I'm not running track this year to train for a marathon. I'm 18, a junior. I ran 19:30s this past year. Would training for a marathon benefit towards cross country? Or would it ruin my last season?
I'm not running track this year to train for a marathon. I'm 18, a junior. I ran 19:30s this past year. Would training for a marathon benefit towards cross country? Or would it ruin my last season?
Depends what your marathon training would look like. What would you do? Mileage, workouts, etc.
I want to work up to 80 mpw with a tempo and a long run each week. With some morning runs and strides.
I was in a similar position, and I'll give you my story.
I was 17 for my senior year in HS (August Birthday) and during XC season I ran about 18:30-19:30 for all my races. Anyway I decided in January of my senior year to run a May marathon. I was doing indoor track at the time. The only way I changed my training was instead of taking Saturday and Sunday off every week (I was running like 15-20 mpw prior to this) I ran a short run on Saturday and did a huge long run on Sunday (easily half my weekly mileage)
After about 6 or 7 weeks I was running an 18-22 mile long run every week, while hitting around 35-40 mpw. I was pretty much the same speed as junior year during indoor track (while I was building up my long run) but I got much much faster during outdoor track.
My PRs between April and June (the outdoor track season) went from...
800 2:25->2:16
1600 5:16->4:46
3200 11:40->10:26
I ended up running a 3:34 marathon that May, and broke 5 in the mile for the first time ever 4 days after the marathon (13 second PR)
The training did not ruin me. It made me MUCH more respectable. I didn't know anything about training during this period, I pretty much just started running a ton on Sundays. If I had thought about it too much I probably would have messed it up.
Long story short, go for it, but do track this year too.