Chris Solinsky — High School Training Profile

Here is the Chris Solinsky profile from John Nepolitan's TRAINING PROFILES: HIGH SCHOOL BOYS DISTANCE, published in 2003. In an earlier post, I looked at the high school profile of my friend, and HPW Deputy Director, Steve Magness. 

It is interesting to note the similarities as well as the differences in Magness' and Solinsky's approaches in high school. 

Both Steve and Chris regularly ran 90+ miles per week for much of the year. Both ran doubles. Chris typically ran only 5 miles in the morning. Steve ran 5 - 8 miles. Their XC training programs are very similar with tempo runs and intervals appearing with regularity every week. And both expressed the utmost faith in their high school coaches — a critical commonality. 

Their training then diverged in interesting ways. Chris never ran longer than 12 miles, Steve frequently ran long runs of 15 - 17 miles in duration. Comparatively, Steve's summer training as a high schooler was far more polarized, touching on 5:00/mile pace some days and 7:30/mile pace on recovery days. Magness put in huge miles in the summer, usually 90-110 per week. Solinsky didn't mention the volume of running he did in the summer. Instead, his focus was entirely on the quality of his running. In the summertime, Solinsky ran most every run at 6:00/mile pace or faster. "No junk miles," as he said. I suppose "junk" meant slower than 6:00/mile pace — what a badass. I'd hate to know how "hard" his 10-12 miles hard in the winter were. 

Being of the same generation as Chris, and now knowing him as a friend, I sincerely appreciate that Nelly's hit song "#1" was his go-to on race day. It was mine too. But he figured out what it took to be #1 whereas I never did.

Thanks for reading. I'm glad you're here. // jm