XC Season training

Don’t start hard intervals until October

But by then I have four weeks until state

Do you wanna be 95% of your absolute peak come state or be 6 weeks past your peak and be cooked and burnt AF?

That's a good point, I'll definitely try that next year. Would the same rule apply for this track season. I am trying to go sub 4:30 for the mile and am just doing tempos, strides, and long runs for base.

Smithers1 wrote:

That's a good point, I'll definitely try that next year. Would the same rule apply for this track season. I am trying to go sub 4:30 for the mile and am just doing tempos, strides, and long runs for base.

Why did you level off or decline after 1/2 of CC season?

Please list each week's workout during your season and your race times (maybe describe each CC course that you list as slow,, medium or fast).

As for track season:

What is your 400m best, and what can you run now?

What is your 800m best, and what can you run now?

Basic rule for weekly workouts:

2 days hard,

2 medium,

2 easy (1 distance run and 1 interval) ,

1 day very easy or rest.

For the 2 days hard, 2 days medium:

--Base period: 4 runs, no intervals

--* Transition period: 2 runs, 2 intervals

--Racing period: 1 run, 3 intervals

*for the transition period, it can start 2 hard runs and 2 med interval days, then 1 hard run and 1 hard interval and the same for medium, and finally 2 med runs and 2 hard interval days.

So for most of our workouts throughout the summer it was something to do with CV intervals with short 90s-30s rest. Sometimes we would do some 400s at 5k uphill. We would also have our long run monday that would range from 10-12 miles. The workouts would be on Wednesdays and if we didn't have a race Saturday then we would also do a workout then.

As for my prs, I haven't run a 400 since freshman year but I ran it in 56 and for my 800, I got to run one 800 my sophomore year before Covid hit and I ran 2:08 with only like a month's worth of training.

I have run a recent mile though where I ran 4:36 at the end of cross season.

Smithers1 wrote:

So for most of our workouts throughout the summer it was something to do with CV intervals with short 90s-30s rest. Sometimes we would do some 400s at 5k uphill. We would also have our long run monday that would range from 10-12 miles. The workouts would be on Wednesdays and if we didn't have a race Saturday then we would also do a workout then.

As for my prs, I haven't run a 400 since freshman year but I ran it in 56 and for my 800, I got to run one 800 my sophomore year before Covid hit and I ran 2:08 with only like a month's worth of training.

I have run a recent mile though where I ran 4:36 at the end of cross season.

I looked up CV intervals to see what that was...one of many buzzwords that have crept into the runner's lingo because of so many ideas on how to coach without relying on intense efforts.

What you have done looks pretty good. I suggest working on the 56, because that is good for a freshman, and you missed your sophomore year when that could have come done by at least 3-4 seconds. It is easier to get back to a level that you achieved than to break through to new levels, so there is the work to get back to 56, and then to break through to new levels to make up for what you missed as a sophomore.

Because you have naturally gotten taller and stronger from freshman to junior, your 400m time could become quite fast without as much work as you would have done in spring track last year.

2:08 was good for the time of year that you ran it, and showed you might have run very well for 800m if you had an outdoor season. To compensate, go to task on the 400m, and as that time gets fast, look at what it takes to run fast 600m. This will set up the 800m for early track season.

4:36 mile at the end of CC season is also good.

As for 10-12 miles, that is too long for HS, and I was very fast, as were my teammates. Yes, I knew HS runners who trained lots of miles, but not many panned out after HS, and it doesn't mean they were good for 800m (would not have beaten me during my senior year).

I remember only doing one 10-mile run, and that was a power run my senior year in extra cold weather (below freezing and miserably cold). I ran that in 60 minutes. I did a few longer runs my senior year that were slow, but not my junior year, even though we had a very good CC team.

Everything else sounds pretty normal. CV training seems like a cross-breed between medium days and hard days. All I can say is I would beat anyone in HS who was relying on CV or tempo runs or anything else. When we ran intervals, we ran either hard, medium or slow. The hard ones were very fast.

Why? Intervals are to simulate race conditions! That means a fast pace, then overcoming the fatigue that happens in the latter part of the race, right when the leaders start their kicks even though they are very tired. I hardly ever ran a fast 800m where I wasn't very tired at the 600m, but that is what the training is to simulate.

4 x 400m with 400m jog between is the best workout I've done to simulate 800m race conditions. Do them fast, so that 1 and 2 are doable, 3 is a chore, and the last one you run a fast 200m and all guts the last 200m.

Another good one is 500m, with the first 400m only 1-2 seconds slower than your best time, and 200m jog, then 300m as fast as you can.

Also, 6 x 200m with 200m jog, all run fast. The last 2 intervals require heart, if you did the first 4 fast enough.

Yeah, everything you listed is great during base phase. Maybe one workout a week for turnover aside from strides, then just get solid miles in with 2-3 tempos throughout the other 6 days.

Thanks for all of the feedback guys I’ll be sure to take this into account during the season!