My daughter does xc and is struggling to break sub 20 (pr 20:25). Her team runs approx. 30 miles a week because the coach is not a fan of high miles. At any rate, one of my friends was telling me that the xc girls at the school she works at runs 3 times that amount! Not sure if that is true? It would make sense though as they are the top team in the state.
So my question is this..what does a top girls xc team schedule look like?
Running 3 times that amount for high school girls would not be productive. You're massively increasing the injury risk for only a marginal improvement in race times. That said, 30 mpw is a little low imo. For most high school girls, working up to 50 mpw by senior year is a good goal. For very fast girls, they may get to 60 mpw with the same amount of time spent running.
I'm at a top HS for women's XC and I'd say the three things that make up the basis of my training are color runs, Indian runs, and misconstruing my coach's nutrition advice to the point he gets written up.
I coach at school that had a couple girls sub 19 and around 10 girls sub 20 last year. Our top girls range from 25-40 mpw depending on their grade level. You’d be better off adding in cross training on the bike or in the swimming pool before going much higher than 40 on a high school female body. Make sure they are cared about as a person first, training doesn’t really matter if they still think how fast they run actually matters in terms of their identity. Coach their hearts first
I go more by time when talking about long-term mileage for kids since training paces vary so much, but I included approx mileage for each group. Here are the guidelines I use:
7/8 - Build to 30 mins per day. Circuit training instead of a run 1x per week.
Freshman - 30 mins per day (20 mpw)
Sophomore - 40 mins per day (25-30 mpw)
Junior - 50 mins per day (35-40 mpw)
Senior - 60 mins per day (40-50 mpw)
We take Sundays off and do an LR of approximately 20% of the weekly mileage on Saturday if we don't have a race. Some girls progress faster than this and others stay in the 25-35 mpw range for a few years. The biggest factors are 1) physical maturity, 2) training age, 3) training consistency.
For example, I won't have a girl who hasn't hit her growth spurt push the mileage much freshman year, even if she's been training consistently since 7th grade. I've had other girls who train year-round, including the winter, who have hit 50 mpw as sophomores.
Here are a few examples of typical weeks for us:
No race (early pre-comp)
Mon - 20-30 mins of 1 min 5k/1 min steady (beginners can walk the recovery)
Tues - Easy w/ 6-8 x 8 second hill sprints
Wed - Easy
Thurs - 300 meter hills w/ jog to bottom @ 3200ish effort (15-25 mins total)
Fri - Easy
Sat - Long w/ 30 sec pickups
Sun - Off
Thurs Race (Early Comp)
Mon - 3-4 x 2k Tempo w/ 2 min recovery (1ks for girls who run over 5 mins)
Tues - Easy
Wed - Easy (short - 35 min max) + strides
Thurs - Race (higher mileage runners will warmup and cooldown to hit 7-8 miles)
Fri - Easy
Sat - Long
Sun - Off
Long story short, 30 miles per week is reasonable, in my opinion, but a program needs to have progression. I was an assistant coach in a boys' program where the coach had the whole team run in a 10 min range (20-30 mins, for example), every day. He had boys who ran 19 mins freshman year and barely snuck under 18 by senior year--not very good development during that period for anyone, especially boys who are developing like crazy physically.
No high school girl should be doing 90, in my opinion. Even 60 should only come after a few years of adding 5-10 miles per season. You might be able to squeeze a little more out of them, but it's not worth the risk, and I'd rather have them continue improving in college rather than burning everyone out.
Humphries sisters 17:20/17:30 on 30-35 mpw, but a bunch of cross training that makes it more equivalent to 40-50 mpw. They have been posting their training log.
For week three of their joint training blog, Nicole details how she and Samantha prepped for the Marcus Coach T. Invitational, where they ran new 5k PRs.
My daughter does xc and is struggling to break sub 20 (pr 20:25). Her team runs approx. 30 miles a week because the coach is not a fan of high miles. At any rate, one of my friends was telling me that the xc girls at the school she works at runs 3 times that amount! Not sure if that is true? It would make sense though as they are the top team in the state.
So my question is this..what does a top girls xc team schedule look like?
Our team was in the top 50 in the US, competed in the gold race in Huntsville, etc...
Our top runners last year were anywhere from 45-55 miles per week. They could have done more but I did not think that was good for their long-term development.
Also, it took a couple of years for them to get there. Those that did not do track or switched to field events in the winter would start all over again every summer. I can never get those athletes past 30 miles per week in a way that helps them.
Humphries sisters 17:20/17:30 on 30-35 mpw, but a bunch of cross training that makes it more equivalent to 40-50 mpw. They have been posting their training log.
I coach at school that had a couple girls sub 19 and around 10 girls sub 20 last year. Our top girls range from 25-40 mpw depending on their grade level. You’d be better off adding in cross training on the bike or in the swimming pool before going much higher than 40 on a high school female body. Make sure they are cared about as a person first, training doesn’t really matter if they still think how fast they run actually matters in terms of their identity. Coach their hearts first
Same. 25-40.
30 miles is not horribly low at all, esp if you are trying to break 20. In fact i would say respectfully that if you are not breaking 20 at 30mpw, you might not be a natural runner or the 30 is all easy runs/bad coaching? Mix in some weights ("off track"), make sure your coach is hitting threshold runs, speed of any sort (intervals etc...) and that really should be enough for sub 20. I believe the HS nat champ claims to run <20MPW. She X-trains several hours too and no doubt is genetically gifted. But, clearly not running 90mpw. Add a swim day before adding 20 more MPW! I would say the good news is if you are at 30MPW, frankly you have your base... for sub 20! Now work on next stages--racing, threshold runs, speed. You will get sub 20 no doubt about it this year! No doubt! Eval your weakness when XC is over. Maybe speed/strength? Run with the 400/800 group in indoor season?
Running 3 times that amount for high school girls would not be productive. You're massively increasing the injury risk for only a marginal improvement in race times. That said, 30 mpw is a little low imo. For most high school girls, working up to 50 mpw by senior year is a good goal. For very fast girls, they may get to 60 mpw with the same amount of time spent running.
This is a good answer. I agree with the build up. This is the right answer for girls that want to be good and willing to train year round with small breaks between seasons. If someone starts running for the first time Senior year or something then the answer changes.
Humphries sisters 17:20/17:30 on 30-35 mpw, but a bunch of cross training that makes it more equivalent to 40-50 mpw. They have been posting their training log.
I think these are really good and enjoy reading them. The problem I have with it is that you can take them a bit out of context. We don't know what they have been doing the two months prior. They could have been working their butts off and running 60 mpw.
Humphries sisters 17:20/17:30 on 30-35 mpw, but a bunch of cross training that makes it more equivalent to 40-50 mpw. They have been posting their training log.
I think these are really good and enjoy reading them. The problem I have with it is that you can take them a bit out of context. We don't know what they have been doing the two months prior. They could have been working their butts off and running 60 mpw.
Interesting, not really seeing anything fast, fartrlek is the closest to interval (vo2) pace. Everything else is tempo, easy, or easy long. Is XC practice in the morning common? I would have failed miserably.
That's what I am talking about. It's hard to see the whole picture off three weeks of training. I am sure there are pieces we aren't seeing.
It is Texas, so challenging enough running in the morning 80 degrees and 85% humidity, but 100 degree afternoons near impossible.
I believe from a few videos, that Natalie Cook's training was similar with lower miles and heavy on the cross training. Natalie did face injury problems her first few HS years, but finished strong as #1 in the country. Humphries sisters haven't faced injury problems this year I've seen. Nicole sat out a few races last Fall and didn't race Garmin. Alexandra Fox did miss one race to start this season, but that may not mean anything.
This does seem like low miles and lack of speed work for girls who run 10:23/16:50 and 10:35/17:30. My guess is with State still 2 months away they haven't started a ton of speed work. I would also guess summer training wasn't too much different than we're seeing now, I don't think they would want to drop off miles weeks 8-12 before State.
Talent level and injury history are factors on what the training should be. Well at least a good coach would take those things into consideration. My guess that for most of them the mileage in the summer was probably a touch higher before they started into some workouts.
Another training blog out. OK, they're starting to make me gag a little bit that life is so easy and running sub 17's on 35 mph. :D ;) I truly believe they are nice girls and glad they are sharing the articles, but most 16-18 minute girls in the country are on 40-55 mpw, dealing with a few strains, challenging school work/tests, friend/team drama, and struggling to find 8 hours of sleep a night. :)
