For the kids: Iowa Speed and youth track and field

As a kid growing up in the Iowa City area I played soccer. A lot of soccer. I played in recreational leagues. I played club soccer. I played high school soccer. I coached kids at soccer camps. I refereed soccer. I played on and organized indoor soccer teams, sometimes more than one at once. I loved the team aspect of it and made some great friends. But I also was one of the few who loved the individual training, the fitness, the running, required to be competitive. As I approached what would be twilight of my soccer career it was biking and running that I was drawn to, individual sports with a significant team component to them. While I still watch collegiate soccer games with a certain yearning to be back out on the pitch, my heart has moved on and it is running that has been my passion, a passion I now wish I could have found when I was younger, and probably would have if the Iowa Speed had been around for me then.

Youth track and field is something that just was not on my radar when I was a kid. Sure, I had heard of the Hershey’s track meet but I didn’t know anybody who was into running as an organized endeavor back then. Now, however, there are more and more opportunities for kids to get involved in the sport at a young age with teams like the Iowa Speed in the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City corridor, the Central Iowa Excaliburs and several others in the Des Moines area, and the Mississippi Valley Eagles Track Club in the Quad Cities. New programs are in various stages of development in Dubuque and elsewhere, too.

Now in its fifth year, the Iowa Speed club was founded by Joey and Heather Woody and is offering kids from 5 years old on up through high school the opportunity to get quality coaching, improve their fitness, experience racing and competition, build friendships and develop a love for the sport of track and field (and cross country).

“When our kids started getting older we started looking around and discovered the world of youth track and field,” Heather says. “We did this out of love for the sport and wanted to expose our kids and others to track and running.”

It would be hard to pick two people who are better suited for overseeing a youth running program like Iowa Speed. Joey is the Speed’s head coach in addition to his regular duties as the University of Iowa’s Director of Track and Field. He coaches professional athletes like former Hawkeye and current professional and multi-time national champion Erik Sowinski. Joey is one of the state’s great track athletes, earning multiple All-American honors at the University of Northern Iowa, national championships and silver and gold medals at the World Championships. Heather was an All-Conference athlete at UNI and earned All American honors during a brief stint at Division III Simpson College in Indianola. She earns a living as a corporate and personal success coach and motivational speaker. She refers to herself as “Chief Motivation Officer” for the Iowa Speed.

And motivate she has, along with Joey and the other coaches. In that first year there were 30 kids on

the team and last year there were 179 on the roster with 40-50 members traveling to compete at track meets across the state and the region on any given weekend. The track season starts in February and continues into August. Most kids attend a single practice on the weekend but there is the option to attend more focused, event-specific and intensive training at two weekday practices.

“The focus at all of these practices is on providing a positive environment where we’re growing kids as people and athletes while also teaching them the fundamentals and mechanics of track and field, a great work ethic, discipline and life skills,” Heather says. “We’re there to encourage kids to have big dreams and big goals if that’s what they want and we want to help the kids reach those goals.”

Because team members range in age from kindergarten through high school there is obviously a wide range of abilities but the coaches are able to work with everyone and the older athletes gain valuable experience as mentors and leaders of the youngsters. Some of the junior members are there just to try out the sport while some of the older participants are there to try to get that little bit extra necessary to achieve their dreams of running at the Division I level. Those that aspire to compete at that level have access to not just coaches like the Woodys, but also a stable of Hawkeye and elite post-collegiate athletes like Sowinski, who have been known to stop by practices and help out.

Most Iowa Speed members harbor no such aspirations. Many, if not most, are athletes in other sports who are using the team and practices as a way to supplement their training in other sports. The Woodys encourage this and want athletes to be well rounded and not focused exclusively on a single sport at a young age. Heather suspects that few team members come from “running families” where the parents are runners and the kids grow up seeing mom and dad going out for daily runs. Most hear about the team through the grapevine. For them it’s a chance to try something new, hang out with friends, improve conditioning, compete or a combination of all of the above.

One family that is a running family is the Cantons. Nate and Anna Canton of North Liberty are heavily involved, with 4 kids participating on the team. Nate, a very competitive runner in his own right, took the initiative to offer a separate cross country season into the team in 2014. In 2015 35 kids ran cross country for the Speed, with 25 of them qualifying for the National Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Eleven made the long trek to race.

Canton, who serves as the head coach for the cross country season, has two practices a week for his
runners. One, during the week, is held on local trails and focuses largely on running hills while the second is most often held on the University of Iowa’s Ashton Cross Country Course and focuses on some sort of speed work in addition to a warmup, stretching, and form drills. “These kids are at age where doing all the right things before and after running can become a habit for them,” Canton stated.

They are also at an age where they are trying new things. Canton tells of one athlete who was playing football for his school and not getting any playing time and feeling like a failure. He heard about cross country and wanted to give it a try and immediately latched on. Soon he was asking what he could do to get better and set a goal of qualifying for the national meet, which he did. After running at nationals and dropping his mile time by over two minutes he now sees himself as a runner and not a failure.

While not everyone sets goals of qualifying for nationals, many Speed athletes do and the chance to travel to the national meet can be eye opening. “Until you get into the world of youth running you don’t realize how big a deal it is,” Canton noted. Kids come from all over the country to run at the cross country and track national meets. “It’s an incredible opportunity for kids to share the moment and run their hearts out with 3000 other runners and go through an Olympic style opening ceremonies,” he says of the USATF Junior Olympics.

“We just love the whole experience our family has had with youth running,” Canton adds. “It’s such a great mix of kids just wanting to get better, compete, have fun and with such great camaraderie amongst the kids and their families.”

For more information about Iowa Speed visit: http://iowaspeed.teamsnapsites.com/
A list of other USATF-affiliate youth clubs can be found at: http://www.usatf-iowa.org/