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Oliver Horton had every reason to race this winter. He was coming off a Colorado 4A cross-country title, an all-classification course record of 14:48, and a trip to NXN where he led Coronado to its first-ever team qualification.
Instead, the junior spent the winter doing fartleks on trails, running 300-meter hill repeats, and slowly building up his foundation. Four months later, he ran 8:38.95 for third at the Arcadia Invitational - one of the deepest 3200 fields in meet history - and followed it up with a state-leading 4:09 at altitude.
Watch: COROS PACE 4
Accessory: COROS Heart Rate Monitor
Analysis: Training Hub
The Winter Reset
After NXN, Horton took 10 full days off; he didn't even think about exercise. When he came back, it started slow. His first run back was just 10 minutes long. Eventually, he built to six days a week with Sundays off.
He trains in the winter with his club coach, Coach Potts, who communicates closely with his high school coach, Lisa Rainsberger. The transition between the two programs is seamless, which lets Horton build through the winter without any disruption when the school season begins.
"Up until probably the end of February, I wasn't doing anything fast," Horton said. "It was pretty much all just tempos, long runs, steady states, easy runs."
Oliver's high-intensity Training Load increased at the end of February
The decision to skip indoor came down to a conversation with Rainsberger. He was tired coming out of the cross-country postseason, and she saw more value in continuing to build than in sharpening for a race he wasn't fully ready for.
"She was like, 'You can, but you're not going to be very sharp for it, or we can just keep training,'" Horton recalled. "I'm happy I did that because I'm not tired at all. It feels like I just started the season."
What Base Training Looked Like
The bulk of Horton's winter work was built around fartleks and steady-state sessions on trails at altitude. A staple session was a descending fartlek: 7 minutes on at steady-state to tempo effort, 1 minute recovery jog, then 6 on, 1 off, 5 on, 1 off - all the way down, with a couple of extra 1-minute reps to close...
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Oliver is a member of COROS NextGen, a program which aims to work with elite high school athletes as they push their boundaries to become the next generation of elite distance runners in the U.S. For any high school athlete chasing their best, head to www.coros.com to learn more on products, training tips, and insights from athletes of all levels.
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Oliver Horton had every reason to race this winter. He was coming off a Colorado 4A cross-country title, an all-classification course record of 14:48, and a trip to NXN where he led Coronado to its first-ever team qualification.
Instead, the junior spent the winter doing fartleks on trails, running 300-meter hill repeats, and slowly building up his foundation. Four months later, he ran 8:38.95 for third at the Arcadia Invitational - one of the deepest 3200 fields in meet history - and followed it up with a state-leading 4:09 at altitude.