Side Stitch Smolich

To some, running 6-7 miles on an average day sounds like a death wish. But to Coach Smolich’s distance track team, such a task is no problem.

Mr. Daniel Smolich, plumber by day, coach by night, has been in charge of the Christian Brothers distance track squad for a number of years.

Smolich has certainly seen the ups and downs of CB track throughout his years of coaching. But this year, Smolich has combined the boys and girls distance teams and coaches both simultaneously.

Bridget White (’17) spends long afternoons out on the track, improving her speed as one of only a handful of girls training with Smolich and the guys.

“It’s pretty hard because [Smolich] pushes everybody really hard,” the sophomore says. “He expects [the girls] to run as fast as the boys, so it can be kind of intense.”

Even though the workouts can be challenging, Bridget thinks “it’s all worth it to get faster.”

At the beginning of season, Bridget recalls that a normal practice for her was shorter than the guys’. Now with the track season well under way, she’s running the same workouts as the boys, just at a slightly slower interval.

Another Smolich enthusiast, Adam Wong (’16), is a big believer in the “Smolich method”, as he puts it. According to Adam, everyone running distance track has definitely improved.

He recalls one day in practice when “we were all really excited when we got a 5:59 mile.”

To Adam and his fellow runners, this time seemed extremely fast, until later on that year when he got a 4:56 mile, more than a minute’s improvement to his previous personal record.

Because of Smolich’s diligence in improving the speed of his runners, he is held in high regard by all who he trains.

Described in a phrase by Patrick Wiseman (’18), Smolich is certainly “deserving of respect” for the results he produces in all of his runners.

All who train with Coach Smolich can attest to the proven methods he applies to coaching distance track. His regimen, “the faster you run, the bigger the fun” encapsulates the daily improvement that each of his runners undergoes.