What is the Distance in the Desert – Winter Track Series?

Distance in the Desert – Winter Track Series is a multi meet series specifically designed for the Arizona distance running community. Athletes and Teams can sign up for the entire series or just an individual meet. Athletes are allowed to pick one or two distance events to race per meet with their entry fee. Meets will be spread out around the Phoenix Metro area each year to accommodate our running community and bring awareness to teams and clubs from different parts of the city. There will be races for all ages and ability levels. 

What is the purpose of the winter track series?

Phoenix, Arizona’s unique climate varies greatly from most of the United States and provides us with some of the best distance running weather in the country between December to February. Due to the national sports schedules of high school and club (USATF, AAU), our distance community has been forced in to training and competing in the wrong weather conditions (Spring, Summer, Fall) creating a drain on our sports participation and a decrease in our competitive ability against athletes/teams from around the country.

With this winter track series, the goal is to develop our distance athletes from their fall Cross Country season through to the spring Track season. Whether you use the meets to start building track speed for the spring track season or to pursue larger goals such as times for college recruiting, you will find that your athletes will find this time of year much more enjoyable for the sport of distance running. If we are to build a love of distance running in our community, we need to give our athletes (beginner to advanced) better opportunities in proper conditions. We as coaches have put too much emphasis on training in 90-120 degree weather and neglect our best weather season of the year. It is time to move our sport into the season it belongs in and put our athletes in the best situations for yearly progression.

Schedule of Meets and Why

Meets are spread out three weeks apart. The first meet will take place on the 3rd or 4th weekend of December each year and each meet will take place three weeks apart until the start of the HS track season. This gives our athletes two different avenues for the season. Some athletes will be finishing their cross-country season after State or NXR, others will be continuing to the first or second weekend of December with XC Nationals. In these scenarios, the first set of athletes would most likely be getting their track workouts started at the beginning of December and will have three weeks until the first track opportunity. The second group would either be shutting down for the rest of the month and starting up in the new year or continuing through to pursue track marks for college recruiting and ramping up for hitting the times they need for Chandler Rotary, Arcadia, State, and other meets.  As our weather starts to heat up and the wind begins to become an issue in March-April, our athletes get less opportunities for hitting consistently fast times and Championship racing becomes more of the priority for most. I believe personal bests are still a possibility in the months of April and May but with better quality running conditions in the winter months, our athletes should be seeing an increase in their belief and ability levels as they hit our HS Championship Track Season.

Why do we schedule the 600m, 1k, and 5k in the first meet of the series?

First, it is fun for our athletes to try out unique distances that they don’t normally get the opportunity to run. Second, as our distance athletes are working into track shape, shortening the distance of our events can be beneficial to helping our athletes get into a rhythm for their specific event. Going with the 600m for the 800m runners and 1k for the 1600m runners lets them feel the speed of the event without pushing too hard early in their training. For the 5k, it gives our athletes possibly their only opportunity each year to run a competitive 5k on the track. Each of these distances are collegiate distances that can also be used for recruitment opportunities.