CoachB,
I’m intrigued by your post. My son just finished his freshman year. He ran cross, indoor and outdoor. In cross country he ran 18:45 for 4k 24:00 for 5k. Indoors he ran the 600 in 1:51. Outdoors he did the 800 in 2:30 and the mile in 5:51 and 3200 in 13:12. I was a runner in college with PRs of 1:53 and 4:12 and ran a marathon in 2:39… so he has the potential for decent genes.
His training freshman year was mostly 4-5 days a week of 30min slow runs. Lots of weeks off around vacations and between seasons. The rare times he would do interval work he would show huge improvements.
He’s not overly athletic having never really done ball sports and went through a huge growth spurt the last 2 years (he’s 6’1” and just turned 15)
He’s motivated to break 20 in cross country this year and wants me to coach him over the summer. I thought I had a good program laid out of 5 days a week of running (I had a few weeks or 6 days) for the most part with some threshold work (he has to learn what that is), some strides and hills, and a track session a week (“cruise intervals”). Occasional faster track work just so he can understand different paces (he thinks he has “one speed”). I also had him building up a “long run” to one hour by end of summer and getting his mileage to about 30 mpw
After reading your post; I was thinking of incorporating some of what you posted into his routine. Any suggestions on how to do that without overtraining him?