What is the normal amount of time (weeks) that you have your athletes take to get back up to their normal weekly mileage after their break between XC and training for indoor? Meaning, the athletes take a week or two off after XC and once they begin to train again how many weeks do you normally use to get them back up to normal mileage?
15_50 wrote:
What is the normal amount of time (weeks) that you have your athletes take to get back up to their normal weekly mileage after their break between XC and training for indoor? Meaning, the athletes take a week or two off after XC and once they begin to train again how many weeks do you normally use to get them back up to normal mileage?
Curious about the time off after CC.
I've seen a number of posts from runners wondering what to do after CC ends, because of time off.
We never took time off, except shortly before start of CC after summer training.
15_50 wrote:
What is the normal amount of time (weeks) that you have your athletes take to get back up to their normal weekly mileage after their break between XC and training for indoor? Meaning, the athletes take a week or two off after XC and once they begin to train again how many weeks do you normally use to get them back up to normal mileage?
I instruct my athletes to run every other day easy for a 10 day period and then we get back at it. Because of the taper and the break, sometimes it is about a month between when they were at max mileage to now.
They can bounce back quickly though, so I like to get back up within three weeks.
Because XC ends in late November and because of Thanksgiving and Christmas I learned not to give too much of a break after the XC season. Mostly mileage with tempos and short speed during the week starting after Thanksgiving while using "mandated" December meets as quality sessions. Knowing Christmas would be an unloading week, by the week before we had to be back to peak mileage.
Not a coach but this is what ours tells us-
10-14 days after XC depending on how we’re feeling. First 5 ish days 100% off, after that bike or swim or whatever. Still do like core the first few days.
Also not a coach but I really trust mine.
He has us take a week and a half totally off, don't even think about running. Then the end of the second week if you want to do no more than 20 mins a day, go for it, but very very optional. Then four weeks of just mileage until you're built back up to nearly full mileage, and then our first tempo of the season. Then another two to three weeks before we are at full mileage with one or two workouts a week.
This season is a little different because indoors is right out, so we are doing the whole month of December of just easy runs, building probably back into nearly full mileage before we add a tempo or two right around the new year.
We do this after cross and track alike, and we are always very ready for the end of the season.
It depends when indoor starts. Some states have meets in December, others not until February. And XC is 5k and some guys move to the 800 or 1600 in track so there mileage is reduced from XC.
I suggest mine take a week off and then every other day for two weeks. The runs are short and easy and include strides on every run.
Within three weeks after that, we’re back at decent volume.
We have kids take 1-2 weeks "off". If they are injured, burned out, etc. they take a full two weeks with no running. If they are still super motivated or kids that get super antsy, we let them do some 2-3 mile runs during those break periods 2-3x a week.
After that break, we do about 2 weeks of super light running (25-30 min. runs, 5-6x a week). After that we start building up mileage again over the course of a month. We want the kids back up to 6 runs a week (including 1 light workout and 1 long run) by January. Our winter volume is usually a bit lower than summer/XC volume just due to the nature of our track training and we don't have an indoor season. Track meets start in mid March so winter is long and easy to get burned out on if you go too hard too soon. .
Thanks for the information all.
The trick is to get them back up to full mileage without causing injury.
Generally I shoot for 3-4 weeks back to full mileage but I suppose I could try to shorten that to 2-3 weeks instead.
I like giving the 10-14 day break... with 7 day mandatory no running... cross training is fine during the off period but no running.
15_50 wrote:
Thanks for the information all.
The trick is to get them back up to full mileage without causing injury.
Generally I shoot for 3-4 weeks back to full mileage but I suppose I could try to shorten that to 2-3 weeks instead.
I like giving the 10-14 day break... with 7 day mandatory no running... cross training is fine during the off period but no running.
Why are you wanting to shorten it? Are you finding kids are losing momentum or interest?
I like the week or 10 days off then run every other day for a week and then back at it... It depends on the running experience also... I would build a high school kid who has only hit 50 or 60 miles for a few weeks at a time more slowly than a college jr who has been running in the 80-100s for a few years.
I don't know where all of you coach but the reason I hate the indoor season in NY is because you have meets in December and January and league championships in February.
Its difficult to think about taking 10 days off then building up slowly as you're already in the middle of a competitive season.
coach wrote:
I don't know where all of you coach but the reason I hate the indoor season in NY is because you have meets in December and January and league championships in February.
Its difficult to think about taking 10 days off then building up slowly as you're already in the middle of a competitive season.
In R.I. I don’t like indoor either for distance runners. I would rather build then back for outdoor the way we do for XC.
We take time of from ‘training’ not running. Social runs, runs the team enjoys doing, some goofy ‘team challenges’...we do this for a month after XC or so. Sometimes the mileage doesn’t go down much but there is really no real structured training. Has worked well for years during December, and athletes lose little aerobic base and seem to enjoy it.
otter wrote:
coach wrote:
I don't know where all of you coach but the reason I hate the indoor season in NY is because you have meets in December and January and league championships in February.
Its difficult to think about taking 10 days off then building up slowly as you're already in the middle of a competitive season.
In R.I. I don’t like indoor either for distance runners. I would rather build then back for outdoor the way we do for XC.
Reading the posts has been illuminating for me.
I would have thought the early indoor season in NY and RI was a benefit to coaching.
I think the idea is to give motivation to keep the kids training. It works really well with my sprinters, hurdlers, throwers, and jumpers.
For distance, they really need to get out and work their base again after XC. Most dedicated distance runners don’t really need the indoor season as motivation to train.
Maybe a meet every couple of weeks would be nice but at least for high school on our state they are racing a minimum of twice per week.
76chine wrote:
otter wrote:
In R.I. I don’t like indoor either for distance runners. I would rather build then back for outdoor the way we do for XC.
Reading the posts has been illuminating for me.
I would have thought the early indoor season in NY and RI was a benefit to coaching.
I cant speak for others but this in my experience.
Having mandated meets, having to qualify for championships, and having to use indoor meets as qualifiers for outdoor meets often compels one to train differently than if you didnt have an indoor season.
If you want to qualify in the DMR at The Penn Relays you need to run under 10:30. You can't always count on March weather to run decent times so you better run it indoors. To qualify for indoor nationals you might need to run certain times in February, so you better be a bit sharp by then. Unless you have a well established team you might not have kids fast enough to do this regularly.
In my early years of coaching using kind of a Lydiard system we couldn't run a 4x800 under 8:35 indoors. Those same kids ran 8:02 outdoors but I couldn't get them into the Penn Relay 4x800. I knew they had the potential but they never qualified. This forced me to train differently which frankly might have stunted my athletes' development.
coach wrote:
In my early years of coaching using kind of a Lydiard system we couldn't run a 4x800 under 8:35 indoors. Those same kids ran 8:02 outdoors but I couldn't get them into the Penn Relay 4x800. I knew they had the potential but they never qualified. This forced me to train differently which frankly might have stunted my athletes' development.
Couldn't break 8:35 indoors, but 8:02 outdoors!
That is an impressive peak.
I would be surprised if the 8:02 didn't lead to much faster CC times the next year, and to much faster 4 x 800m times indoors that following season. Of course, the 8:02 team may have been senior laden.
We didn't have an indoor track, and the weather was not conducive to intervals, much like NY and RI. We raced decently in the few indoor meets that we attended, but those schools with indoor tracks had an advantage as to sharpness.
Perhaps that lack of hard surface training helped us in spring track. I know our lack of an artificial track helped (dirt with a little sand mixed in), because the intervals were on a surface that didn't bruise or otherwise shock the joints. I guess that I have become an advocate of softer surfaces for training as a critical component of racing well.
My guys and gals never take a break! They just keep on improving in the Never Ending Story.....
The best choice is to take a planned day off every week that will give extra power and 100% recovery day.
- Magic Winter -