Sean McCafferty is the head cross country coach and assistant indoor and outdoor coach at Christian Brothers Academy of Lincroft, New Jersey. He's helped guide athletes to multiple team and individual state titles on the cross country course and on the track.
He's been with the CBA program since 2014, first as an assistant and then taking over the head cross country role in 2016. This was after a successful run at Holmdel High School, where McCafferty held the head coaching position from 2005 through 2014, overseeing multiple state titles.
He recently started a blog series (coachseanmccaff.com), which offers coaching insights and experiences he's gathered over the years. This outdoor track and field season, MileSplit will publish a weekly Wednesday morning series featuring these articles.
Coaches: A Training Plan Checklist
Written by CBA head coach Sean McCafferty
The weather is warming up and spring meets are right around the corner. Most of you have written a training plan for your athletes, but it is not too late prepare the (im)perfect schedule. No plan is perfect and a coach should not follow any plan exactly as written. I use a training plan as a guideline.
Things can change for good and bad as the season progresses and a good coach should analyze each day as it comes. Weather, progress (or lack there of), injuries and so much more can change the way an athlete needs to train. With that said, a training plan holds a coach accountable to their philosophy and principles.
A plan keeps a coach from straying away from what he or she thought was right. Too often, heat of the moment changes can pull coaches in the wrong directions. A plan forces a coach to answer the whys during a season.
- Use a TRAINING system - Every coach must have a system. Many coaches build a system off of a tested model, i.e. Jack Daniel's Running Formula. Others simply use these tested systems. In 2023, there are many systems available in books, free online or in a payment form. There are also many coaches, myself included, that would share thoughts and systems with eager minds. A system helps a coach build appropriate workload, periodization and structure for training. A coach must build their system around a school's culture and location.
- Use an ORGANIZATIONAL system - There are many ways to organize this type of thing. I use paper/Google Docs/Sheets as a precursor. I then add the workouts to FinalSurge OR create a weekly document with all the work we have planned. Sometimes I use a desktop calendar. Everything I write or type is not written in stone.
- Lay out your meet schedule first - The schedule changes from time to time for your younger or newer athletes, but your better athletes should have a pretty specific schedule.
- Work Backwards - Your training plan should start where the season ends or at important parts of the season. Pick a few key meets from your meet schedule and build training towards those specific events. In cross country, I always work backwards from the regional and national meets for my whole team. For indoor and outdoor, I focus varsity athletes on state or national level meets and JV and frosh athletes on twilight or other high level meets towards the end of the season.
- Plan for the right races - State and other championship level meets require different training than fast paced PB meets. 90 percent of the training athletes do will be the same for each of these types of meets, yet a coach must vary training when racing dictates. Will it be hot or cold? Wet and muddy? Are there hills? Can your athlete win? All of these questions and more should help guide you to plan for the right race.
- Workouts first - Plan your workouts first. Recovery days are crucial, yet they are very easy to plan. By leaving out recovery days at this juncture, a coach can see the schedule better as well. On a calendar, place your workouts where they fit. Be sure to leave room for recovery days. Add important workouts first. I prefer to challenge athletes 10 or so days out from a big race.
- Add the bread and butter threshold work - After you add the important workouts, start setting the threshold efforts. Be mindful that these workouts may not be glamorous but they are the most important. Full or partial threshold work must happen almost every week of the season. I add them in after early season races or as part of a mixed paced workout.
- I feel the need for SPEED - Speed is crucial, especially in the track season. Speed can be 200s or 150s after a distance run or something more substantial. I love doing "fliers" after early season races. I stole fliers from UPENN Coach Steve Dolan. Fliers are essentially 150ish intervals in lanes 6-8. I do them after early season races. Athletes are warmed up and have already prepped to run fast so it is a great time to tap into speed. Athletes work on speed and form during this work. Always do speed with the wind. Do not let your athletes battle wind when they are trying to run fast in practice.
- Long Runs - Hot take: we overemphasize long runs in high school athletes. Long runs are important, however they do not need to happen every week and they do not need to be really long. In XC, a coach may want to extend these runs a bit, but I do not think it is as necessary as some coaches believe. Schedule these runs and make sure you give ample to recover. Depending on the part of the season, you can add pick ups at the end of the run or just cover time or distance.
- Easy Days - The most important thing in your training plan are these easy days. Most of the running your athletes do is aerobic, easy runs. A coach should have two different types - recovery days and easy days. Recovery days come the day or days directly after hard efforts and easy days are non-recovery easy days.
- Supplemental Work - The last element of a training plan is the extra stuff. A coach needs to plan and add core, hurdle work, weight room and anything else you feel your athletes need. A coach needs to create athletes not runners. Within the structure of supplemental work, plan a build up much like a running plan. Start small and build. Plan around big meets. Athletes should be their strongest when they need to race their fastest.
- Consistency is key - Be consistent. I do not like giving my athletes curveballs on most days. They need curveballs but they need to be the right curveballs. We workout hard on Tuesdays, do threshold work on Friday and do a long run on Saturday. Give athletes the right curveballs.
Sample Week:
Monday
- AM - 25 minutes, PM - Easy run of 50-60 minutes, 6 x 100 M @ 15
- Extra work - Hips, hurdles, pushups, stadium lunges, planks
Tuesday
- AM - Nothing
- PM - Long intervals (1000m/1200m) just over 90% of vVO2 and 6 x 150s (50 at 1600, 50 at 800, 50 at FAST)
- Extra work - Weight room - leg day
Wednesday
- AM - 25 minutes, PM - Easy run of 50 minutes
- Extra Work - Sand walking
Thursday
- AM - Nothing, PM - Easy run of 50-60 minutes, 6 x 100 M @ 15
- Extra work - Hips, hurdles, pushups, stadium lunges, planks
Friday
- AM - 25 minutes, PM - 3 x 2k, 2 x 800 @ Threshold 6 x 150s (same as above)
- Extra work - Hips, hurdles, pushups, stadium lunges, planks
Saturday
- AM - Long run
Sunday
- OFF
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