"Endure!" Offers New Look at Distance Running

One coach is fed up with the way kids feel about running, and he's not going to sit back and take it any more. Rick Karboviak, a cross-country & track coach in northwest Minnesota, has been struggling with the reasons why a majority of kids don't want to run for competition, and even training for competition. "I think the mindset of today's kids is that you have to run 5 to 6 miles or more per day when you go out for the sports of track or cross-country." Nothing could be further from the truth, Karboviak says. He feels that the current marathon-based principles used to train young kids aren't working, and its keeping kids away from joining. "Kids hear horror stories of cross-country runners going on 10 to 12 mile runs, when the most that they run is 3.1 miles in a fast-paced race. It is these horror stories and legendary tales of past running methods that keeps today's mostly inactive kids away from the sport." Karboviak feels that kids can run less mileage, do it in a high intensity, short duration format, and still improve fitness levels. He feels that coaches need to know of these proven methods of short burst, high intensity training, and how to apply it to today's multi-sport athlete. "In most regions of the country, there aren't many pure runners out there, many of them do the sports of track or cross-country as a complement to their other sports. Long distance runs at slow levels may actually hinder their performance in other sports, so taking this high intensity approach is more akin to their other sports they play." The result? Karboviak recorded a 20% increase in race-pace fitness levels, based off of an athlete's 1000m pace times in their races during his cross-country team's season in 2005. "The most any kid ran during the season was about less than 25 miles in a week. We had purpose behind our training, not just logging a bunch of endless miles in the hopes of getting faster. We trained fast to get fast, period."

He's now written a book on his unique training method, called "Endure!". It covers his low-mileage philosophy & reasons why he applies it. There's also interesting chapters on strength training methods for runners, such as using the new kettlebell style of training for improved running power & control.

Already since it's launch this summer, coaches in the US, Canada, and even France have purchased the book, making an international impact in it's first month. The training methods he uses in the book are being chronicled on a weekly series of articles during the cross-country season on a membership-based sports training website, Sportspecific.com.

The website for the e-book is http://endure.speeddialcoach.com. Karboviak's independent training website for his day job as a fitness coach is www.speeddialcoach.com.

Rick Karboviak is a coach for cross-country and track programs at Thief River Falls Lincoln High School, in Thief River Falls, MN. He's also started his independent training company, Speed Dial Coach, found at http://speeddialcoach.com.

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