Concordia College Thunder Set Sights on Prime Finishes

Primarily based in Edmonton, Canada, Concordia College is a small however robust cross nation program. With fall cross nation races a few month away, Head Coach Matt Norminton and the workforce are centered on full preparation for the upcoming season.

“With the boys’s workforce, we’re trying to enhance upon final 12 months. We completed fifth on the ACAC championships so it might be nice to see us type of get again up into the highest three” stated Coach Norminton. “We’ve received some good rookies coming, so it ought to be a aggressive workforce once more. I don’t suppose we’ll essentially be vying for a championship, but it surely’d be nice to see us take that subsequent step up. The ladies appear to be in a little bit of a rebuild part. We received a pair good rookies coming into this system.”

With expertise as an athlete from highschool all the way in which to the skilled degree, Coach Norminton is stuffed with the know-how to coach collegiate athletes. Not solely does he have years of expertise, however has run each occasion from the 800 all the way in which as much as the marathon competitively, highlighted by a second place end on the Canadian marathon nationwide championships.

“I’ve had some nice coaches alongside the way in which to assist information me and form my very own teaching philosophy. In order that has been an enormous assist after all” stated Coach Norminton. “Over time, I nonetheless leap into a variety of exercises myself and run with the blokes, not a lot the final 12 months or two, however after I was just a little bit youthful I’d run to get a really feel for the exercise.”

With most of the workforce having had seasons that ran deep into the summer time, Coach Norminton is resting a few of his athletes earlier than starting a brief run of summer time coaching.

“So we’re on a little bit of a transition proper now. We did relays, a few guys did some out of doors monitor meets. The Alberta Provincial championships lately occurred. Nationals are over with. So for lots of the workforce I’ve inspired them to take every week or two, or simply get in some simple quantity earlier than we begin to do some exercises once more for cross nation,” stated Coach Norminton. “After every week or two of quantity and a few base work, we’ll begin to transfer into some tempo exercises first…It could possibly be something like thrice 10 minutes or two by quarter-hour, often in that 30 to 40 minutes kind of quantity. Then as soon as we type of get a few these underneath our belts, we’ll throw in some hill exercises. So nothing loopy, definitely nothing revolutionary. However like I stated, we cannot be banging out any exhausting kilometer repeats or mile repeats at this cut-off date, you realize, or come mid to late September.”

With a small workforce on each the boys’s and ladies’s aspect, the workforce is a tightly knit, cohesive unit that works intently with Coach Norminton. In most seasons, the whole workforce will journey collectively to meets, everybody is aware of everybody nicely, and the squad is supportive of each other.

“Normally [the team] will not be a lot greater than 15 to twenty athletes, so it’s a fairly small workforce…We all the time journey to our races on our personal. Even when it’s going as much as Grand Prairie or going out of Calgary, we don’t are likely to share buses with different groups” stated Coach Norminton. “I like that we’re all within the band collectively, sharing some jokes and tales…In all probability my favourite half in regards to the tradition and the workforce that we’ve developed is that we nonetheless have a variety of our alumni come out and run in our membership.” The Thunder will make their fall season debut at residence on September seventh. They’ll be trying to lead out robust with the ACAC championships simply six weeks after their residence opener.

Comply with together with their upcoming performances right here.

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