46.98, the

6

th

fastest time in the

2015 NCAA campaign.

He also competed at the Junior USATF nationals while in high school and made the US National Team that competed at Worlds.

The reasons why teens are so fast according to Bloom:

1.

Multi-sport athletes

: Runners are now more athletic, better athletes, because of their body’s development. Bill

Aris

, the coach of Fayetteville-Manlius, whose boys and girls in 2014 won both NXN Cross Country Championships, said, “boys and girls are athletic equals.”Slide5

Athletes Survey

2.

Skinny

I

s

O

ut

: More health information is shared: Nutrition, hydration, sleep, how to treat various running injuries more effectively, and health in general. Muscle is in, skinny is out: “The new athletic aesthetic makes muscle development in girls culturally desirable.”

“Female athletes have learned there are dire consequences in attempting to keep weight down.”

“Teenage girls are physically developed with muscular definition. I expect that the girls who are now doing well are going to have long careers,” said Kara

Goucher

, a two time Olympian.

3.

A New Day

: Race like an animal: Alexa

E

fraimson

, 9:00 for 3k indoors in 2014 as a high school junior, “It’s going to hurt. You’re going to want to die at the end. Give 100% and have no regrets,” is a statement

Efraimson

had written on her leg before the NXN Cross Country Championships in Portland, Oregon. By excelling, one great athlete feeds off another one. Great runners come in bunches. More sound training information is available: Core Work, Cross Training, more Training workouts are shared as well as Biomechanical information.Slide6

Athletes Survey

And camps like High Peaks Elite teaches and shares the newest and most effective information available to elite athletes, the future greats in our sport.

4.

Trend Setting

#1:

The Mary Cain and Aja Wilson effect, trend setters, who led the way for others to follow.

Alberto Salazar, Cain’s coach said, “train girls the same as boys; if she’s a 4:45 miler she will do the same workouts as a 4:45 male miler.”

He redefined her biomechanical form, and they do hard workouts immediately after races, one of the precepts of the Salazar approach they take with the Oregon Project, which includes Mo Farah, Galen Rupp, Cain and a few other world class runners.

Aja Wilson, same age as Cain, placed 2

nd

at the Senior Worlds in the 800m as an 18 year old in 2014.Slide7

Athletes Survey

Trend

#2: Independents’ Day: Athletes are expanding their horizons

Girls and boys learning from enlightened coaches

Girls and boys seeking advanced handling: Getting advice from experts, attending Running Camps, Clinics, etc.

Trend

#3: “Parents who have been there: It’s a huge benefit having athletically-active parents.”

Trend

#4: Big meets, big sponsors: Nike, New Balance,

Saucony

, Asics---Regional and National meets in Cross Country, Indoor and Outdoor Track. Athletes more and more are seeking out the competition in

these highly competitive competitions. Some of the elite high school athletes are even competing against Olympians in many high profile international competitions.Slide8

Athletes Survey

Mickey Burke, a 2

nd

semester Syracuse freshman running at Syracuse, the 4

th

place team at the 2014 NCAA Championships, was a five time high school All American, did just that. Anita Kelly, the 1

st

Footlocker Finalist [then Kinney] from Section V, a high school All American, competed against boys throughout her high school career ---and beat many of them, did that too in the early 1980s.

Trending

: Running by the Numbers:

Girls

:

[Boys numbers are similar.]

Year sub 4:50 1600m sub 11:OO 3200m

1993 1 3

2013 35 57Slide9

Athletes Survey

Participation:

Cross Country Indoor Track Outdoor Track

2007 199,344 59,532 447,520

2013 214,369 63,298 472,939

In the camp Athletes Survey Clinic, we will divide the survey into three or four parts and each Mentor Group will

compare

and

contrast

the results of the camp “results” to what Bloom outlines as the reasons

WHY

“teens are running so fast.” We will be compare the results of various camps.

The

C

omparisions

, what the survey suggest our

athletes are doing well

,

Or

contrast

, what the survey suggests our

athletes need to improve

to get to the next level.Slide10

Athletes Survey

In the Survey, there were 25 questions on page 1 &2 while page 3 [

Factors Influencing

] had 10 and page 4 [

Obstacles to Overcome

] had 10.

There are 45 questions, of which

16 focus on details you have direct control over in your performance.

Those questions

are

:

#

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23 & 25

We will

focus on these 16 questions, especially,

in our Mentor Group analysis.