Just for fun coaching challenge

Not a coach, but I like hypotheticals.

I'm assuming they're all in track right now, and all running about that 40 mpw. So I would start things now. They want to do anything to win state in XC? Cool, we're training through track season. Sure, we'll race hard and get after it, but I am not going to focus their workouts on running the best 1 and 2 mile races possible. We're going to build things up aerobically all in prep for summer and then launching into fall.

For March and April we would take our time getting up to 55ish mpw. Depending on how many track meets we have, we might be doing 0 to 1 workout a week. We would do strides multiple times a week, however.

In May we're finishing up track, taking maybe a week or 10 days off to very, light, then diving back into the mileage. By June I want us running in the 60s, and in the end of summer we're going to be in the 70s (on 6 days a week, everyone gets a day off, and yes, that is required). Doubling occasionally might be OK, but we'll have to feel it out for the individuals.

We're not doing anything fancy in the summer. Long runs bump up to an 1:45, sometimes there is some slight progression and faster finishing there, but we're usually just getting the time in. We mix in the occasional fartlek workouts, hills, and some tempos (very careful control here, I'd rather have them running too slow rather than too fast).

In the early season the miles will stay around high 60s and 70s. I've got 7 guys, and we practice or meet 6 days a week. I will meet individually with each runner once a week. So a couple days a week I talk to two. We check in on everything. Any pains, sleep issues, recovery, dating, homework, whatever, we talk about it. We adjust workouts/miles accordingly. We want as few setbacks as possible.

In the early season we start racing, but we're practicing these races and testing our new fitness, we're not necessarily trying to win every meet. The guys are around the same ability, so what happens when they run as a serious pack? What happens when two of them jump out and try to hang with another school's front runner? Sometimes we just run these races as tempo type workouts. We're looking to see when the team runs best and when each individual runs best. Hopefully we can dial that in by State (early November?).

In the last month or so of the season we scale back some on the miles though not a lot (maybe back to 50s, gotta see how everyone feels first). We also do a more classic style 5k workouts in this period (800s, 1000s, miles, etc.) to sharpen things up and give them some confidence in seeing how fast they can actually go. They should be starting to fly at this time. In fact, we might have had to rein things in come September if everyone has been consistently buying in.

However, I don't know if winning state after getting last is possible. Maybe. But top 10, or top 5 seems like a huge and potentially doable goal. Guess it depends on the other schools, too.

TLDR, more miles, base workload on feel, do fewer workouts rather than too many, very short and late specific workout period

I am not a coach either, but I like what you wrote, it was very thought out. Just a few thoughts on your progression:

Strides are done, right?

Core?

Weights?

Of course you won’t know for sure until it was done, but a sample weekly mileage progression? (Ex. 30 - 40- 50 - 30, etc)

From what you said though, if I had you as a coach, I wouldn’t be upset (although I do like my doubles)

And actually, from the region I’m in, if a high school team went 17:45 for all 5, they wouldn’t make it to state, but all 5 running 16:15 - 16:45 they would always be top 2 - 3. (In case you were wondering, it’s Washington and I’m going off of 1A for a small school)

Thanks for “playing”!

Yeah, I mentioned strides in the summer buildup, but I would have them done all year long.

And I totally meant to include core and weights. I would include them for sure. Short sessions, probably twice a week (though maybe three in summer?). I'm also a fan of Jay Johnson's lunge sequence before my runs. I haven't checked out his post run core routines, but I could see something like that working out for a team.

As for the mileage bump, I was even thinking smaller than that, and things would be super flexible. The goal being to bump mileage steadily, but stay really aware of how everyone is feeling. It could be really sequential like 40, 44, 48, 42, 46, 50, etc. But in practice these things can be all over, so it just as easily could be 40, 43, 43, 47, 44, 40, 45, 49, whatever. I also could see subtle shifts in each kid's mileage happening. So it's not like the whole team does 58 miles one week, there might be a range from 52 to 65 or something. But the average from kid to kid and week to week is moving up and progressing.

And I'm not opposed to doubling at all. In fact, two or three days of doubles in the summer might be the rule. I guess I just didn't want the kids thinking they needed to double 5+ days a week. That seemed too big a jump for my experiment. I'd rather get more singles in and use that extra time for core/weights/yoga or whatever.

I competed in the smaller division in my state, too, and you're right that times like that would have you on the podium for sure. And many years they would win.

Thanks for the questions, it's hard to fit everything in!

Sorry, I didn’t see the strides, I was reading pretty quick, haha. Honestly, your “program” sounds pretty dang good.

Just one last question, if you think skipping track would help them win in cross Country, to you, why shouldn’t High schoolers just do that anyways if they focus on XC?

The obvious I think of is: Burnout by being alone, less points for the team, you can be great at both, etc.

Love your insights man!

Well, I think track is important. I was just thinking if the kids are all in with XC, then training in the track season for XC will probably be better than really focusing on the track events. Basically fewer short, hard workouts and more room for mileage. But at the same time, I think getting on the track and racing on the track is beneficial. So no reason not to do the season. Just put it in second place. Probably like how most teams put indoor in second place behind outdoor (at least that is the impression that I get).

Try this wrote:

The problem:

The kids tell you they’ll do anything you say (assume they will) to help them win state. In order to do that, they all need to drop 1 minute or more. You have from June 3 to November 3 (state) with the competition season starting August 27th.

What do you do? How do you train them? Mileage? Pace? Etc

Start recruiting other runners immediately, most likely the current team doesn't have enough talent to win state. If they have been properly training for over three years they are probably not going to drop a minute from their 5k time. There are at least a handful of athletes not currently out for the team that will be much faster than the 17:45 guys in the same time period, even if you do everything right with the initial 7. Also, as a coach you have to think longer term than just focusing on the Sr. class.

Mileage is already pretty good for high schoolers. I would have them do 3x workouts per week. 3-4 Mile tempo, 5xkilometer on a cross course, and some track intervals like 12x400. 5:35-6:00 for the tempo, 3:00-3:30 for the k's, and 65-72 for the 400s. Scrap the long runs, keep mileage at mid 30's to mid 40s. That has produced top 3 state finishes pretty much every year for my HS team for the last 10 years in their largest class.