Junior Year Cross Country Advice

High School Running Distance

6 years ago 05/22/2017 10:58pm EDT

Hey, so I went into sophomore season of cross country not expecting much since I was definitely less than astonishing during freshman year of track and cross country. Ended sophomore season of cross country with a 19:30 which was good for me but not exactly as good as I was hoping. I went into to outdoor track with an alright base but not great.

I had some huge goals of sub 11 and sub 5 and achieved both of them pretty early in the season (10:59, 4:57) but kinda leveled off at the end of the season which I think was due to doing too much too early in the season. I was doing my daily runs way too fast and I got in too good of shape way too early in the season and I think that ruined my chances of running fast at the end of the season (5:10 and 11:20 last 2 races).

So looking ahead to junior year of cross country I really haven't had 1 great build up for a season yet and I was hoping I could do that this summer. Starting off around 30-35 and hopefully raising that safely to 60 maybe. I'm really not sure how that will go but I will definitely talk to my coach. I also wanted to know how to not peak too early for the season like I think I did during track.

So I think my junior goals will be,

xc 3200m: 10:59

xc 5000m: 16:59

And I know track is like 10 months away but just thought I'd see how this sounds to other people,

800m: 2:10 if I run one (60 sec 400m speed max)

1600m: 4:35

3200m: 9:59

And any help is appreciated!

6 years ago 05/22/2017 11:23pm EDT

re: donovan1111

Definitely seems achievable but it won't be easy. Just let me tell you my progression since it seems to be very similar to yours (and what you are hoping to achieve), I just finished my junior track season.

Soph XC: probably in 19:00 shape (ran 11:40s for two miles, never ran a 5k)

Soph Track: 5:10->4:59, 11:10->10:51

Junior XC: 17:30s probably->around 17 flat for a fast course, maybe a bit over, since it's impossible to exactly judge a cross country 5k due to the inaccurate distance often seen in courses.

Junior Track: My mile did not improve too much since I never got to race one late in the season with good conditions, ran 4:47.

3200: 10:23->10:08, though I had a bad last race and felt like I could've gotten closer to 10 flat had I not made mistakes in my training.

So yes, your goals are definitely within reach considering you don't overtrain by going up too much on your mileage (jumping up to 60 seems excessive, try 50 first). Focus on building an aerobic base and don't try to do a ton of speed over the summer besides the occasional tempo and fartlek, and try to not hammer those workouts either. Besides that I would say that your plan seems to be good and best of luck on your season.

6 years ago 05/22/2017 11:44pm EDT

re: Latsran

Yep thank you it helps seeing other peoples progression. I was definitely hammering my easy runs and tempos in the weeks leading up to the track season so I peaked in April, in May I just stayed the same or got a little worse. 60 for the summer mileage was just a number I was throwing around, I was going to slowly build and see how that goes and that was just where I was assuming that I would level off without getting injured.

6 years ago 05/23/2017 11:03am EDT

re: donovan1111

Sophomore year track I went 2:13/4:52/10:38. Then during the summer I started at 35mpw and built up to 60mpw. Junior year xc I ran a 17:03 5k pr and a 17:10 5k on a hilly course. I also ran a 16:17 3 mile. I'm currently nearing the end of junior year track and have at least 2 meets left. My current prs are 4:43/10:10, but I'd like to hit 4:39/9:59 in these last two meets. Your goals are definitely reasonable. During the summer make sure you do some tempo runs(once a week), a weekly long run that is about 20-25% of your total mileage each week, and do some speed stuff(there is a thread on letsrun about a 5x60 workout that helped me out).

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Junior Year Cross Country Advice

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