Coaches with Kate: Padua coach and teacher, Mr. Meeson, talks about his love of coaching and the future of the Padua Cross Country Program
By Kate Becker
Though the cross country season is over, the running season, which seemingly never ends, is still in full swing. Last month Coach Meeson had an opportunity to sit down with the BBN Staff to talk about this year’s cross country and track seasons. He talked about how his love of running started and how he has helped the next generation grow a love for running.
For all those who don’t know much about the sport, Meeson says, “It’s 5000 meters [or 3.1 miles] and you get to race in a variety of places.” He mentioned the different courses they run including public parks or schools such as Lorain County Community College. The runners will run through any climate, except lightning, which makes some meets later in the season, especially conference, much harder, since there is often rain and snow. Besides running, the team does activities like core workouts, ice buckets, and pasta dinners.
Meeson attended Catholic grade school but switched to the Lakewood Public Schools for high school. Coming into the school, he knew practically no one. As a way to make friends his dad encouraged him to try out for the cross country team. Meeson had little running experience prior to this but ended up loving the sport and decided to stick with it. Originally, he had intended to try out for the wrestling team but ultimately did not after his cross country team made it to states his freshman year.
After running 4 years for Lakewood, Meeson went to Mount Union where he was a part of their cross country team. As his running career continued to grow, so did his mileage per week. During high school he would run 50-55 miles a week and in college that number grew to 80-90 miles a week. Though he is no longer able to run this much or keep up with the current cross country team, Meeson said, “I still run sometimes. I run very slowly. Running 20-25 miles a week is pretty good for me.”
He talked about how he has always wanted to be a coach and a teacher because he loves “working with student athletes and seeing them improve” and that “coaching is a natural thing to go with teaching sometimes.” He became a teacher because of the fact that he wanted to stay with cross country in order to “give back because cross country has given me a lot in life.” Meeson has training logs going all the way back to when he was in high school and college. These are often what he uses to plan workouts for his current runners. When planning out the season, his strategy is to look at the calendar and work backwards.
“I need to look at the finish line and build towards that start.” Meeson says.
Oftentimes the team will run between 30 and 40 miles a week. They’ll do workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays and races on Saturdays, so running around 6 days a week. Meeson emphasized the importance of “constantly building up your aerobic fitness”. He also mentioned how every week before race days, the team meets together to go over the course, since every course is different.
Just like how every course is different, each year every team is different too. Meeson raved about this year’s team and how they had awesome team chemistry, describing them as a “little family.” Senior Captain Michael Cain took his captain abilities very seriously and made it his goal to bring the team closer together. The team was very good at supporting each other and would always cheer each other on at races. For the most part everyone got along really well and many times the runners would not want to leave team dinner. After the fun season they had, the whole team was sad to see it end.
This season was great for the cross country team, but Meeson’s favorite memory from coaching was from almost a decade ago in 2015. During that season, the girls team made it to states. Their team was made up of 1 senior, 5 sophomores, and 2 freshmen. They were “super tight knit and close” and were able to finish 3rd in the region which was one of the biggest highlights of Meeson’s coaching career.
Even though the cross country season finished in November, the track season is still in full swing. Meeson is the head distance coach which enables him to develop his runners even further. Track and cross country have their similarities but are also different in many aspects. In cross country the 3.1 miles race is longer than the races in track which are typically 800 meters (approximately .5 miles), 1600 meters (approximately 1 mile), 3200 meters (approximately 2 miles). The environment is much different too since in cross country you run in a more natural terrain, while in track you run in circles around a stadium. When asking members of both the cross country and track teams at padua which sport they prefer, a majority will say cross country over track. Despite the fact that most of his runners prefer cross country, Meeson still loves being a part of the track team and going to track meets. When asked his opinion at a recent division meet, Meeson jokingly said, “I am spending Valentine’s Day with my two true loves: Track & Field and [Head] Coach Zana.” Though Meeson does enjoy track he still says that, “On the track you’re more like a gerbil or a hamster and you run in a circle all the time. Cross country is a little bit more open and you don’t run in loops.” Though the atmosphere is different, the training doesn’t change much and they “still follow the same principles.”
As the team continues to train, Meeson has high hopes for the next few cross country seasons. This year the girls team had one runner, Briley Poplyk, qualify for the state meet and were very close to having a second state qualifier in Ally Krayzel. Meeson emphasized how amazing it is to coach a state qualifier and “when you get a state qualifier… it’s extremely exciting and really cool.” With other promising runners in sophomores Kaylee Egnaczyk and Leah Panteck along with freshman Samantha So, Meeson hopes that the girls will continue to improve and that next year the whole team will make it to regionals. The boys team is still developing but Meeson mentioned the talent in some of his underclassmen runners especially sophomores Lucas Pickel, Brendan Dziedzicki, and David Norton along with freshman Logan Russell who he said were all talented and “could do very, very well.” Because of the amount of underclassmen on the team, Meeson has great expectations for the future of the cross country program. He hopes to continue to grow the team and to have about 15 boys and 15 girls on the team next year.
Though most of Meeson’s time is spent making lesson plans or coming up with workouts for the team, he still makes time to watch professional running and was able to follow Olympic track and field closely this summer. Being a coach, Meeson sees how challenging it is for Olympic runners to make it because in the sport of running, “If you have one off day, your season’s over.” Meeson also noted that because of the fact that the Olympics is only once every 4 years that there is a “very high likelihood that that olympian may never return.”
Meeson has yet to coach an Olympian, but one runner he would’ve loved to coach is Galen Rupp, a University of Oregon graduate who medaled in the 2012 London Olympics 10K and the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Olympics marathon. Meeson thinks of him as “an absolute beast of a runner,” especially because he was able to run both the 10K and the marathon in the same Olympics (2016) which is an impressive feat.
Although Meeson hasn’t had the opportunity to coach an Olympians in his career, he believes that every runner has potential. The cross country team takes people of all abilities so oftentimes it is Meeson’s job to develop new runners. Even though it is sometimes hard, he says, “[The] body is very adaptable and everyone does progress.” His best advice to new runners is to try to be “Getting out and starting by running easy.”
Meeson loves being a part of the Padua community and is so glad to have the opportunity to teach and mentor the next generation of runners. With him in charge, the future of the cross country program is surely bright. Go Bruins!
Check out the full recording of the interview here!
