IndianaRunner

[Drake]

Here you can discuss Ryan Cutter's training.

Feel free to ask questions, make comments, critique or just read!

Ryan will likely chime in and answer.

Here you can find his latest blog entry:
http://indianarunner.com/RyanCutterTrainingBlog2011.aspx

[steburg]

I had heard that you had verbally committed to Central Michigan, what made you switch to IUPUI?

[thurgood-marshall]

Hey! This is Ryan Cutter so all questions will be answered through this account.

Couple quick things as a prelude to your questions. As i stated in my blog I was recruited by several schools prior to my senior year state meet. After I tanked (again haha) at state a lot of places kinda seemed to lose interest in me, many of my scholarship offers either decreased or were taken back. I kind of put myself in a tough situation. So afterwards i narrowed my search to 2 places, IUPUI and C. Michigan. The coach at CMU gave me a deadline to either accept or decline the money....I panicked and accepted. A few weeks later I realized it wasnt where i wanted to be, un-commited and told coach Keoppen I wanted to join him the next year.


This is when things get complicated. Do to some issues with the school (It was my fault as I didn't read the fine details of my acceptance letter and I'd rather not go into details with this.) I won't be offically on the IUPUI team until 2nd semester. I'm still going to train on my own and I plan on running one or two 8k's unattached this year. I plan on being on the Jag roster for track season. As i stated in my Bio I'm excited to hopefully be apart of really good things to come in the future at IUPUI. I think we can be a serious player in the coming years in the Summit league and In the Great Lakes regional. Coach Keoppen and Fruits are phenomenal coaches. For anyone looking to run in college I really strongly encourage you to shoot them and E-mail.

I know I got off track with this but I hope it helps!

[cleveland06]

Do to some issues with the school (It was my fault as I didn't read the fine details of my acceptance letter and I'd rather not go into details with this.) I won't be offically on the IUPUI team until 2nd semester.

What happened? As in, why can you not run cross for IUPUI? I doubt its your academics, to not be eligible you have to have an SAT of sub-700 or something like that, and you wouldn't get into IUPUI with that. I just can't figure this out and an explanation would be helpful, thanks

[thurgood-marshall]

Ill say this, I did not meet one of my admission criteria. I misunderstood (as stated earlier it was completely 100% my fault and I take full blame) and was penalized for it. Ill be racing at IUPUI 2nd semester and im in for the long haul with this team. It was a very silly mistake on my part and I know I let my teammates down.

[cleveland06]

So you're still going to IUPUI first semester, correct?

[thurgood-marshall]

I plan on being in indi first semester.

[1bob11]

Hey Ryan, I was wondering if you changed up anything training wise this year for track. No offense, but at first glance looking at results, it looks like in the past you had a little bit of trouble at the state meet in xc/track. But this year in track, you ran really well at state and got 9th I think. Was it training or mental, or maybe something else that affected your running?

[thurgood-marshall]

No offense taken what so ever! Ill be the first to say I had a problem "choking" at state. After my state finals performance in cross (127th) my coach and I sat down and talked about my final season as a Trojan. I had only two goals for this season

#1. Break a school record individually in something
#2. Medal individually

We devised a plan in the mental and training aspect of things, which I will explain both.

Training-
#1. Get a solid base. I ran an average of above 65 miles a week during the winter months and until about middle of april peaking at 80 miles per week
#2. Indoors does not matter. I ran about 2 indoor meets seriously.
#3. Nothing matters until Regional time. Although I raced meets hard there was no "peaking" or cutting back, I was running hard workouts until postseason time to get ready to go.
#4. The number of races I run per meet will be no more then 2 until conference. My Junior year I often tripled and quad in order to score points for our team. I felt let it was difficult for me to get jacked up for races and left me burnt out.
#5. Dont peak early. My coach held me back in speed workouts until very late. At miracle mile I had done nothing except some interval 1000s and tempos. Nothing under a 1000s had been done. We both felt If I had a strong base 6 weeks would be more then enough time for fast intervals and I think it worked!


Mental
#1. Routine. Our second indoor meet my coach sat me down in a corner and told me to stay there and listen to music until it was time for me to warm-up for my races. This meant I didnt talk to anyone or socialized. The only time I got up was to cheer on my teammates....it may seem harsh but it kept me focused.
#2. Treat workouts as races. Our favorite workout we did this year is something what we called the "666" workout. You run a 600 fast (not all out but quick) then come back and run 2 more 600s after all out then 2 300s all out. My coach made sure I hit my times and constantly reminded me what my goals were during the workouts.
#3. The tracks still 400m. This was something we drilled. Even though It may look a lot bigger the IU track is the same length around as Chesterton High Schools.
#4. Believe Believe Believe. This was the most important. Everything this season was positive. From my coach and teammates. During the hard part of workouts a common phrase I often heard was "your special" It was always positive and kept me moving forward.

This is kind of an overview. I had not run faster then 423 or 157 until conference when I did my first meet at more then 2 events. I had a great day (1:54.5, 4:26. 157.9 and 51.5) and I really contribute this to getting pumped for this meet because with the exception of Miracle I didnt really get psyched up for any meets, once it was postseason time to was go time for me. At state I was nervous of course but I believed in myself, my routine and my training. The track was still 400m and I had a pretty good day. I split 1:52.9 in the 4x8 as our relay ran 7:54.92 to get 10th (fastest time to not medal ever) then came back and was 9th in the open 800 in 1:55.07 just nipping our school record.

I hope this helps a bit. I know its a little long but if you have a more specific question i'd be happy to answer!

[steburg]

You're a very versatile runner as you said that you would triple or even quad a lot of meets your junior year. Your regional triple your junior year was insanely good. How did you decide to focus on the 800 this year and what event to you plan to do in college track?

[whitesox]

Training-
#1. Get a solid base. I ran an average of above 65 miles a week during the winter months and until about middle of april peaking at 80 miles per week
#2. Indoors does not matter. I ran about 2 indoor meets seriously.
#3. Nothing matters until Regional time. Although I raced meets hard there was no "peaking" or cutting back, I was running hard workouts until postseason time to get ready to go.
#4. The number of races I run per meet will be no more then 2 until conference. My Junior year I often tripled and quad in order to score points for our team. I felt let it was difficult for me to get jacked up for races and left me burnt out.
#5. Dont peak early. My coach held me back in speed workouts until very late. At miracle mile I had done nothing except some interval 1000s and tempos. Nothing under a 1000s had been done. We both felt If I had a strong base 6 weeks would be more then enough time for fast intervals and I think it worked!

Very good advice, generally speaking.

[thurgood-marshall]

You're a very versatile runner as you said that you would triple or even quad a lot of meets your junior year. Your regional triple your junior year was insanely good. How did you decide to focus on the 800 this year and what event to you plan to do in college track?

Thanks for the kind words! Well about mid-season we put together an 8:04 4x8. We realized we had a shot at getting to state in that so I knew from then on I would be running the 4x8. Around that time also we realized that we could also put together a very good 4x4 (we had two kids go 49.3 and 49.1 in the open 400 this year as well as i ran 50.9). So due to myself running the 4x4 as well as the amount of tough competition the 3200 was ruled out. So it came down to either the 1600 or 800. It was a difficult choice as both my coach and I felt I was in about 4:14-4:16 1600 shape if I was fresh. A week before sectionals I split 1:54 in the 4x8, but struggled to come back fast and ran about 4:26 in the 1600. I felt like the rest between the 4x8 and 1600 wasn't enough to run a 4:15 or so time. Due to having run well in the 4x8 lately as well as the extra rest the choice was made to run 4x8, open 800, 4x4 at sectionals. My biggest worry was learning to run the open 800 as it was something I had never done before.

My freshman year Indoors I know we've talked about pairing myself, Spencer Burgin, and Dylan Allen together to form a freshman DMR and hopefully run well in that. I would also like to try and run a decent 3k and mile indoors. Outdoors were thinking 1500/Steeple but a lot can change!

[Emale]

Hey Cutter,

I looked at your latest blog and I was wondering have you always ran your runs at that certain pace?

[thurgood-marshall]

Could you elaborate on what "certain pace" means?

[Poochy]

I love you <3

[steburg]

As far as mileage and the types of runs you do, how has your training changed from last summer to this summer? Also, what was your strategy for all of the DAC duel meets in cross?

[thurgood-marshall]

I would say last summer there was a big emphasis on speed while still hitting 55-60 miles per week. I had alot of 3-8 mile runs that were 6 flat or faster last summer. This year (mostly due to not running cross and preparing for track) is to get my base up and get used to running 85-90 miles a week without feeling dead. Most of my runs this summer iv done 640-710 pace. Once a week ill either do a workout/tempo type deal.

Some workouts iv done

Easy tempo (17:30)
Hard tempo (16:20)
3 mile tempo ease in (splits are like 6:40, 5:25, 5:00)
2x8 minutes @ 5:10 pace
or ill just try and close my last mile out in under 5 minutes.

For the DAC duels. In cross we usually split our squad. So of our top 8 guys one meet our #1,3,5,7 guys would run and another meet our # 2,4,6,8 guys. When I raced I would try and race to win or make sure one of my teammates won. This was sometimes difficult with great runners like Ahmad Aljobeh and Mitch Hubner.

In track I liked to try and make races tactical. Go out slow and try to kick. A typical duel meet I would run the 1600, 800 4x4. I wanted to try to make the races go out slow and just kick. This was also difficult because one of our duels in track its Chesterton-Laporte-Valpo, so Hubner Ahmad and I all ran the mile against eachother....that was a douzy

[steburg]

Yeah, I had always wondered what you guys did in the duels, because in the NCC, everyone races hard every week.