Hello, I am currently going to be entering my Junior year of Cross Country and need some help/advice with summer training. (A short rundown, I never ran Cross Country in High School, and have only competed in 1 season of XC Collegiately).
I have never summer trained in my life (poor decision), and have shown up into camp in zero shape my first 2 years. (I was never a cross guy and mentally didn't want to run it my first 2 seasons) However this past indoor/outdoor season I saw big progressions from my freshman times despite the lack of zero summer training. Cutting PRs in the 800m from 2:02.6-> 1:56.06, 1500m 4:18.2-> 4:01.9, and 1 Mile 4:37.7-> 4:24.9 (I think my legs adjusted to College Training after almost taking 20 months off, since my Senior year of HS Track was canceled due to Covid). My First season in Cross I finished with PRs in the 8k of 27:06 and 10k of 33:04 by the end of the season, and in December ran a 3k coming off Cross shape in 9:07.3 (Took a 7 day break in-between seasons). My Goal for this upcoming Cross season is to consistently be running in sub 26:20s and maybe even break 26:00 a couple times.
I am now buying in and want to reach my true potential, I would consider myself a low mileage runner never reaching over 65 mpw in Cross and during Track I was somewhere from 35-50 mpw. However I have never been injured running and want to reach up to 70-80 mpw this summer, I am very sharp when it comes to track workouts and know how to train myself now, however Summer training for Cross is a different story. Any suggestions or feedback on workouts and how to run the summer mileage and thresholds would be greatly appreciated it!!