Briana Boehmer and the Lady Spartans: Running with Technology
3 June 2008This year, Coach Briana Boehmer and her Lady Spartans at the Brookfield East High School women’s distance track team decided to take their training up a notch by incorporating the use of GPS technology, heart rate monitors, and Peaksware data analysis software to better monitor their training, progress, and fatigue. By teaming up with Peaksware, a company founded on “passion for athletic achievement and creating something new with existing technology”, the Spartans are using GPS and heart rate monitors as a way to train more intelligently.
Coach Briana Boehmer explains how Peaksware’s technology has helped the team this year. “Five runners use the monitors on a daily basis to track distance covered, pace, and heart rate. The monitors are now a part of the girl’s regular routine and have even been given names (who knew GPS units would have names like “Bruce”?). The most significant immediate improvement the runners have experienced is a better understanding of pace and effort. Now when coach Boehmer asks her athletes to do a run at a pace of “x” minutes per mile, the girls can follow her instructions exactly. The software provided by Peaksware allows coach Boehmer to analyze how the girls are handling training load, their ability to recover, what paces they are able to train at, and where weaknesses lie.”
The benefits of training “smarter” became quickly apparent only about a month into the season. “On Friday, May 12th the Brookfield East female distance runners saw the benefit of adaptive training with technology when nearly every runner hit personal records! In the 1600 Shannon Gregg ran all alone, and pushed herself to a PR in 5:29. Olivia Jaegar followed closely in a PR of 5:37. The 800 provided HUGE excitement. Taylor Conway led the way with a PR of 2:26, followed by Natalie Dillon in a PR of 2:27, shortly after both Kelly Rich and Maggie Shannahan ran in both with PR’s at 2:33. For Maggie, she notched a 10 second PR!”
Later on in the season, Regional Championships also went very well. “Months of hard work paid off in a big way for the Lady Spartans at the Regional Championships when the 4×800 consisting of Taylor Conway, Claire Lippe, Shannon Gregg, and Natalie Dillon started off the meet qualifying for the Sectional Championships on Thursday. The girls ran to a season best 9:58 and easily qualified to the next round…”
Although the Lady Spartans just missed qualifying for the State Championships this year, they are excited about the possibilities for next season. With TrainingPeaks software to help them train smart all summer, they can gain a real understanding of the fitness building process, giving them a true advantage over the competition. For more information on the team and their accomplishments, and to sign up for their newsletter, please visit their Flotrack website.
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