The Internet's Home for the History of Cross-Country Running. Buy the book: https://xitter.cf/t.co/XEoUAhx3s7
Joined March 2015
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It's rare to uncover an event w/ Prefontaine that has never been shared...alongside
✓ Inaugural OR girl's state meet
✓ Fastest prep harrier team
✓ Fastest JuCo harrier team
✓ 13 year-old barrier-breaking phenom
...all in the same race 45 years ago.
link.medium.com/ope3eKIwS0
The Real XC retweeted
Frank Gagliano was a college quarterback.
After his career, he was hired to start a football team at a high school. While waiting, he coached track. They never started the football team.
Gags went on to become one of the greatest American distance coaches in history: 15 Olympians, 140 All-Americans, 43 sub-4 milers.
He passed away this week.
We often think that you've got to have done it or experienced it to coach it. Gags was never a runner. He just wanted to coach, the true essence of the word, helping people out.
“I don’t have golf clubs. I have a stopwatch." And like the best 'old school' coaches, he'd help whoever showed up.
I was a former high school phenom, struggling in college. Then I got a call from an unknown number.
"Steve. We've never met. It's Gags with the Farm Team. I just wanted you to know that you're great. Talent doesn't go away. Stick with it. You've got people who believe in you. If I can ever help, let me know."
He called a struggling 19-year-old out of nowhere, while running the best professional team in the country.
In an era where training got really complicated, Gags kept it simple. His philosophy was strength + speed, consistently for a long freaking time.
“Everyone has to be patient in development. Everyone has to enjoy the sport, have a lot of fun, and work really hard.”
More than the workouts, his real secret was the one every great coach shares. Relationships. His son Ralph put it best:
“As a track coach, you have very large teams, many participants, and he carried over the years very special relationships — not only with the great ones, but even with the ordinary athlete.”
He was still coaching into his late 80s.
“As long as my mind is in the sport for workouts, so I don’t deprive the men and women that I’m coaching, I’ll keep coaching.”
And this summer, at 89, when they named a national championship race after him, “I’m not a cocky man. I’m the guy that just coaches, and the athletes mean everything to me, everything.”
He was a coach’s coach. Someone who lost his first meet 112 to 15, and then went on to become an all-time great...despite never having run.
Because the point was to help people....even those he didn't coach.
RIP Gags.
The Real XC retweeted
One of cross country’s most iconic courses, with a history to match 🌳
Paul Snyder explores the legendary Holmdel Park in the latest edition of Course of History ⬇️
milesplit.com/articles/72778…
The Real XC retweeted
What International Cross Country Gets Right 📏
"We all know that looking at a time an athlete posted on a dubiously measured, bone-dry 8km course that’s been steamrolled and contains minimal turns is not equivalent to what their competition ran across the country through a mountainous bog in a Nor’easter. And yet, we talk about cross country times in a vacuum, instead of merely as a way to gauge how quickly a particular course ran on a given day.
The professional European model avoids this—incidentally—by throwing athletes onto 9.28km, 9.707km, 9.3km, and all other lengths of courses, and continuing to hold meets that have existed for 70+ years."
📫 Read more via @TheLapCount: thelapcount.substack.com/i/2…
This is the way. I’m always shocked when people pack everything and the kitchen sink. Researched Zatopek in Brno, CZ on a Friday. Flew to London for Thames Hare and Hounds BTS. On Saturday, ATV tour in Iceland at the fjords. On Sunday, in CA. Teachers salary. One backpack.
Love to see it 👀
FISU Leadership Visits IOC President Kirsty Coventry 🤝
@iocmedia International Olympic Committee – IOC President Kirsty Coventry welcomed FISU President @LeonzEder and Secretary General/CEO Matthias Remund to her office at IOC headquarters for an exchange of views.
FISU has been an IOC-recognised federation since 1961, and in 2016 the two multisport federations signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). 📝
Read more 👇
fisu.net/2026/10/15/fisu-lea…
#Unisport #FISU #IOC
The Real XC retweeted
Middle school and elementary school cross country races quite honestly are the sport in its absolute purest form and its amazing
Excited to see if Team USA enters a cross country running team and how they perform on the world stage.
100 DAYS TO CHANGCHUN 🇺🇸❄️
The 2027 FISU Winter World University Games are officially 100 days away!
Jan 15–25, Team USA's student-athletes take on the world in China.
From Campus to Team USA. The countdown is on.
#FromCampusToTeamUSA #Changchun2027 #TeamUSA
Interesting technical information for the @FISU Winter Games in January 2027.
Who will represent @UniUSATeam for XC?
@usatf
@USTFCCCA
@NCAA
The Real XC retweeted
FOR CROSS COUNTRY
I'll close my cross country posts with one important conclusion reached over my 43 year coaching career: Cross Country coaches wear many hats, one of those is that of a promoter, and promoting cross country requires a lot of extra effort and creativity.
The Real XC retweeted
Cross country needs more hills with names, times that need explaining, and races remembered for who beat whom.
MileSplit expert Paul Snyder makes the case for bringing back the lost art of the hard course.
milesplit.com/articles/72209…
The Real XC retweeted
SUNDAY DOUBLE HEADER
FOR CROSS COUNTRY
CC runners have some cool expressions. One that I like is "getting walked down," which means there's a runner behind you and he or she is coming up fast.
The Real XC retweeted
A school in Illinois made students exercise before class and accidentally discovered one of the most powerful learning drugs on earth.
They made the kids run.
The school was Naperville Central High School.
Every morning, students would show up before their first class, put on heart rate monitors, and exercise hard enough to push their heart rates into a specific zone.
Then they went straight to class.
The results caught the attention of a Harvard psychiatrist named John Ratey.
Because something strange was happening to these kids.
They weren't just getting fitter.
They were becoming better students.
When Naperville students later took TIMSS, an international test used to compare math and science performance across countries, they scored among the highest in the world.
Ratey spent years studying why.
And the answer completely changed how I think about exercise.
When you exercise, your brain releases a protein called BDNF.
Ratey calls it "Miracle-Gro for the brain."
It helps brain cells grow, strengthens the connections between them, and makes it easier for your brain to absorb new information.
Exercise also increases dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.
The exact chemicals your brain uses for attention, motivation, and learning.
Which means those students weren't exercising instead of learning.
They were exercising so their brains could learn.
I think most of us have this completely backwards.
We treat exercise as the thing we do when the important work is finished like:
> I'll work out after I study.
> After I write.
> After I finish this project.
> After I get through my inbox.
And when life gets busy, exercise is the first thing we remove because it feels like we're buying ourselves another hour.
But Ratey's work suggests you're making a terrible trade.
You're gaining an hour of time while making the brain that has to use those hours worse at learning.
I've started thinking about exercise less like fitness and more like preparation.
If I have something difficult to learn, write, or solve, movement shouldn't come after it.
It should come before it.
You're probably not too busy to exercise.
You're too busy to learn slowly.
The Real XC retweeted
FOR CROSS COUNTRY
I've always liked this Bob Symons insight: "Cross Country is a very demanding sport in that runners must be prepared to adapt to a wide range of terrain while competing in a race--things like steep uphills, sharp downhills, and uneven footing."
The Real XC retweeted
FOR CROSS COUNTRY
Forty-five years ago Penn State's Peter Cavanagh, using an in-ground force plate, tested 17 runners to determine loading force. Results indicated runners sustained loading forces of two to three times their body weight for every step.
The Real XC retweeted
🚨 BREAKING 🚨
Nike Cross Nationals is growing its qualification pathway to give more top teams a shot at the national title in Portland!
Key changes:
✅ At-large team bids increase from 4 → 6 per gender
✅ Up to 5 individual at-large bids now available
✅ New York & Northeast Regionals merge into one combined region
✅ Teams up to 5th place at regionals can now be considered for at-large selection
More paths to Portland. Same elite standard. 🔥
Registration & qualifying details at NikeCrossNationals.com
#NXN @DyeStat @Nike
The Real XC retweeted
At end of XC practice, I brought 7 runners of different abilities to front of team & shared how each one contributes to our team’s culture. It was reminder that you don’t have to be fastest runner on team to make a difference. Every person has something valuable to contribute.
🤖 Made with AI
