Cross Country scheduling for colleges.....has it changed that much in 30 years? for example:

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14 years ago 09/30/2009 2:24pm EDT

re: when cross got respect

when cross got respect wrote:
kids today..geeezzz wrote:
Having one race a week, every week from Sept to Nov was no burden at all. In fact we looked forward to it. It gave us a nice, easy day, the day before the meet, (jogging 6 miles) and then the meet day itself. A breakup in our typical 90-110 mile weeks. We improved every week from pre season to nationals. We weren't 'babied'. It made us better and tougher.
I totally agree.

really? both you goobers agree that that racing 5miles every week for 8 - 10 consecutive weeks is the best way to run the best race of your season in week 10? and having the last 2 races be 10k? give me a break. why isn't that what the pros do then? first of all, your 30 y/o memory is faulty. you don't remember being as tired as you actually were, and your remember being tougher than you actually are. and what do you have to compare it with? who's to say i'm right, but at least i can compare my first 2 seasons w/ my last 2 seasons of xc at 2 different programs. season 1 - raced every week. i got better, most of the upper classmen were fried by end. season 2, new program, raced every week. toast at the end. season 3 raced a little more sparingly, better workouts, team improved. season 4 - every other week for the most part, a couple guys would race consecutive weeks at some point. team runs best race of the year at regionals and suprisingly qualifies for ncaa's.

and in 1st 2 years as an asst. coach after getting the control to race every other week, the results? the only 2 ncaa qualifying teams in school history and 1st ever regional championship. if you're a coach who halfway has a brain, racing 5miles week in week out is not the best way to run your best races at the end of the year unless your ass is undertrained when you show up.

14 years ago 09/30/2009 2:49pm EDT

re: i do it for the lolz

We would race 8-10 times in XC if you made it to DII nationals. Yes we had a couple of dual meets because our coach wanted to brag to other coaches(FB and BB) aabout beating a conference foe. But since those duals were on Tuesdays, we really turned them into an interval session.

Our asst. coach who actually trained us had us run the 5 mile XC race, change out of spikes, then run 3 mile hard run, rest 5 minutes and hard one mile run to "complete" the workout. Plus our Sept. weekend races warranted very little resting before meet. We were working through them.

When the important races came, we got to rest up for them. And raced well with fresh legs. I agree that the way to learn how to race is to race more often. Many runners today haven't learned how to race. Tehy have learned how to train, just missing the racing portion.

circa 1976

14 years ago 09/30/2009 4:57pm EDT

re: cgray

right-o, charlie. We had regular, yearly duals the years I was at PSU while you were one state over at CMSU. We had Wichita State, Southwest Mo. State, Emporia State on the X-C schedule every year. Not these days. A couple of Invitationals, (The Wichita State and Southwest Mo State Invites, which drew alot of good teams from D1 schools like KU and Arkansas, Oklahoma, etc, as well as d2 and naia. Then it was Conference and Nationals. We never flew anywhere. No money.

14 years ago 10/01/2009 11:29am EDT

re: i do it for the lolz

First of all, I think the pros generally make a mistake by racing as infrequently as many of them do. Read Ron Hill's "Long Hard Road." He did a lot more than five mile races each week for 8-10 weeks. Weekly races were pretty much year round for him and he was no different than loads of fast Brits from those years.

Secondly, you would not necessarily do 8-10 consecutive weeks. Race on maybe 4 consecutive weekends, have a week off, then 3 more, then an off week, then the big meets.

But yes, you would know better than any of us old guys as to how tired we felt.

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Cross Country scheduling for colleges.....has it changed that much in 30 years? for example:

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