I am currently a sophomore girl in high school right now, I did cross country at the beginning of this school year but it was my first season long distance running so my times weren't that great (28:00 average probably) and I had no previous running experience. I did both winter and outdoor track this year and haven't really stopped running since the start of indoor track (I took at break at the end of cross country). To give you an idea of what I've been running, I probably run up to 25 mpw during track season(s), my longest run being a little over 5 miles, usually we'll run around 3 miles at practice every day unless it's the day before a meet then we usually go for an easy 2 mile run. After meets we usually go for an easy 3-4 mile run. We don't really do many track/sprint workouts, probably one every 10 days maybe (ex. 2x400 w/ 60 sec break in between, 3 min break, 4x200 w/ 45 sec break in between, 3 min break 2x100). Currently my easy pace is about 8:30. My best mile time for outdoor was 6:27, to give you an idea. I just ran my school's cross country course the other day in 25:16. I was by myself so I feel like I couldve run it faster in a race. My problem is that I am having eye surgery in about 2 weeks where I won't be able to run for 10 days. I plan on running up until the day of my surgery like normally, I'll probably go on a longer run (longer than 5 miles) a couple times before then. My question is what will I need to do to make sure I won't be any slower come time for cross country because of this break and will it affect me much? I know I definitely will need to increase my mpw but what else will I need to do after my surgery (ex. track workouts, hills, etc.)? I really would like to break 23:00 this season and will do anything to get there.