Long-time Austin Runner Bill Schroeder Coaches his No-Excuses Running Program Remotely

 

Long-time Austin Runner Bill Schroeder Coaches his No-Excuses Running Program Remotely from Colorado

Bill Schroeder has made some big changes in his life lately. The long-time Austin runner decided to pick up and move to the mountains of Colorado late last year. “I wanted to get closer to the mountains. I’ve climbed 12 of Colorado’s 58 14,000-foot peaks so far,” explained Schroeder, who has put on the Verne’s No Frills 5Ks in Georgetown for years.

Austin runners may know Bill as a running streaker who has run marathons in all 50 states, finishing sub-4:00 hours in each one. Now he’s going back and trying to do 50 sub-3:30.

“I’ll also qualify for Boston in every state. You get (50-state ranking) points the faster you run. I would have had it done last year if not for the pandemic,” said Schroder.

Schroeder’s new home in Wetmore, Colorado is at 6,300-feet altitude. “We’re about 30 miles west of Pueblo. with a nice view of Pike’s Peak,” said Schroder, who has a marathon PR 2:36:22.

He’s had no problem adapting to the change in terrain as far as running goes.

“We’re close to Canyon City, and there’s 60 miles of trails there. So I go there a lot. I also run a point-to point route to Florence, CO, where I have a co-op office that I work out of. Running from the house I drop about 1,000 feet in the first nine miles of a long run. I love running up here. I can’t express how much less stressful my life is working remotely here.

Although Wetmore is not known for heavy snows, Schroeder has run a bit in the snow so far, and done some hiking with Yak-trax.

Bill has coached the “No-Excuses Except Lightening” running program since 2005, and Austin and Georgetown area runners are still enjoying Schroeder’s, albeit remotely.

“We have a core group of around 20-25 runners in the group, “said Bill. The group meets every Monday and Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. They do group workouts on the track on Mondays (Cedar Valley Middle School), and Wednesday is Brushy Creek trails.

“The No-Excuses all encourage each other,” said Schroeder, who does not charge anything for the coaching workout advice. Now that he lives in Colorado, he posts the workouts to a Facebook group. To some degree, Schroeder tailors the workouts to individuals if folks ask. His track workouts usually focus on eight to 12 400s, or a combination of 800s and 400s with a one-minute recovery. All the workouts are from 6:00-7:00 p.m. “I rarely do longer repeats,” said Schroeder. For the Brushy Creek workouts, Schroeder gets creative. The trails are crushed granite, and there are portions with hills, where they do hill workouts once a month.

“On the trails, there are small, medium and large loops I have the runners use for speedwork. The distances are never below 400-meters.

Overall, Schroeder’s program has resulted in many PRs. “I recall a runner who could not even do the warm-up drills when he started with us in August to being able to run the 3M Half-Marathon in January. I owe a lot to the old RunTex group, because that’s what this is modeled after,” said Schroeder.

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