Number of High School Cross Country races a year

Ideal schedule has kids race every other week.

The thing that is great about the schedule is that you can pull a race or keep certain kids out of unimportant races if needed. I have even more than your 10 right now but I could see benching some kids if needed.

We typically do 13 or 14 by the time we get to states. 6 dual meets, 4 or 5 invites. Counties, Sectionals, States.

There are kids who need almost every meet to race into their best shape. There are kids you have to be careful not to peak by their 5th or 6th race. And everything else in between.

We willy have 3 to 5 weeks where there is an invite and dual on the same week. I do not run any workouts on those weeks. But might have a progression run, flying 30s or 10 second hill sprint type of day in between.

On weeks with one race, I will typically work on a pace I think the kids need to learn how to run by the end of the season.

It's tough. THe way the schedule works in high school is not ideal. But there are definitely programs that have made it work and peak their kids all the way through Nats.

Coach of kiddies wrote:

Ideal schedule has kids race every other week.

I agree but almost nobody else in my state does. We race way too much.

15 over 3 months.

otter wrote:

Coach of kiddies wrote:

Ideal schedule has kids race every other week.

I agree but almost nobody else in my state does. We race way too much.

That doesn't sound fun.

Thanks for the response! When I was running in college we did every other week and it definitely helped with mental and physical burnout. I’ve never tried it with high school kids though.

Thanks for the response! You are very right, we can mess with it. We have roughly 30 boys and 20 girls, so

There are ways to make it work. The difficult aspect I found when sitting kids out of a meet is sometimes it has frustrated them and there parents enough, that it would’ve been more worth it just to race them. Appreciate the feedback!

Thanks for the helpful tips!! Fortunately for us, we only have one week that there are two meets, but from the second week of season until the end have a race every week. It is definitely more fun for the kids to race. You’re very right, our younger kids especially seem to really benefit. Our girls team two years ago won back to back meets in the middle of the season, but then the bottom fell out and didn’t run well at all for championship season, so have been a little cautious on how much speed and such to do with them with so many races.

If our team makes State this fall, they'll have 14 races (12 5K, 2 2-miles) in 12 weeks.

In my 30 years of coaching I've had some kids that would benefit from less racing, and many more that need to be raced regularly to stay sharp. I've noticed that if there is too much time between competitions high school kids lose focus.

Twice a week, every week. Only way kids run on Saturday bro.

I agree and it sometimes depends on your relationship with the parents and or kid. I have some kids I would never sit even if it’s the wrong move for them to race because I don’t want to hear it from the parents. I would sit those that are the kids that are easy to deal with first and then see how the rest of the team reacts to it.

I know some may not agree but In my opinion bunch your races a bit. So you maybe have 2 races in a week to a week and half. Keep practice volume and effort in check during that time. Then allow 1.5 - 2 weeks for training after a “race block”. I have found my kids are more successful when races are bunched a bit. My kids run a total of about 8-11 races a year with the post season races included. In my opinion teams race wayyyyyy too much to allow for growth and correct timing for peaking. Not every runner can handle the beating of a top-tier runner.

Our best kids can run up to 9 times in an 11 week season if they qualify for state. We also have 5 weekday dual meets that kids not in our top 10 run in to get experience. Our off weeks are week 3 and week 7. Week 8 is our conference meet and 9,10,11 are the state series.

Every other week would be nice, but most high school kids would grow bored quickly and quit.