Coach McChesney’s weekly running tip

Coach Steve McChesney has fielded 40 all Americans and 15 state champions in his 19 years at Newton South High School. As part of our coverage of the South cross country team, we asked him for a few running tips, and he obliged.

''Buy a training log or diary online or at any store that specializes in running. Each day, record your sleep hours, pulse rate, miles that day, time run for distance runs, accumulated miles for the week, workout times run, and how you felt.

''If a log is up to date, you can use it as a formula for future training. You can also see when and how things may have started to go wrong. You can see if certain trends are forming. You can also see if an athlete does well during low-mileage times, but struggles when the mileage gets to a certain point. A lot of answers can be found about why things happen in your running by keeping a log.

''I can often point out how little sleep an athlete is getting during certain periods and find many warning signs of illness and injury are right there in a runner’s log, as well as what works best for them and a future road map to success.

''To keep healthy we ask our kids to get into a new pair of shoes about every 400 miles. This is made simple if an athlete jots down in their log book the day that they started in a new pair of shoes. Then predict about when 400 miles will come by averaging future miles and they pretty much know when it is time to get a new pair.

''A running log is a recording of your training. Reading that data reduces a lot of the guesswork that could go into writing a training program.''