Workout Wednesday visit with the defending 2A boys cross country state champions in The Bolles School from Jacksonville. Fresh off their season debut and third place finish at the Cecil Field Summer Classic, while before they prep to race at the Florida Horse Park Invitational this weekend in Ocala, the workout included 400 meter continuous intervals on a loop starting on their track and finishing on one of practice athletic fields on their school grounds.
With their top runner and the 2A state champion this past spring in Aidan Ryan slowly and smartly coming back from a summer injury setback, the workout saw other varsity runners for their deep squad complete the full workout while others including Ryan doing a modified workout with a shorter amount of reps or altered rest.
The pacing for the 400 meter intervals was slightly faster than 5K race pace, while the recovery was actively running and still try to keeping a solid pace for 3 minutes albeit slower than the interval pace. The continuous intervals or CI as they like to call it is a core workout that they do on a weekly basis on the school campus. A wide range of 4 to 14 repetitions for their full squad from their novice JV and middle school runners or those athletes coming back from injury at the low end, while their team's healthiest and fittest varsity runners at the top end.
The team also before jumping into their 400 meter intervals did four hill repeats on their campus, which Coach Mike Rivera shared that he took that idea from longtime University of Michigan coach Ron Warhust as a good prep before a workout.
Coach Rivera also has a trusted and qualified sidekick in assistant Steve Stam to help him work with a large and talented squad of runners which has more than 7 runners vying for varsity spots this season that have run under 17 minutes for 5K including Ryan (15:35), Andrew McGraw (16:06), Matthew Thomas (16:15), Daniel deMonte (16:16), Christopher Joost (16:24), William Morales FL (16:39), Miles Rivera (16:46), Parker Adams (16:54), and Alexander Ruge (16:59).
With Satellite moving up from 2A to 3A and just viewing the competition that currently exists in 2A, it seems that a foregone conclusion that Bolles should repeat as state champions this season but nothing is given. However, Bolles is not afraid to race against the best and refuses to race down to their competition including major invitationals including a trip later this season up to New York for the Manhattan Invitational and Georgia for the Asics Alexander Invitational. Last year's state champion squad as an example did not win a single invitational race that they competed in before picking up their first team win of the season at their district meet in late October.
After taking a two year absence from post-season competition due to the coronavirus, the plan is for the Bolles boys to race in the Team Nationals qualifier in Cary, North Carolina over the the Thanksgiving break if the season finishes up strong and test themselves against the best teams in the Southeast Region.