MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Rolling hills and plenty of grass surround University High, while the same can be said at Preston. At Morgantown, the school is surrounded by one big hill and plenty of asphalt and concrete. For the Mohigans’ cross-country teams, that’s a roadblock they face every year, but has become common place when preparing for meets across the state on grass.
Without its own home course, MHS has to get creative with how it practices. Coach Mike Ryan tries to add a variety locations to his schedule, including remaining by the school and running on the sidewalks and roads throughout South Park, taking his team over to White Park, or running on the rail trail north of Star City where black top becomes gravel. Still, the difficulty of running on hard yet even surfaces is a yearly challenge the Mohigans have to overcome.
“People don’t think about it — number one, grass is softer, so we take a pounding running on the roads here,” Ryan said. “When we get to cross-country and we’re running on grass, it’s not always even. There’s a lot of movement within the ankle that wears you down and slows people down. Not being able to run on grass is a huge issue with us.”
The best MHS can duplicate grass at the school is using Pony Lewis Field and running barefoot, but in the summer, the turf can get very hot. Junior Amelia Haddox believes the team does a good job of trying to use other facilities across Morgantown to simulate what it’s like to run on grass.
“We’ve gotten pretty used to it — we meet up in different places and we have the UHS course, which isn’t that far away,” she said. “The hills around here help us out, even if they aren’t grass, because we have hills on most of the courses we run. We just work with what we have and it works out pretty well.”
Despite not having a home course, though, the Mohigans have consistently been one of the premier cross-country programs in the state, along with UHS. Since 2002, the girls’ team has won seven state titles and finished runner-up six times. The boys’ team has two titles in the last three years.
So how does Ryan do it? The weight room becomes a critical aspect of the offseason program as well as the practice regiment when the season begins in August. Lifting for distance running isn’t as different to other sports as many would think. MHS’s weight room is entering Year 3 and has paid major dividends for the cross-country team, which used to have to bring weights onto the football field to work out.
“I ask every strength coach that comes in here, and now it’s Bailey Gesteland, who’s doing a great job, is if you could only do three or four movements for all sports, what would they be? I know I’d want them in my program,” Ryan said. “It’s about being athletic. Yeah, we’re distance runners, but we’re also athletes.”
Ryan said a lot of focus is put on core and hips stability, which helps prevent ACL injuries and poor knee rotation. It also helps activate the “fast-twitch muscle fibers.”
“In middle school, we didn’t lift, and then when I came here, I could really tell the difference with my strength,” Haddox said. “It helps with the little things, too, like keeping your arms strong and can pump them more at the end of a race.”
Twitter @SeanManning_DP
