Central Ohio Summer Cross Country Coaching

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is training conducted?

Training is held outdoors at Orange MS in Lewis Center, Ohio. We occasionally use the track, adjacent hill (by the high school), or practice field (for surface adaptation). We always meet at the track and all workouts, not at the track are within a short 1-2 minute walk. Parents are encouraged to walk or run on the track, observe from the side, or just hang out in your vehicle. We love it when you are engaged and learning about your athlete’s progress.

When is training?

For 1:1 sessions, you sign up for a dedicated day/time. That time slot is yours and confirmed when enrolled and fees are paid. That will be your regularly scheduled time each week unless a more preferred time slot opens up and you want to move. On occasion, we may be able to reschedule if we have other openings. However, we dedicate the same time slot each week for you and can’t always accomodate moving sessions due to full Summer sessions.

Small group sessions are held weekly every Saturday from May 31st to July 26th, 2025 at 10:30AM. Most Central Ohio XC teams will start official training the first week of August.

What does a training session look like?

We meet once per week in person for approximately one hour.

Each session starts with a guided warm up where we focus on getting mentally and physically prepared for the day’s workout. We use a combination of dynamic warm-up drills, form drills to warm up and we use this time to discuss with each athlete how their week went since we last met.

This warm up time gives us time to learn more about how to best help your athlete as well as helps us understand how well your athlete is progressing in their training, adherence to their individual training they do during the week(which we assign ) and determine other factors that we need to know about that could impact what workout we assign or the intensity for the day’s session.

For example, did they have a soccer game the day before, or a hard team workout? If so, we may change the workout slightly. Did they experience any onset of pain, or other factor? If so, we may focus more on strength and flexibility to help reduce future issues. Knowing your athlete well helps us avoid over training which leads to injury.

After the warmup, we then get into the main workout.

In a small group setting, each athlete, or a subset of athletes,will likely do one specific type of workout because they are working towards building endurance, while in other cases, we might have athletes working on a speed workout.

This planning ensures each athlete is getting out of the session what they need, not just a generic workout. And much of this depends on experience level, age, and where they are at in the training cycle.

In other words, we do not just send them out on a group run and hope for the best. Athletes are never unsupervised.

When the main workout is over, we spend the last 5-10 minutes doing a cooldown. This may be revisiting form or dynamic cooldown drills, but often includes some light stretching and walking to help return heart rate and breathing back to normal. Proper cooldowns starts/speeds up the recovery process. During this time, we will talk with athletes on what they should do the rest of the week on their own.

During the week, athletes can expect 2-4 additional workouts (age/experience specific) that may involve additional running at specific distance, intensity levels (usually easy runs), and/or strength training.

Can we contact you during the week if we have questions?

Absolutely, just reach out as needed through email, text, or via phone.

Do you train in bad weather?

Ohio weather can sometimes impact training. We do run in rain, as long as rain is light. Athletes should be prepared to train in a variety of conditions.

We DO NOT train anytime heat is excessive, nor do we run when lightning or potential for lightning is in the area. We send out cancellations by email or text approximately 45-60 minutes before the start of each session if we need to cancel. We make our best judgement based on radar, and current/expected conditions on the track. When it comes to weather, our #1 priority is to ensure your athlete’s safety.

You never pay for sessions cancelled due to severe or extreme weather. We assume that risk as a company. At the end of the coaching engagement (end of season), any unused sessions due to weather only, will be refunded on a prorated basis.

What is your makeup policy?

Our business is based around schedules. And, training needs to be consistent to work. However, we do understand that things pop up like family vacations or illness. While we can’t accommodate frequent misses, we will do our best to accomodate where possible depending on the type of training that you are signed up for.

For 1:1 sessions, we will do our best to make up the session, or refund any unused sessions(weather related only) as described above.

For group sessions, we do not do makeups (or refunds other than weather). It is nearly impossible to coordinate schedules across the group.

My son/daughter trains with his/her high school team. Is your training necessary?

It depends. Most off-season, Summer training is dependent to the school/team in terms of what their training looks like. A typical off-season for most teams involves running ‘x’ amount of miles over the Summer and building endurance through increased volume.

Due to OHSAA rules, coaches are limited/restricted from official team workouts until the start of the season. Workouts are optional, but obviously, strongly encouraged if that athlete wants to participate. Some teams even have performance requirements to make the team.

We always encourage our athletes to participate in as many team workouts as possible. We believe this helps keep athletes accountable, while building a team culture. This is why we work with each athlete to understand their training/workouts and compliment their training. while ensuring proper recovery.

Most of what we mentioned earlier on this page is not addressed by team coaches until the season starts. When working with us, your athlete can be better prepared on all aspects of training, not just putting in mileage. Mileage is important, but so much more goes into success than just running more miles.

We want to work to make teams better and help coaches have better trained athletes at the start of the season, while not burning them out. We want our athletes to peak when it counts. At districts, regional and state events, while building confidence that they are well prepared to start the season.

My athlete is not in middle school. Can they join the small group sessions?

It depends on the age, experience level and willingness to participate. If they are within one year of MS, and have some experience, we will typically accept them. Please contact us first to see if it is right for your child.

We can do private sessions at any age, however our best experience has been with those 10 or older and have shown interest in running.

If you are not sure, we recommend Grasshoppers through CRC, which is geared towards developing a love of running and early training. This is a large, well-established program and we love supporting it. We tend to be a good fit, once athletes get to the point they want more specific and individualized training.

All sessions are held in Lewis Center within a short drive of Dublin, Hilliard, Powell, Worthington, Westerville, Sunbury, Delaware, New Albany, Gahanna, Upper Arlington and Columbus!