On and easy day I'd say yes...but on a medium or hard day you need a watch for feedback and I'm a big fan of workouts that are threshold or a touch SLOWER than threshold where athletes time every 400.

I will try to post links to PDFs with Renee and Sara's respective workouts from today, but in both cases they definitely had to have their watch to complete today's workout, which for both of them was a "medium" day.

...but yes, 800mking, I would say that 2-3 days a week you only need the watch get your total time and you can run really easy or you can start easy and end faster, the way the kenyans do most of their runs. Good article in Running Times a few months back by Scott Douglas where he talks about this.

so, the only reason for a watch is to keep time of the run?

Thanks for the comments today...DVDs in the mail tomorrow.

In regards to how slow we do this run, it's a snail pace on the way out, yet every step is uphill - some is just a gentle grade and then on the switchbacks there are some places where you're taking these big, monster steps. But the what I learned the first year of camps is simple: a serious, motivated HS athlete will almost always over train at camp because they want to prove to themselves that they're good and that they have a great fall ahead of them. Now that we've run the camp for 6 years we only let campers really push themselves on the Friday fartlek (they run groups of 2-4) and the Sunday long run on Magnolia road. This video is from Thursday's run and it's hard to convince all of the campers to run easy, but the counselors do a great job reminding them to enjoy the setting and the scenery and that the next day they can push.

But again, it's key that camp is an good week of training, but I don't want people leaving with injuries. And lets be honest, a tough kid can run the 5 days of camp with a hot spot and not tell us, but when they get home they'll have a stress fracture and that's my biggest fear. I really question camps that have kids run twice a day; we do General Strength, we hike for 4 hours in the afternoon following the fartlek, we play dodge ball, yet camps who tell kids to run a second time just filling time. And yes, many kids do run doubles leading up to camp but part of our camp experience is buying into single runs for 5 days and no one ever leaves camp on Sunday with excess energy.

Okay, that's enough. Thanks for watching!

how slow are you suppose to run on these days? btw, my favorite CU is Jenny B. Have support the runners. 8)

First off, great video and advice. Also, I'm gonna have to agree that Kara's my favorite because of her attitude towards running, her commitment, and overall personality.

I definitely agree with you Jay. Kara Goucher would have to be my fav. She has been through the rough of it and has stayed positive and look where she is now. Great personality to. I was as down as she was that she didn't win Boston. But she did her best and thats what counts.

My Favorite CU runner has gotta be Goucher. In reading Running with the Buffalos you get a sense of his winner's mentality. I loved his hard work, but more importantly, his competitive spirit. He seems to have that Micheal Jordan personlaity, which I love. The real reason I love Goucher though is how he has battled through injury and not given up. I have battled injury and found inspiration in guys like him.

The reason I wanted to share this video as part of Tuesday Tips is that the athletes/campers are running SLOW on this run. Yes they're running at 5,200 ft. and yes they're running uphill on the way out, but several of the boys in this video ran at NXN for Albuquerque Academy later in the fall.

Running your easy days easy is an essential part of intelligent training, especially in the main competition cycle of your training.

I know this video doesn't lend itself to questions the way most Tuesday Tips, so this week will give videos to people who answer the following, "Who is your favorite CU runner and why?"