Coach Jesse Skiles gave us some nice information about his views on WV running and how he appraoches his WV Wesleyan programs.  In addition to his success as a coach, Coach Skiles is also an accomplished writer and has produced several books detailing the history of cross country and track in West Virginia, and has another on the way (see below).  Thanks for your time Coach Skiles!

 

RunWV: Can you give us an overview of your program and training philosophy?

 

Skiles: As a program, we try to emphasize the team aspect of things. I feel that it is important that each area, throwers, hurdlers, jumpers, sprinters, distance runners....everybody meet together at the same time every day to at least stretch and hear the team announcements. We go our separate directions from there, but at least have a little bit of time as a full ''unit" every day.

 

In terms of training philosophy, we break every event area down into phases, working backward from our championship meets. It just depends on the event as to what workouts are emphasized in what month.

 

In cross country, our workouts are quite similar to the ones you have seen posted by Sean and Trent. I think Trent really hit the nail on the head when he spoke of the concept of simply putting in the miles. Workouts are important, but in reality, they are useless if there is not a base from which to build on.

 

Likewise, we do 800's, 1000's and a variety of hill workouts that have differing grades of difficulty.

This was our week on the men's side last week...the women had the same format, but was adjusted slightly.

 

M         am - 30                         pm - 60

T          am - 30                         pm – 10 - mile steady state

W         70

TH        am - 30                         pm - 45 w/strides

F          light jog

SAT      am - race                      pm - 30

SUN     100

 

Our lifting circuit is normally Sun and Wed on race weeks...Sun - Tues - Thur on non-race weeks.

Our ab work and calisthenic work includes two hard days and two "maintenance" days per week. I have never had a Friday or weekend practice as a team. This way, you can go home and run if you want if we have an open week.

 

We operate on a 10-month cycle with the distance and mid-distance kids, with the base, strength, and speed phases built around our competition seasons.

 

Hands down, I think the most important month of training for college and high school runners is December. Kids tend to get away from the sport and have some ''down time'' right after cross country ...which is good. But after 14-17 days of active rest, you need to crank it back up. Athletes that get their mileage going again with solid Decembers really give themselves an advantage for posting breakthrough times on the track. Too many young runners slack off too much in December, and that is a costly mistake as many find themselves playing catch up in February.

 

As an overview, the team aspect is the biggest thing to me. We work hard and spend a lot of time deciding on the workouts for each phase, but the part about being a member of the team is the most important thing. I think it is neat to have male distance runners for example, be close friends with say, female throwers or female hurdlers and vice-versa.

 

We play games that include team building principles, enjoy a preseason cross country camp for a week at Canaan Valley, and our annual trip to Daytona Beach for a few meets and training at SeaBreeze High School are all important parts of the program.

 

RunWV: What are the particular features of your location that are advantageous to distance runners?

 

Skiles:Buckhannon is our greatest asset in my opinion. I love the town and it is a great place to train. And I have to give kudos to the folks at Alderson-Broaddus, Davis& Elkins and Glenville, because these small towns in Central West Virginia are an absolute haven for distance runners.

I remember the first fall that I ran on the team in Glenville, I truly thought I had died and gone to heaven. Some of those early morning runs through the mist of Gilmer County were breathtaking.

Some of the backwoods trails and back roads here in Upshur County are tremendous as well. I feel blessed to not only coach and run in Buckhannon, but also that this is the town that my kids are getting to grow up in.

 

RunWV: How has your coaching and training philosophy changed over the years?

 

Skiles:The biggest thing to me, is that I now have respect for the value of cross-training. It took me some years to warm up to it. We had some girls with some injury backgrounds, that we finally decided to totally make slaves to a rigorous cross training regime.  It pretty much shocked me that the C-T program produced three league MVP's in cross country. Goolden, Walker, and Terhune all won the whole thing without ever running more than 25 miles in a single week.

 

But they were doing the equivalent of over 80 miles in terms of minutes worked in aerobic training. That opened my eyes in a lot ways, so I am much more open to what kids do in the pool and with their mountain bikes or road bikes these days.

 

I have also learned to use my resources better over the years. Mikey Guinn has been a great friend of mine for years...as a fishing partner and just someone to talk running with. In the years that he has served as my assistant, we have worked out very well together. We have a great hurdle coach in Andrea Perry and a jump coach in Geri Woessner, both national class heptathletes during their college days.  It is great to "talk shop" with these great coaches on a daily basis, and I feel blessed to have them on this staff.

 

RunWV: Running in WV seems to be improving in the past couple of years. What do you think WV runners need to do to continue moving forward?

 

Skiles: This is a topic I have discussed at length with friends like Sean Cleary, Mikey Cox, and Howard Nippert. I hate to over-simplify the matter, but more young WV runners simply need to be more consistent with bigger mileage. Honestly, I think kids just don't log the miles like they used to...but it is coming back around.

 

I can certainly tell you this...they are putting in the miles under coaches like Paul Martin, Chris Parsons, Craig Kellar, Shellie Burda or Terry Spangler. Distance running is coming back around in this state, and I feel the times at last year's state meet are evidence of that.

 

Sean (Cleary) and I have often noted that it is sometimes hard to sell a young runner on the amount of miles that we are asking of them today.  Whereas in the late 80's it was not a big deal for a running group of college-age runners or older to knock off 90-100 mile weeks.

 

It is a simple matter of creating a "distance running" mindset back in the younger runners. Most young runners that are getting the appropriate miles for their age tend to find success...those that don't, generally do not.

 

RunWV: How do you like to structure your race/meet schedules?

 

Skiles: We like to run four or five cross country meets before conference. Then in the winter hit four or five indoor meets in January and February...the longer distance kids will only do a couple of these races, while the middies race each trip.

In the Spring, the college outdoor season is less than two months, so we really have to pick our spots with the steeplers, and 5k and 10k kids. I like to focus on small school meets and have qualifying standards for kids to shoot for, and allow them to hit meets like NC State, Duke, Tennessee, or Virginia Tech or Kent State indoors.

 

It is also important to honor our fellow conference schools, and go to their meets. Hosting meets is very important to the sustenance of our programs, and we try to help each other out in that manner by not going elsewhere when we don't have open weeks.

 

RunWV: What do you look for when you are recruiting an athlete?

Skiles:  The academics is the first priority...every year, we lose four or five kids who could help us because they don't get accepted into Wesleyan. We try to focus on "non-counters"...these are student-athletes who meet academic minimums through the NCAA in which only their institutional aid other than academic money is counted towards track equivalencies.

 

A few of these minimums include a 3.50 or better GPA or being in the top 20% of the graduating class. There are also some SAT and ACT minimums as well. If a kid meets one of these criteria, that greatly helps their aid situations at private schools.

 

As far as the student-athletes themselves go, we rely a lot on our contacts and their recommendations. If a kid has made a mistake along the way, that doesn't necessarily rule him or her out...sometimes a kid just needs some guidance and some care.

 

The types of things I look for are more on the attitude side. If a kid talks back to the coach or is smarting off to his parents, that it is an immediate red flag, and we don't bother with them anymore....no matter how strong their times or marks are.

 

If I see a kid not standing at attention or talking during the National Anthem, then I don't want him or her on our team. I put those types of things down in my notebooks and cross them off. Every year there are kids who want to come here that I intentionally back off of because I have seen him back talk his high school coach of whatever sport or simply shown a bad attitude.

 

But beyond the times and attitudes, the key element is the "race face." Some kids simply have a lot of heart, and race with a high degree of bulldog ferociousness. That can oftentimes go deeper than their high school marks when evaluating what a kid can become as a collegiate athlete.

 

That is definitely a very important part of what we look for. Believe me, you can tell when a kid hates to lose, and deeply cares about the success of his team. That will only bring good things to a college program.

 

We still manage to stumble upon a bad attitude or two these days, but we have certainly gotten better at weeding out the non-team or non-program attitudes over the years.

 

So to answer your question...a kid with good race or field event marks, strong academics, and a good team and sportsmanship attitude. That would draw the interest of a college coach.

 

RunWV: Beatles, Elvis, or Springsteen?

 

Skiles: That is an awesome question. For the sheer impact on our culture and overall quality of the songs, I am going to go with the Beatles over Elvis in a close call.   Music is a very important part of our lives and binds several of my closest friends in the running community. Both Mikeys (Cox and Guinn), Howard Nippert, and myself have seen David Allan Coe in concert over 60 times between the four of us. We have traveled long distances to see DAC. Hank Williams III and various bluegrass bands in the Blacksburg, VA area also popular concert hangouts for us.  It is unbelievable the collections that those guys have in terms of classic country, outlaw country, southern rock, and bluegrass...all three of them. Mikey Cox and I talk almost every day, and whenever the phone is answered, our greeting includes what music we have playing in the office at the time. Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Skynard, Coe....Mikey Cox has a kickin' office when it comes to music.  Right now I am on a bit of a Grateful Dead kick. I have always loved the band, but both of the Mikey's have turned me on to the the two Bluegrass albums Jerry Garcia did in the early 70's called "Old & in the Way." I can't get enough of those CD's in my car right now.

 

(Note to Coach Skiles:  Have you listened yet to “Clinch Mountain Country”?  It’s a collection of songs written or originally performed by Ralph Stanley, but on this CD set, he brings in various guests to sing the songs with him – Bob Dylan, George Jones, Patti Loveless, Dwight Yoakam, just to name a few...oh, and I think Coach Shaw and Coach Seaton may have a counter argument for not picking Springsteen!  rh.)

 

RunWV: What does the future of the WVIAC look like, and WV running in general.

 

Skiles: Our league is coming along better than most people are giving us credit for. We were hammered pretty good about how bad we were after last year's league track meet, but it was actually a pretty good year in some areas. If you look at what Kayla Johnson and Erin Donovan did for Wheeling in the sprints and hurdles, or what Candace Swann of Charleston and Frannie Carvajal for us, did in the throws, it is hard to criticize those performances for D-II athletes. Frannie threw the shot 47-11, and the discus 147 feet, and all she ever really has heard is how bad our league is. Those other kids have to, and that is sometimes unfair. In distance, Chris Snell was very solid, going to the NCAA's in cross, and A-B had some good seasons from Heather McDaniel and Stevie Johnson last year. Leah Erenrich, Missy Spangler, and Stephanie Hatfield had some solid track years for us...Steph's 17:56 in the 5000 and 37:26 in the 10,000 just missed getting her to nationals.

But the biggest thing is, I feel we have some coaches who are really working hard to see it move forward. Mikey and Bruce Cox, Jim Seaton at A-B, Trent Huntsinger...and Will Shaw is a legend over at D&E...all the way back to his great Elkins High teams of the 70's and early 80's. Good folks who love this sport...people need to realize that.

 

As far as the state goes, I feel great about the future for two reasons.

 

One) Sean Cleary.

 

He is absolutely the greatest thing to happen to distance running in this state. Period. A visionary...a proven winner...a man who has chosen to stay here when many would have bolted for more money elsewhere...he may be a Canadian...but he is a true Mountaineer in my opinion.

 

Two) RunWV.com

 

I don't think you can put a price tag on what this site has done for track and cross country in this state. I have seen similar sites in other states, and they don't come close to comparing to the comprehensive services we have with this site. We really need to keep pushing support its way, and count our blessings to have such a valuable resource here in our wonderful state.

 

Personally, I have had great difficulty getting over the horrible events of April 16, 2003...the day WVU dropped the men's programs. I have a book coming out next month on this topic called "Mountaineer Dreams." But I feel that through the collective efforts of many people at many levels in the running community, the running in this state is recovering quite well.... Let's keep working together to make cross country and track vibrant sports in the West Virginia athletic landscape. It is heading in the right direction.