My cross country plan for the summer starts at June 15th even though the first race is mid-September. Am I starting too early
My cross country plan for the summer starts at June 15th even though the first race is mid-September. Am I starting too early
No. Summer is a time to build your base. Depending on how much mileage you are doing, spend a month doing base milage, which is just slow, easy milage of a higher amount than you're used to. Then, maybe the week after the fourth of july, add in a fartlek workout, a tempo workout, and a long run on non consecutive days each week. By September, assuming you're in school, you should be working with your coach, and they can guide you from there.
The above is what I used to do for summer training, and me and the other girls (and guys) on my team would drop minutes off our times, so long as we didn't go crazy hard on the fartleks and tempos, or push our easy runs. Be careful not to increase your milage too much. What we did, was we ran 30 miles in spring track, then increased it to either 38 or 41 (not that it's a huge difference), depending on how good the coach thought we were. If you're already running in the 40mpw range, maybe bump it up to more like 50. Not sure if this is the best advice, or if this type of training program is the best, but it did a lot of good for me and my team. I dropped from a 23:10 to a 21:20 5k in a year, and it would have been more if I wasn't stupid and dropped a brick on my toe and fractured it, and got sat out for 3 weeks of the season.
Anyway, good luck. Again, i'm not a coach, so by no means is this the best or only way to train. If there's something better out there, let the OP know, this is just what I did and what helped me. But yes, Jun 15 is certainly NOT too early to start summer training :)
I would say no its not too early. you should take off at least 2-3 weeks before you start summer training. so if your spring season ends before June you are fine. For those first couple weeks I would just run easy mileage, relaxed and not too serious. Take this time, actually all summer, to work in core strength and plyo work.
I agree that after July fourth you should start to get serious but I think thats too early to start doing 2 workouts and a long run a week. maybe work in a fartlek when you are bored and you should always do some sort of long run every week. in august you can do 1 fartklek or tempo per week and a long run.
Also take whatever your highest mileage week was and add 10 to it. that should be your goal mileage by the time the season starts.
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