Coach Drew Lannoye
A native of Gurnee, Illinois Coach Drew graduated from the University of Wisconsin La-Crosse in 2017 with a degree in Secondary Mathematics Education with a concentration in coaching. He was a member of UWL's Cross Country for three years. Drew struggled to earn a roster spot during his Freshman and Sophomore year, and this experience left a lasting impression as to the discipline and drive that is necessary to be successful.
Drew resides in Minneapolis and is a member of the Twin Cities Track Club. He served as an assistant coach for Augsburg's cross country/track programs from 2017-2019 and earned his USATF Level I coaching certification in 2020. Drew is also certified through the U.S. center for SafeSport. Some coaches that have influenced Drew include: Jack Daniels, Arthur Lydiard, Steve Magness, and Tom Schwartz.
"Running allows individuals to push themselves to new limits and redefine what they think is possible. I love coaching because you play a big role in an athlete's development and help them achieve their goals. Constant self improvement and being able to track your progress over weeks, and months, is what makes running so exciting!"
Coaching Philosophy
My coaching philosophy is pretty simple. Distance running by nature is a very aerobic actively and as a result, training must reflect this. Since the ability to further your aerobic strength is most malleable to change, my goal as a coach is to try and maximize that stimulus and sprinkle in small amounts of faster speed work along the way. I have observed that for events 5K and longer, these principles allow athletes to continue progress and further their fitness.
Key Points
Training I prescribe focuses heavily on aerobic strength compared to anaerobic speed
Roughly 80% of weekly volume will be considered aerobic running (~70% max HR)
VO₂ based workouts are overrated
Maximizing training volume for each individual athlete allows for better growth (this will vary for each athlete)
Effort is more important than pace
There are major differences between running fast and running hard. They are not the same.
Hard days are hard & easy days are easy
Variety is the spice of life
Consistency is key
Coaching Results
Over the course of working with Coach Drew for six months, Ellen Smith set a 10 mile personal best of 61:21, a 69 second improvement, and improved her half-marathon by 40 seconds by running 81:50.
Over the course of two months, Justin Lauria-Banta went from not being able to run four miles at eight minute per mile pace to completing a half marathon with an average pace of 6:53.
After working with Coach Drew for three months, in the Fall of 2019 Jon Olson debuted in the City of Lakes Half Marathon, running a time of 1:14:53. Five weeks later he set a personal best by 80 seconds in the Twin Cities 10 Mile, running a time of 55:22. Most recently in the summer of 2021 Jon ran a 1’22” PR at Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon in a time of 1:13:29, which placed his 28th in the field.
Despite a rocky build-up, Kyle Genteman ran a personal best of 2:34:03 at the 2019 CIM Marathon in Sacramento, California. This breakthrough performance was an eight minute, and three second PR. Kyle ran consistent splits of 1:16:29 and 1:17:34 for the first and second half marathon respectively. He finished in 235th place in a race where 37 men qualified for the 2020 Marathon Olympic Trials. Most recently in the summer of 2021, Kyle ran a big personal best of 1:11:26 (4’03” PR) at Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon for 15th place.
2020 was a year of limited racing opportunities. That didn’t stop Tyler Nault from setting personal bests in a road 8k (23:46), road 10 mile (52:05), and a four mile track time trial (19:09).