Nov. 27, 2002

By John Roth, Courtesy of Blue Devil Weekly

When the Duke women finished 17th at the NCAA cross country meet on Monday, it marked the end of the best season in their program's history. But that ending may be only the beginning for a long run of success for these Blue Devils.

With excellent recruiting over the last couple of years and an emphasis on smarter training this fall, coach Jan Ogilvie fielded a team that spent the season ranked in the national top 25 and entered the NCAA meet at No. 14. And the most promising aspect may be that the core of the team consists of freshmen. Six newcomers joined the program this year and in most meets, including the NCAAs, the Devils' five scorers were from the first-year class. Two of the freshmen finished in the top six at the NCAA regionals, and one, Caroline Bierbaum, made All-America with a 34th-place showing at Monday's nationals.

Bierbaum, the Devils' top runner all season, said the team entered the NCAA meet just hoping to have fun and avoid too much nervousness. "We're pretty much all freshmen with three more years ahead of us. We're not one of the top five in the nation so no one really is expecting anything of us. We just want to go as hard as we can and see what happens," Bierbaum noted before the squad left for Indiana State.

Expectations are likely to increase each year as this group grows and matures. How the runners handle more intensive training should play a major part in the way they develop. This year, much of the training was aimed at making sure the young athletes from vastly different backgrounds were able to make a smooth transition from high school and remain healthy enough to get to the starting line for each meet.

Ogilvie's assistant coach, former Georgetown standout Kevin Jermyn, handles distance training for the program. "We didn't train at 100 percent intensity and risk injury this year," he said. "We tried to keep everybody healthy and aerobically fit. We didn't do tons of speedwork or anaerobic stuff to push the envelope on their fitness. I knew coming in that we'd be a freshman-sophomore dominated team and that we have a couple more years to develop them, so this year we focused on the basics, the core, and we'll build upon it in future years."

Part of that core was a heavy emphasis on lifestyle issues that can impact the athletes' performances. The runners heard plenty of lectures on proper nutrition and the value of getting enough sleep each night so their bodies would better be able to handle academic pressure, social stress and the physical demands of distance training.

"Training is really more than what you do at practice. Training is what you do at practice plus the remaining 22 or 23 hours of the day. It's really a 24-hour commitment," said Jermyn.

"A lot of coaches focus completely on that one- to two-hour practice they have, but don't give too much instruction about what good decisions you can make the remainder of the day. We spend a lot of time teaching them about what they should do at practice and away from practice. Then what they do with it is up to them."

"They definitely want us to consider this a part of our lifestyle and not just two hours that we do every day," said Bierbaum. "I knew a lot about some of these things at the basic level, but they've definitely explained things so we'd understand it more thoroughly and know why we're doing certain things. It's very professional and a little more scientific. I definitely feel running has changed my lifestyle more than it did in high school."

During those daily practices, Jermyn put more focus on heart rate monitor training this fall. With that type of training, athletes are supposed to run in certain heart rate zones - as defined by a percentage of their maximum heart rate - depending on what kind of workout they are doing. They wear heart monitors and try to hit a certain range for an aerobic or recovery workout, and a different zone if it's a harder training day.

That obviously meant a more individualized approach to training, which had an underlying benefit according to the coaches. With everyone on their own pace based on their own physiology, it kept the runners away from too much unhealthy competition with each other on a daily basis.

"They are all extremely competitive and want to be great," said Jermyn. "But you have to learn that you train to become prepared to race faster. Otherwise, they would go out and try to be the best in every single workout, with the reasoning that to be in the top five on the team, you have to be in the top five at every practice. You don't race in practice to boost your ego on an everyday basis. I think they understand now the whole goal of training is to get fitter so you race well, and heart rate training helps that."

Coming into the year, Jermyn had athletes accustomed to running a wide range of weekly miles. On one end of the scale, Bierbaum had built up her volume to about 70 miles a week, while at the other end, Shannon Rowbury was used to doing from 25 to 40 miles a week. To balance out those extremes, Jermyn wanted Bierbaum to drop down a few miles but increase her intensity for certain workouts, while Rowbury needed to decrease her intensity and increase her volume.

Regardless of mileage, one thing they all enjoyed was the chance to run with others of similar ability. Most were so dominant in high school that they were always running alone at the front of the pack. "I like running with people who are capable of running with me," Bierbaum said. "We're usually within 10 to 20 seconds of each other in races, so we can run with each other in workouts, which is nice."

"These girls are all talented and competitive," said Jermyn. "If you get them on the line healthy and motivated, they are going to do very, very well. Get them on the line healthy, motivated and really fit, and they are going to be incredible.

"This year for the most part they've been healthy, they're talented and competitive and they've done great. Two or three years down the road, as we gradually increase their training volume and intensity and do things away from the track better, they are going to be that much better."