Questions from a High School Cross Country Runner

Your diet does not include a single vegetable.

Are there no unpaved trails to run on in your area? It's a very good idea to avoid running on pavement/concrete all the time. Run on trails, grass, and rubberized surfaces as much as you can. I would not recommend running barefoot on the roads/sidewalks.

What are your PR's?

1) running on some grass is better than no grass and you won't mess up your knees running a few strides across the road, but trails are optimal

2) yeah make sure you eat veggies.....you shouldn't need to worry about diet too much as you seem to be lean, just get your protein, carbs, electrolytes, and I suggest eating a daily vitamin

3) barefoot running is actually really good for it, ease into it, youll start to have some foot pain becasue the muscles have never been worked before...read up on it, its actually best to run on uncomfortable surfaces becasue it teaches you to put stress on muscles and not bones and joints

it sounds though that your too focused on minutia like diet and barefoot running, at your age the most important thing is to go out and put the miles in over the summer....just run...the diet could be more harmful actually as its very strict and you could be leaving out something necessary.....i say eat what you want....so long as you're lean you're fine

dont worry much at all about diet. just try to eat as much as you can and get lots of variety. i tried to keep a strict diet in high school and now i just eat whatever i want. most of the pros do that too. i think keeping a strict diet can only lead to more stress if you start to move away from it because it will get on your mind. its best to just avoid that entirely. dont bother with vitamins either. as long as you vary your diet, you'll get everything you need. forget barefoot running. that stuff is a joke. it will mess you up later when you try to run in trainers. the important thing is to run and to do lots of it. all that other stuff doesnt matter. keep things simple.

Yeah, I forgot to mention vegetables. I usually have mashed potatoes, carrots, or tomatoes, but I probably don't get enough daily vegetable anyways.

Well I live in Miami and there aren't a lot of parks or unpaved trails nearby. The only thing I can think of is the nearest golf course and the beach.

As a freshman my PR was 19:10

and my sophomore year i biked for 4 months with the team because I wasn't able to run and i think i got in two or three weeks of training and then ran an 18:51

Thanks a lot for the help.

In regards to the grass/road question: I would get on grass as much as you can, as long as the horizontal grade isn't too steep. If you're doing tempo-type work, avoid the constant grade/surface change, but otherwise I wouldn't worry about it.

Regarding diet: are you KIDDING?!

A: That eating plan may be good for a dieting, weight-conscious, non-athlete girl, but it doesn't provide what you need for 80mpw, which is MORE. You need CALORIES to run; if you're concerned about weight, DON'T BE. When you're training hard the only problem you'll ever have w/food is getting in enough calories. Take a multivitamin, eat reasonably balanced meals, and eat a lot. And fats too... they won't kill you. An ice cream cone now and then never hurt anyone (and I'm not talking frozen yogurt).