Offseason training and renewed motivation has got the San Benito
cross country team off to a strong start
HOLLISTER
Three years ago, then a junior for the San Benito cross country team, Courtney Allen managed to advance to the state championships after she finished 10th overall in the Central Coast Section with a time of 19:02.
Two weeks later at state, San Benito’s lone representative clocked a 19:34 to finish 93rd overall.
“I (physically) felt like my season was over as soon as CCS was over,” Allen would say a year later of the state championships, which are the culmination of a three-month competitive season for cross-country runners.
The sentiments Allen held after state is what’s called “hitting the wall,” and distance runners often refer to it at one point toward the tail end of the season, when countless miles and hours of training — which are needed to reach those state-qualifying goals — simply prevent the distance runner from pushing themselves any further.
“In a race, you just have nothing left,” San Benito girls coach Josh Morales said. “But it’s very individual based. Courtney was training for a long time, and then that was it.”
One year later, though, Allen advanced to the state championships for a second time and was much improved. She recorded an 18:59 to finish 47th overall.
The problem with “hitting the wall” for coaches, then, is how training practices tend to vary from runner to runner, even year to year. An illness that keeps a harrier from competing midway through the season will likely allow that individual not to overtrain, but it will also likely hinder that individual’s performance toward the end of the year, when bigger and more exclusive meets are held.
The difference between training and overtraining can sometimes be very small.
“Hitting the wall? You don’t really know until you run at CCS,” San Benito boys coach Jess Morales said. “Every coach wants their guys to peak at the very end. The next two weeks, workouts will help them finish that last 800 (meters).”
As for the Baler boys, times are already down from where they were a year ago. Although when and where the team will deliver that peak performance remains a mystery, Morales feels the Balers’ conditioning and fundamentals are further along than at this point last season.
Take, for instance, the team’s performance at the Chieftain Classic. Last year, San Benito finished first overall as a team, but didn’t have a runner clock better than 16:56.
This year, Jose Castillo, whose 16:56 was tops the year before, recorded a 16:10 at the Toro Park course. Sergio Alcala, who timed a 17:10 last season, clocked 16:27 this year, while Omar Vasquez, whose 17:15 was fourth best on San Benito a year ago, finished third this year in 16:35.
Even sophomore Ricky Esqueda, who finished in 17:25 last year, improved this year with a time of 16:43.
It’s now a matter of keeping those times, and improving upon them for the TCAL Championships, CCS Championships and state, without hitting the dreaded wall. Last year, the Balers entered the TCAL Championships ranked No. 6 in the CCS, only to finish a disappointing fourth in the TCAL.
“We need to break through that barrier and we have the guys,” Morales said. “They worked all summer to be where they’re at right now.”
And right now, the Balers are ranked top five in the CCS, along with Bellarmine, Willow Glen and Menlo-Atherton, and have posted second-place finishes at the Early Bird Invitational and Chieftain Classic.
Morales credits a strong off-season program for the team’s strong start. But without much improvement since the early season, as frequent meets prevent development, Morales said, the Balers plan on taking more meets off in the near future, not only in order to further train and develop, but also to limit the pushing and pounding a cross country meet often provides.
This weekend’s Crystal Springs Invitational, Morales said, will likely be run by many junior varsity runners.
“They’re more fine tuned (than last year), but there is more fine tuning to do,” he said. “Right now, they want more speed (workouts). But I’m not gonna give them that until we get closer to the end of the season. You don’t want them to burn off the map.”
Morales said he changes training techniques from year to year, and one change this season were those speed workouts, which he has been gradually implementing since the start of the season. A year ago, Morales pushed the bulk of the speed workouts toward the end of the year, which led to fast starts for San Benito, but not so fast finishes.
“We want to go to state this year. We want to go as a team,” said Alcala, whose 16:49 on Monday broke the Baler River Course record of 16:58 set last year by Salinas’ David Perez, who won both the TCAL and CCS Division I races last fall. “We have a better team this year. It’s the same, but we’re a lot faster.”
During the season, long-distance workouts are king. Josh Morales said the girls team is averaging no less than six miles a day — with a max of nine to 10 miles on average — with speed workouts and interval training increasing as the season draws toward the end. Interval training, Morales said, is running a mile with four or five minutes rest, then running another mile, all while trying to keep a six-minute pace.
The week before a postseason meet, San Benito tapers down.
Morales said he’s increased the mileage this season after many girls appeared fatigued post-race a year ago, and it’s already paying dividends. The Baler girls were first at the Chieftain Classic, with sophomore Vanessa Estrada posting times in the mid-19s. Estrada, too, even broke the Baler River Course record on Monday as well, when she clocked a 19:35 and shattered the previous mark of 20:28 set last year by two-time state qualifier Rachel Shimabukuro.
“They’re already seeing the benefits. They’re pushing themselves,” Morales said.
Advancing to state remains the goal for many on San Benito. How it all pans out in the end will only come with a wait-and-see approach.
But members of both teams are already on pace.
“We just have to be hungry in the end,” Jess Morales said.
