Emily Cohen at Foot Locker XC Nationals (Photo by Raymond Tran)
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In 2024, junior Emily Cohen reaffirmed her status as one of the region's best runners by finishing as the top Colorado runner and placing 14th overall at this year's Foot Locker Nationals.
How did she achieve her success? Using COROS training data, we analyzed the numbers for an exclusive look into Cohen's journey.
Product Worn: COROS Pace 3
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Summer of Growth
Cohen's summer training block reflected her commitment to improvement. Looking back at the outdoor track season, she clocked a 10:32.80 two-mile to finish ninth at Nike Outdoor Nationals.
This performance capped off her sophomore season and set the stage for her summer focus, where she worked to build on her endurance and prepare for the fall ahead.
Above: Cohen's 2024 mileage
Cohen's summer training steadily increased, peaking at 162 miles in August.
After the national season in June, she focused on recovery, logging 92 miles. By July, her mileage picked back up, leading to the significant jump in August as she built endurance for the season ahead.
Above: Cohen's heart rate zone breakdown
As she transitioned into her season, her focus shifted to enhancing both her aerobic endurance and anaerobic threshold.
Over the span of the year, Cohen logged 399.7 miles in her aerobic endurance zone, making up 42% of her total mileage. She also spent 27% of her training in the recovery zone (<146 bpm). She also worked in higher heart rate zones, with 14% of her training in both the anaerobic endurance (166-174 bpm) and anaerobic power (175-187 bpm) zones.
She shared, "Throughout my season, I worked more on increasing my anaerobic threshold so that during regionals and nationals, I would feel strong and well-prepared. I also made sure to take my longer runs as recovery, keeping my heart rate around 150 bpm to improve both my aerobic endurance and recovery."
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Tuning Up for Nationals
"My weekly mileage leading into Foot Locker Regionals and the week after was about 33 miles per week, while during Nationals week, it decreased to about 26 miles," she shared.
Focused hill and track workouts kept her aerobic and anaerobic power sharp, with efforts in the 50 percent range and an average heart rate of 160 bpm.
"Leading up to regionals and nationals, I did some hill workouts and track workouts just to keep my aerobic or anaerobic power, depending on the workout, pretty sharp," she explained.
Cohen's consistency and dedication laid the foundation for her performance at Foot Locker Nationals. As Colorado's top finisher, she placed 14th overall, dropping eight spots from her 2023 finish, with her success driven by focused and strategic training.
