Tommy Latham made a name for himself in the state of Georgia a long time ago. But he saved his best for last in cross country as he just wrapped up his season with a 4th place finish at Nike Cross Nationals. That finish is the best ever from a Georgia runner at either Footlocker or NXN.
But how did we get there, what does his background look like and most importantly, what does his data suggest? We reached out to Latham and got his COROS Training data to paint a better picture of his season at-large.
Latham's Start
Latham has been running at a high level for a long time. Most people in Georgia probably remember him best, when he burst onto the scene in the fall of 2021 with a 16:51 in his first high school race on the notoriously difficult Georgia state meet course.
He was the top freshman in the state that year, finishing 3rd at the state meet and leading his team to a runner up finish. But a quick scroll through his MileSplit profile shows that he's been a star in the making for a long time, as he has strong results dating back to 6th grade when he ran a mile in 5:18 and a 3200 in 11:25. And I even found a 5K result from him when he was in 5th grade and ran a 19:37 at age 11.
He won multiple state titles and finished 15th at Nationals last year as a junior. But his biggest breakout performance came this spring at the Georgia state track meet when he solo'ed a new Georgia state record of 4:01.66 for the 1600. That performance, along with the two other state records he broke this spring, showed that he was on another level and ready for something special this fall.
So Latham finished out his track season, took a break, and then got back to work.
Training Mileage
His season began as all successful cross country seasons do, with summer training. He probably got a later start than most because of the national track meets he competed in, but he kept himself completely fixated on nationals.
"This year my training was really built around being able perform well at NXN, so I held my mileage a lot longer and started doing big workouts a lot later" said Latham.
Latham's Mileage this cross country season
As you can see from the COROS Training Data above, he was holding his mileage between 48 and 64 miles well into the cross country season. He saved his taper for championship season this year and his mileage dropped quite a bit.
That was a struggle at times as Latham suggested; "I wasn't expecting the mileage and lack of workouts to hold back my fitness so much early on in the season."
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Key Workouts
So what did Tommy do to instill confidence in himself heading into championship season?
There is one key workout he did twice this year as a way to measure his growth. The first time he did the workout was on September 8th, right before his first big race of the year. This workout was an interval workout that he did twice a season each season of high school. So it was an excellent way for him to track his progress.
The workout is a 2k, mile, 1200, 1k, 800, 600, 400 cutdown on 3:00 rest.
He describes the first time he did the workout: "The conditions were perfect, and the footing was really good. This was one of the hardest efforts I've given on a workout, and I remember lying on the ground for a while after." His splits from this workout were 6:27, 5:00, 3:31, 2:49, 2:11, 1:37, 62.
But then the Southern Showcase didn't go according to plan.
He was tired from the workout and tired from the mileage and faded late in the race to 10th place in a time of 15:25.
Fortunately he did this workout again on October 26th. This time with more training under his belt, it went much better.
"The biggest confidence boost from the second go around was how easy the faster paces felt. I remember coming through in 2:47 on the 1k and feeling completely controlled and able to have a conversation" Latham says as he describes what the day was like, "At this point in the season, we had just started to touch the faster paces consistently in workouts, and this workout showed me that I was starting to benefit from the effects of that transition."
What were his splits the second time doing the workout? Much faster - 6:05, 4:53, 3:25, 2:47, 2:08, 1:33, 61. The training was working. He knew he was heading in the right direction and was on track to make a return to NXN.
Tommy would then go on to claim his 3rd straight state cross country title on November 9th and easily qualified for the national championships on November 23rd. Two weeks later in Portland, Tommy captured a 4th place finish, competing for the win the entire race. It was an incredible season that rewarded hard work. Next year Latham will be running cross country at UNC in pursuit of bigger and better things.
But before he does that, I think there's one question left on everybody's mind in Georgia: Will Tommy Latham become the first Georgia high school athlete to break the 4:00 barrier in the mile?
