Boys Cross Country, year long progression

I did the doc in reverse chronological order, starting with the level I'd like to see my top 7 guys at going into the post season. Our league finals meet is the last thursday of October and state is the last Saturday in November. Over the last 6 weeks, we'd have only 3 races staggered every other week. This is the only time where I see that we will be doing any real "race specific" training (ie intervals at race pace).

Just curious I also run in cali D4 and would love to know what school you are ha.

Hughson, Sac Joaquin Section

Summer is too relaxed. Could be at ~40 miles in mid summer and two threshold type workouts a week instead of one. Add in 4-8 short hill sprints up to 60m with full recovery twice a week and strides on most other days... Need to focus more on race pace, especially in late season.

You guys gotta get Ripon next year!!

Really. wrote:

Summer is too relaxed. Could be at ~40 miles in mid summer and two threshold type workouts a week instead of one. Add in 4-8 short hill sprints up to 60m with full recovery twice a week and strides on most other days... Need to focus more on race pace, especially in late season.

Yes, the summer is more relaxed than last year. We lost 2 guy to injury before our first day of official practice this season. Of our kids who stayed healthy, most were burnt by the state meet. So, the summer is less intense by design. I'd love to try to get the mileage up sooner. That part is really up to the kids, as we only meet 2-3 times per week.

We will race fairly frequently, so I'm not worried about doing "race pace" workouts. If the schedule permits, we may do a few things at race pace in August prior to our season opener meet.

With two threshold workouts a week plus hill sprints and strides, it's unlikely anyone would get injured if everything else is at an easy pace. You might want to do more general strength work to prevent injury as well. If you race too frequently, then I would do less of the speed stuff (maybe once or twice a month) and focus on strength workouts (i.e. lots of hills, tempos, cruise intervals, etc.). Strides can be done to keep turnover. I like doing them 5-6 times a week and even after races. Cross country is a strength sport. Focus on that.

Wow. You do more for your team than my "division I" coach. Nice to see you are open to new ideas and feedback from others.

Only 30-45 miles a week by early September? Is this just because of the temperature?

tommy2tone wrote:

Wow. You do more for your team than my "division I" coach. Nice to see you are open to new ideas and feedback from others.

Only 30-45 miles a week by early September? Is this just because of the temperature?

Yes. We normally see our mileage drop for the first month of the season when we start working out in the afternoon. I've played with the idea of AM workouts, but decided they would be impractical, because of the size of our school district (eastern boundary is over 35 miles from the school). Plus, many of my athletes are in Jazz Band, which meets at 7:15 AM.

It kind of goes like this:

Kids reach peak mileage over the summer during late July/early august

School begins 2nd week of August and mileage drops because of training in the heat, and trying to add more quality to the mix

Mileage gradually comes back up through the end of september and stays fairly level until late October.

This season, I ran into trouble in 2 places:

1. Introducing more quality than normal early in the season to try and beat a league rival in our league opener in early september (which we did).

2. Trying to keep the quality too high as I brought the volume back up.

In all, we had a good season, much better than we have for a long time, but I feel like we missed out on an opportunity to win our league and our section because I pushed too hard early on.

Here is a more thorough breakdown of the boys that ran at state.

#1 - missed significant time with recurrent calf strain and plantar fascia issues

#2 - stayed healthy all season. Ran his guts out through mid season and underperformed at state

#3 - Same as #2

#4 - Went out with knee (patellofemoral) issues in late August, didn't race again until Oct 15.

#5 - New runner, spent season with JV squad running low mileage (probably never topped 30 mpw). Stayed healthy

#6 - Was running great over the summer, killing everybody in tempo runs, Developed I.T. band syndrome at camp (Late July). Was not able to return to training (cross training apparently prolonged the injury) until late Sept and did not race until Oct. 15

#7 - Similar to #6. Running great during summer, way ahead of teammates on tempo runs, developed sciatica at camp. Missed about 6 straight weeks. Suffered recurrences during season.

The guy that only ran one race placed 2nd at our league opener (running with eventual league champion until about 800 remained) then felt a pop in his knee standing up from a couch two days later. I thought he was going to be able to come back late season. Training was coming along nicely. He easily won the JV race at our league finals, then re-aggravated the knee and sat out the rest of the way.

Of those 8 guys, 5 missed significant time this year, 2 were cooked by the state meet, and the one guy that ran relatively easy with the JV squad ran up to his potential at state.

I think you'll see the biggest improvements if you just have solid training for a year.

Maybe work up to 10 miles a day or so. The "plan" needs to be long term, but with good goals for a fast 2 miles. Your # 5 man needs to be 9:50 this year.

Keep workouts longer, like 5x1k, 6x 800 and 6 mile tempos.

Your progression seems sound enough, until the last month. I really think the main cause of the "burn out" was the cut down workouts. The typical do more speed workouts at the end of the season doesn't work very well. If your schedule for next season is similar to last years in the sense of peaking, that is where your problem is. The reason why they run well in the middle of the season is because of all the tempos. You change that in the end and they lose that high end aerobic stimulus and therefore under-performing at the championship meet. Cut downs are nice for peaking but should not be the MAIN workout at the end of the season.

Really. wrote:

Your progression seems sound enough, until the last month. I really think the main cause of the "burn out" was the cut down workouts. The typical do more speed workouts at the end of the season doesn't work very well. If your schedule for next season is similar to last years in the sense of peaking, that is where your problem is. The reason why they run well in the middle of the season is because of all the tempos. You change that in the end and they lose that high end aerobic stimulus and therefore under-performing at the championship meet. Cut downs are nice for peaking but should not be the MAIN workout at the end of the season.

The doc I posted was for the next season, starting now.

We didn't follow this plan this year, but I'd agree that we went too easy for most of the guys toward the end of this season, however for runners #2 and #3, anything faster than an easy run seemed too hard over the last couple of weeks.

I totally agree with the need for more high end aerobic stuff as you try to bring about a peak. I purposely left off the final 6 weeks of training because I'd rather figure it out when we get there....assess where we are.

Congrats on the season, looking forward to a better season next year, and so on, but I'll plead ignorance here and state that no way in hell would I have thought a team of 7 with times that slow would finish 19th as a team in the CA state meet.There MUST be something I don't know. Was this a small school division or something? I'm not slamming you or your team brother...just trying to learn something. The boys team at my daughter's high school here in Ohio would have been comparable to your team, and they didn't accomplish squat as a team.

Look into the Paavo system. It was used effectively by both Southlake Carroll boys and girls (2nd and 7th at NXN) and Columbus North boys (9th at NXN).

They have a couple of clinics coming up, where you'll get to here other Paavo coaches present.

http://paavocoachingclinics.com/

He mentioned they are in Division 4 in the SJS, which is for schools with (4-year) enrollments of 501-1250... so it's the division of the nationally average sized schools, not the very large schools that California flaunts so many of in the national rankings every year... it's the equivalent of 2A + 1A in Washington.

[quote]Flagpole wrote:

Congrats on the season, looking forward to a better season next year, and so on, but I'll plead ignorance here and state that no way in hell would I have thought a team of 7 with times that slow would finish 19th as a team in the CA state meet.

There MUST be something I don't know. Was this a small school division or something? I'm not slamming you or your team brother...just trying to learn something. The boys team at my daughter's high school here in Ohio would have been comparable to your team, and they didn't accomplish squat as a team.

[quote]CoachB wrote:

Our boys squad had a decent year. 19th at the CA state meet. We return 10 of our top 11 guys from this season. The only senior ran #6 for us at state.

#1-#3 are pretty solid, with PR's of 16:53, 16:58, 17:26.

4-7 set

Well, like I said, I was just trying to learn something.I'd rather see them get rid of divisions and team scores and just run one big race to see who the best in the state is. One champion per state.

[quote]Flagpole wrote:

Congrats on the season, looking forward to a better season next year, and so on, but I'll plead ignorance here and state that no way in hell would I have thought a team of 7 with times that slow would finish 19th as a team in the CA state meet.

There MUST be something I don't know. Was this a small school division or something? I'm not slamming you or your team brother...just trying to learn something. The boys team at my daughter's high school here in Ohio would have been comparable to your team, and they didn't accomplish squat as a team.

[quote]

We have about 730 kids enrolled, so we are at the smaller end of our division.

Truth be told, there were undoubtedly teams from other sections (CIF Southern and CIF Central Coast) that didn't qualify past their section meet but could have beaten us at state. Our state re-allocates state meet berths based on performance by teams from each section at the state meet. Our section (Sac-Joaquin) had 3 berths for D4 boys this year. However, because of weak performances by Sac Joaquin teams the last few years at state, we will most likely have a berth taken away from us and given to the Central Coast Section next year. Therefore our team that qualified for state this year (as the 3rd team from our section) would not have even qualified if we only got 2 berths.

Our section has been pretty weak the last couple of years. It was stronger this year and should be stronger again next year, as all of the top 6 teams from this year return the majority of their top 7 runners. This being said, I think we can be much better next year, return to the state meet, and hopefully win back an extra berth for our section. It is just that with only 2 slots available to teams from our section, the margin of error will be much smaller.

oops, forgot to post this

http://www.rtspt.com/events/cif/xc2011/d4b_res.htm

Top 13 teams were pretty solid, then it drops off quite a bit after that.

The teams from our section were

15th - Ripon

19th - Hughson

22nd - Dixon

Well, thanks for learnin' me something.Get that #1 runner back, hope all the kids handle the training without problems (reasonable to assume they can), and I believe you will do better next year.Good luck!