asics Greenville Track Club-ELITE - a post-collegiate, Olympic development program
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ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Zach Mains returned to his home state of Pennsylvania for the 40th running of Philadelphia's Broad Street Run 10-mile and placed 18th overall in a field of over 35,000 runners. Zach covered the first three miles in 14:48 before passing the halfway point at five miles in 24:50. At that point he was in 14th place. His paced began to slow somewhat by 7 miles (35:20) and considerably more over the final three miles as he posted a finishing time of 51:52 (5:11 per mile).
GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 47-year-old Greenville Track Club, ScanSource, Joy Real Estate, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Boston Bill Sunglasses, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, DorsiFlex, Coach Bob Williams' Pace Calculator and Synergy Performance (mental performance). The club is a proud member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.
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 Ryan Bugler during training. ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Ryan Bugler ran 15:03 to win the Hot Flash 5K road race in Cayce, SC. He took the lead before 3K on the winding course through the the historical and beautiful woodlands of Cayce’s new Timmerman Trail along Congaree Creek. The victory was worth $250. Bugler's ASICS GTC-ELITE teammate, Avery Martin, placed third with a time of 15:26 and earned $100.
GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 47-year-old Greenville Track Club, ScanSource, Joy Real Estate, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Boston Bill Sunglasses, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, DorsiFlex, Coach Bob Williams' Pace Calculator and Synergy Performance (mental performance). The club is a proud member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.  ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE is excited to announce their partnership with Stryd "Run with Power," which is based out of Boulder, Colorado. Stryd's Evan Swartz commented, "Stryd is a wearable power meter designed for running. As a foot pod that clips on the shoe Stryd is able to report an incredible amount of data based on the motion of the foot. Stryd can be used by anyone to improve their running performance and we are extremely excited to help the Greenville Track Club-ELITE learn more about their running to aid in training towards their goals." Stryd is leading the evolution of measuring "power" for running. "Power" has been utilized by elite cyclists and their coaches for quite some time and calculates the work completed in units or watts. "We believe some of the metrics gained from using Stryd's power meters will allow us to get a better understanding of workloads on not only a specific workout, but for a specific training micro or mesocycle," explained Mike Caldwell. Caldwell, the Director/Coach for the post-collegiate, Olympic-development program, has a formal educational background in Movement Science and stays current with new concepts and technologies. "Since we don't plan our training by the number of miles, but more about the active duration, measuring "power" and the resulting parameters are very interesting measurement concepts," Caldwell continued. "We have been using Stryd for a few months and are still in the early stages of calibrating with our athletes and learning which metrics are more important to monitor." Stryd is also compatible with most GPS watches and transfers data to the Final Surge app, which ASICS GTC-ELITE uses to plan, record and monitor their training. Stryd measures your running power. Power accounts for your speed, terrain change, form, and fatigue, so you can conquer any race course in real time — from 5K to marathon. GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 47-year-old Greenville Track Club, ScanSource, Joy Real Estate, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Boston Bill Sunglasses, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, DorsiFlex, Coach Bob Williams' Pace Calculator and Synergy Performance (mental performance). The club is a proud member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.
 ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Cristina McKnight placed fourth in the 2019 Eugene (Oregon) Half Marathon with a new personal best of 1:16:40. The time, which is a 5:52 per mile average, was 1 minute and 41 seconds faster than her time at January's Aramco Houston Half Marathon where she ran her previous PB of 1:18:21. Cristina ran very even spilts as she covered the first 5 miles in 29:24 (5:53 per mile) and ten miles in 58:40 (5:53 pace).
This was her first competition since relocating to Greenville from Cincinnati, OH, earlier this year to join the post-collegiate, Olympic-development program. McKnight now has the sixth fastest women's time in the history of the Eugene Half Marathon. GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles and one qualifier for the 2019 Pam American Games in. Lima, Peru. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 47-year-old Greenville Track Club, ScanSource, Joy Real Estate, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Boston Bill Sunglasses, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, DorsiFlex and Synergy Performance (mental performance). The club is a proud member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.  From right to left in striped singlets are ASICS GTC-ELITE's Zach Mains, Eddie Garcia, Joe Niemiec and Victor Pataky. ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Eddie Garcia placed third in the 42nd TD Bank Reedy River Run 10K in downtown Greenville, SC. After running with eventual winner James Quattlebaum for much of the race, he finished with a time of 30:33 to earn $500 and an additional $100 for second South Carolina resident. Quattlebaum won with a time of 30:18 over the very challenging course. ON ZAP Endurance's Aaron Nelson was second with a time of 30:26.
Three of Garcia's ASICS GTC-ELITE teammates also placed among the top nine in the very competitive field. Joe Niemiec, running in only his second race since joining the program, placed seventh with a time of 31:14. He was followed by Zach Mains (8th) with a time of 31:50 and Victor Pataky (9th) at 32:17. GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 47-year-old Greenville Track Club, ScanSource, Joy Real Estate, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Boston Bill Sunglasses, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, DorsiFlex and Synergy Performance (mental performance). The club is a proud member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.  Pataky (2585) following Indiana's Murphy over the water barrier. ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Victor Pataky ran to a second place finish in the 3,000-meter Steeplechase at the Tennessee Relays in Knoxville, TN. On a warm late Friday afternoon, with steady winds buffeting the track down the backstretch, the Centre College graduate ran 9:15.81 in his first attempt at the steeplechase since joining the post-collegiate program last August. Although well off his personal best of 9:03.87, he was competitive for much of the race. Indiana University's Joseph Murphy won in a time of 9:06.08.
Pataky's teammate, Avery Martin, placed 20th in the 1500 meters with a time of 3:51.69. It was Martin's second competition since joining the program in late February and a big improvement over his initial 1500 last month. GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 47-year-old Greenville Track Club, ScanSource, Joy Real Estate, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Boston Bill Sunglasses, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, DorsiFlex and Synergy Performance (mental performance). The club is a proud member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.  Eddie Garcia ASCIS Greenville Track Club-ELITE's Eddie Garcia ran 29:57 to place 10th overall in South Carolina's largest road race. On an overcast and humid morning the 2015 Southeastern Conference 10K champion covered the first half of the Cooper River Bridge Run 10K race in 15:18. He then ran the second half of the race, which includes the decline coming down the bridge, in 14:39. Garcia was the third American to finish as Colin Beenie (29:01) was 7th and Jordan Mann (29:54) ninth.The first six finishers were either Kenyan or Ethiopian as the winner, Kenya's Silas Kipruto, ran a speedy 27:58. With the gun-time temperature at 66 degrees and the humidity hovering near 95 percent, the 6.2-mile race presented challenges, but a thick fog settled over the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge and very light winds made the course not has daunting as in years past. There were 29,230 finishers. Eddie earned $250 for his overall finish and $1000 as third USA citizen for a total of $1250. GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 47-year-old Greenville Track Club, ScanSource, Joy Real Estate, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Boston Bill Sunglasses, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, DorsiFlex and Synergy Performance (mental performance). The club is a proud member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.  Top 10 Men at Cooper River Bridge Run 10K. Eddie Garcia on left.  ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE, the Greenville, SC based post-collegiate, Olympic-development program, is proud to announce it is continuing their partnership with Final Surge. Final Surge is an application providing communication between coaches and athletes for planning and recording their training. "We have been utilizing Final Surge for the past two years to communicate with our athletes in both a planning and real-time on-line environment," stated Director/Coach Mike Caldwell. "While we previously used other on-line systems, we believe Final Surge meets our needs the best. We can plan training on both an individual and team basis and quickly make the necessary changes that are needed to adapt to the results of the training cycle. The staff at FS have been very responsive to our needs as their system continues to evolve." "While our coaches usually use FS on our computers so we can view work with a more holistic overview of the training cycle, we really like the capacity to access the program on our mobile devices when at the training venue. We also like that our athletes can quickly upload their completed training session from their GPS and smartwatches. With the almost real-time results and comments, we can ensure that we are flexible in our training plans and make appropriate changes when necessary." Train with a Purpose™Final Surge is dedicated to bringing athletes and coaches of all types the very best online training product on the market. Founded and created by both athletes and coaches, we understand your needs in today's training environment. GTC-ELITE was established in 2012. The program produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles. The post-collegiate, Olympic development program is sponsored by ASICS, the 47-year-old Greenville Track Club, ScanSource, Joy Real Estate, generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Boston Bill Sunglasses, Roll Recovery products, FinalSurge (on-line training log), The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, NormaTec Recovery Boots, Cocoa Elite recovery products, Stryd Running, DorsiFlex and Synergy Performance (mental performance). The club is a proud member of both the Road Runners Club of America and USATF.
“If you’ve got a coaching position, grow where you’re planted,” offered Mike. “Don’t always be looking to go somewhere else. Opportunities will come up. Most people are looking for opportunities before they’ve had success.” Here is the link to the School of Track's interview with ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE coaches Laura and Mike Caldwell. https://schooloftrack.org/2019/03/27/gtc-elite/.
The School of Track is a website providing "resources for track & field coaches." The following is an interview in the most recent Women's Running Coaching Collective newsletter. The interview was written by Charlotte Richardson, a founding member of the WRCC organization. Laura Ledbetter Caldwell - A Master Coach What makes someone a Master in their field? In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell says mastery in a field takes roughly 10,000 hours. Over the many years as a competitor and then a coach, Laura has accumulated more than the prerequisite 10,000 hours. Coaching middle and distance runners at the high school, college, and professional level, Laura has become a Master Coach in the coaching world. Her style ranges from the brilliant to the common sense. She knows the science of running, but excels in the art. To spend a season under the leadership of Coach Caldwell, you would be doing a Masters in Elite Coaching. Season planning, writing and executing workouts, the psychology of runners, goal setting, organization and administration would be your curriculum. Coach Laura Caldwell has the experience, the knowledge, and the grace of a Master. As a runner, Laura ran at the college and professional levels, achieving both national and international recognition. When at Florida State, Laura Ledbetter Caldwell held the 800 meter school record. In her post collegiate career she ran as a professional distance runner, competing for NIKE. Among her many running accomplishments, Laura placed 8th in the 1987 USA Women's Marathon Championships, won the 1992 Seattle Marathon, won the USA Masters 5,000 Track Championship, and was the 1993 USA Masters Cross Country Champion. At age 43, she ran 1:15:52 for a half marathon. Her incredible talent as a runner allowed her success in events ranging from the 800 to the marathon! Coach Laura Caldwell has been successful at the high school, college, and elite levels. She was a founding member of the Portland, OR, women's running club, Team Athena, and was their first president. As the cross country and track coach of the girls team at Lake Oswego HS, Oregon, her runners consistently qualified for the Oregon 6A State Meet, and reached the podium in 2007. In the 1980's she was the editor of the successful publication, Racing South Magazine. In 2010 she joined the coaching staff at Furman University, along with her husband Mike Caldwell. She currently coaches with the Greenville Track Club Elite. In the interview below we get to glimpse into the world of running and coaching, as Coach Caldwell shares her insights, experiences, and knowledge.  Laura Ledbetter Caldwell - Runner Running has been one of the loves of your life. Can you tell us why you have competed, coached, managed, written about and supported runners and running over the years? Why has it been such a passion of yours? Growing up pre-title IX, I really didn’t have the opportunity to explore different sports and find one that I was attracted to. In high school, you could play golf or tennis (girl sports) or be a cheerleader—that was it! However, I was always a bit of a tomboy, playing sports with the neighborhood kids and generally running around all day long. So unbeknownst to me, I was actually setting myself up to gravitating to some organized sport. When I got to Florida State University, I accidently found running by enrolling in a track and field class run by Dr. Kenneth Miller, who was the former coach of the men’s track program. At the time he was coaching the women’s track club (not an official school team because title IX wouldn’t start for another year). It was here under his coaching that I discovered my love of running and I was “off to the races” after that. Title IX was enacted and FSU started a women’s track and field team my sophomore year. I walked on and became one of the first women to get an athletic scholarship at the school. During this time I found that I loved running and competing but also a sense that I had been offered this wonderful opportunity to compete and get an education. I didn’t realize it at the time but it was instilling in me this desire to help bring others into our sport and all it has to offer. How did your journey as a woman runner to a women’s coach evolve? Did being an elite runner help your coaching? How did you get started in coaching? As with how I sort of fell into running personally, my evolving into becoming a coach happened much the same way. After undergrad, I entered the masters counseling program at FSU—a two-year program—and was offered a grad-assistant position to help with the women’s track and field and cross country programs my first year. I found I loved being involved with helping the women on the team train and compete, and it allowed me to continue running as well. My second year I was hired to be an assistant coach at Florida High School (FSU’s educational school). Here I coached girls in the 400m on up. This was even more rewarding to me because I was helping new athletes who had never experienced track and field before. As I started coaching, I took what I was doing as an athlete and tried to adapt it to how I coached my runners. So I have to admit there was some early trial and error, which helped me come to a major realization that less is more training-wise! You have been a coach for a long time. What are the changes you have seen in the acceptance and respect for women coaches? I think when Title IX first came into being men rushed in to fill positions that were available because there were just not that many women participants, club coaches, etc.—men had been doing sport for a long time, women not so much! Now you have many women coaching other women, but just a few women coaching men. However, that would have been unheard of years ago. So things are changing, slowly, but they’re changing! The other thing I’ve noticed is women’s voices are given more weight than just 20 years ago. I still had to deal with a few bubbas when I coached at Lake Oswego High School just ten years ago. Luckily, I had a great head coach there in Eric Lider (since retired) who treated me with respect and kindness, while having my back if I needed him.  Coach Laura Ledbetter Caldwell Could you recommend running resources to other women coaches? Books, research, websites? I read a lot of articles on training, nutrition, recovery, etc. and then try to find other articles to back up the ones I’m reading. This is so I can get an idea of where the information is coming from (thank you Goggle!). However, if you need one resource on training that I think is the best for giving you ideas on how to train distance athletes (800m on up), that would be Dr. Jack Daniels’ Running Formula. I’ve found myself referring to it often for help. Then, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my greatest resource—my husband Mike, who majored in exercise physiology and is relentless in keeping up with the latest research! You have coached men and women, boys and girls. What are the similarities and differences (if any) in coaching two genders? I would like to say there are no differences—I have found both to be incredibly competitive and hard workers. However, what I have observed is that girls and women are a little easier to coach as far as the process goes. They listen and usually do what is asked. Boys and men tend to pay attention more to the sport, read up on everyone’s training, and know all of their competitors (thanks social media!). This can be a blessing and a curse. I often hear, “so and so did this workout” or “this runner ran x-amount of miles per week” from the guys. So you do get some that need to learn to stay in their lane! The other issue that can arise with women is a need to pay attention to menstrual cycles. For most women and girls this is not an issue, but for the ones that it is, I like to keep up with where they are in their cycle as it can impact their effort for that particular workout or race. So these are my own personal observations during my many years of coaching both sexes. Do you goal set with your athletes for the season? And do you goal set prior to a race or competition? Goal setting is an integral part of our Greenville Track Club-Elite program. After all, if your athletes don’t know what they are trying to accomplish, training can become tiresome and even a “grind”. I’ve used goal setting for every athlete I’ve ever coached—from high school to the elite level. Anyone should be able to state what they want to do. The important thing as a coach is helping them to verbalize and then follow through on the training needed to reach those goals. In sitting down with an athlete to discuss goals, I like them to have thought before hand what these are. Then together in our meeting we discuss long term goals, short term goals, pie-in-the-sky goals, small goals and the minimum that would make them feel successful. I even had one young lady who broke her goals down into 3-6 months, 6-12 months, 12-24 months and included every day goals like getting enough sleep and making every run intentional and fun! As for individual races, I like my athletes to own what they want to get out of a competition, but in a realistic way. Then, we can do a visualization exercise so they see themselves performing the way they want, usually the day before a competition.  "I’ve used goal setting for every athlete I’ve ever coached—from high school to the elite level. Anyone should be able to state what they want to do. The important thing as a coach is helping them to verbalize and then follow through on the training needed to reach those goals." How do you work with different abilities on a team? Do you individualize or customize workouts? Could you give us an example of how you create workouts in a team situation? When I coached high school, I found you have to be creative and adaptive in your workout creations. At Lake Oswego HS we had almost 100 kids on our cross country team, from new runners to seasoned veterans. I was also fortunate that we were able to combine the boys’ and girls’ workouts and break down into 4-5 different training groups by ability. At the beginning of the season we would run a 3000m cross country race that would give us an idea of where each runner fell on our training grid. Then we’d break them down into comparable groups for each workout. I would re-evaluate everyone after each meet. This worked out well and I never had any problems, fortunately, with egos. What is a “signature” Laura Caldwell workout for cross country you could share with other coaches? What part of the season would the athletes do this workout? I’m a big believer in the 1000m distance as a standard for interval work. At Lake Oswego HS, I liked to measure a 1000m distance in a park across the street from the high school (our home course for XC and very hilly) with each 200m marked. At the beginning of the season, I’d start the stronger kids on 3-5 x 1k at threshold pace with 2:30 minutes rest. These are the runners who trained over the summer break and are ready to build back up quickly. For my other training groups I could customize the workout to be more to their abilities, such as fewer and slower 1000m’s or shorter distances anywhere from 400m-800m. Everyone enjoyed getting off the track and taking a run through the woods. However, if no trails available, you could easily do this on the track as well. In having coached many young women over the years, how have you handled the young ladies who struggle as they go through puberty? How do you keep them involved and supported? I’ve seen this happen enough times to young ladies over the years and it tugs at my heart each time. Puberty is harder for some than others. This is such a personal matter with each athlete—some handle it and some don’t. I found that letting them know that other young women have been in the same place helps, along with recalibrating their goals for where they are now and recognizing how much they mean to the team. When dealing with my high school athletes, I always let them know I was available whenever they needed to talk about anything. I tried to be intuitive as well and step in to remind them that I’m available if it looked as though they needed some support and encouragement. We also had team building activities throughout the season to help create a sense of community and bond between our athletes.  On athletes going through puberty - The above interview appeared in the Women's Running Coaches Collective (WRCC) Newsletter #18 on March 21, 2019. Their Mission Statement is: "The Women's Running Coaches Collective exists to support, unite, inform, inspire, encourage, and empower women coaches at all levels of our sport. " It consists of Mellisa Hill, Laura Caldwell, Nikki Rafie, Helene Hutchinson, Kathy Mills Parker, Amy Yoder Begley, Robyn McGillis and Charlotte Lettis Richardson. Their mailing address is: womensrunningcoachescollective@gmail.com.
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