Miles Schoedler, who finished his high school career as one of the top milers in New Jersey had an idea. Invite some of the competitors that he had become friendly with through his travels and races around the country to his home in Ocean City and spend a week training and socializing at the Jersey Shore. That idea became a reality and during the week of July 18-24, 5 of the best middle distance runners in the east arrived in OC for a week of fun and work.
We'll let Miles tell it;
NJR - How did the idea to do this come about?
MS - The training week came about when I had the idea to invite some of the runners I have become friendly with from around the country to my house to train and have a fun in Ocean City for a week. I met most of them from a number of meets around the country in the past including: Arcadia, the Brooks PR Invitational, Milrose, Boston Indoor Games, and New Balance Indoor Nationals.
NJR - Who made up the group that came to Ocean City?
MS - The Participants were: Jeramy Elkaim (Livingston HS / Oregon), Kevin Byrne (Red Bank Catholic / Notre Dame), Chad Noelle (Greene, NY / Oregon), Dan Nestor (Madison, CT / Columbia ), Matt Jablonski (Baltimore,MD / Oregon). Tim Luthin (NY), and Anthony Manfrin (IL) were going to come but couldn't take time off of work. It wasn't hard to work out the logistics considering everyone was within driving distance. Chad had to drive the longest (5 hours) as well as Dan (6 hours). We are all used to traveling for races so this wasn't too difficult to plan. Everyone stayed about 4 or 5 days depending on when they arrived at my house.
NJR - Descibe what one day in this training / vacation week was like.
MS - We were very conscious of maintaining our eating, sleeping, and training habits because we are all looking forward to having strong cross country seasons this fall. To describe one day we woke up to a nice breakfast then headed over to the beach for a few hours. Next, we went to lunch on the boardwalk and came back to my house to get ready for practice. I had a tempo that day and luckily everyone else had similar workouts so we ended up doing a 3x1mile tempo in 76-78 pace together with 90 sec recovery between sets. Our splits were 5:10, 5:08, 5:06. It was very cool training in such a fast pack because it made the workout easier to do rather then try and do it by myself. After, we iced our legs in the ocean and went to dinner in Atlantic City that night.
NJR - With a group this talented and accomplished, what was the intensity of the workouts like?
MS - The intensity of training with those guys wasn't as bad as you would think. We made sure not to push the pace too much but there was defiantly a strong competitive nature amongst us the entire week. I'm used to training with Brett Johnson so I'm used to high intensity runs and workouts. Our main focus was following our college coach's training program as carefully as possible.
NJR - What would you say was the biggest take away from a week like this?
MS - The biggest thing that our group took away from this experience was the bonds we created and strengthened and our competitive nature between each other. We will be racing each other a handful of times over the next few years and I can tell you one thing, no one will go down without a fight.
NJR - As most fans here in New Jersey know, your Outdoor season did not end on a positive note due to injury. How are you now and how is your fitness?
MS - The outdoor season of my last year in high school did not go the way I wanted it to. However, I am glad I took the time to recover because I am feeling very fit and my injury has completely healed. I am excited for this upcoming year and can't wait to tear it up at Georgetown.
Miles, thanks. Enjoy the rest of the summer and best of luck at Georgetown