(Another) Summer mileage (Thread)

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I am also going into my junior year and planning on working up to 65-70. What's your goals for XC? I want to run my 5k in the low 16s.

What is your current average mileage per week, and highest mpw? Honestly, 60mpw is only 8.5 per day if you run 7 days a week, and 10 per day if you take a day off. Run some doubles, do a long run, and maybe one or two workouts per week based on how you feel and you'll be fine. Listen to your body while you build up and you'll be golden.

I'm in the exact same boat as you and the OP. My highest week going into cross last year was 50mpw. I'm shooting for a 16:50 5k, of course, faster is also welcome.

Ive been doing 40-45 recently and just like these other guys, im looking to run low 16s

Don't count the miles. Hitting some arbitrary number for a few weeks means nothing. You want to be good, be consistent.

Start by building up to where you can run 60+ min a day, every day. When 60 min becomes routine and the pace begins to quicken try adding doubles. If you have a hard time running 60 min daily you can break it into doubles, but the goal is to build to one 60+ min run.

If you want to truly enjoy success next fall get all the guys on your team running every day. 60 minutes. Don't worry about workouts or tempos or weights, just run. When you feel good pick up the pace the last couple miles. When you feel like crap slow down the pace and take a nap later that day. Run on trails. Run in the hills. When you adapt to 60 min a day add doubles. Most importantly though do it together so your team comes together and develops a common work ethic that can be carried into the fall. You are in HS, you need to run every day and learn to enjoy it every day. Consistency, as in running daily is the most important thing you can do but pay attention to the little things like staying hydrated, getting enough sleep and proper diet go a long way. Lastly run early in the morning. Wake up before it gets hot and get your run in. Then forget about running the rest of the day and be a kid. Until you're ready for that double that is.

Run 60! Best of luck.

One of the best things I ever did for my running was changing from running for time instead of distance. Whenever I ran for distance, I always timed my mile splits, tracked my mileage. This lead to overtraining since at the end of the week 100 "looks" better than 98 or 99.

Whenever I ran for time, I ran by feel which was much better than running listening to my splits since 6 min pace could be easy one day and hard another.

I also recommend doubles 5+ days a week. Read summer of malmo.

I don't think I agree with the 60 minute thing. I don't think that being that consistent is the best plan. How did doing that work for you? What were your times?

Also what was your Track times for this sophomore year? I ran a 2:05 800 and 4:39 1600

If you eat today, you run today." -Joe Vigil

If you want to be the best you run every day, bottom line. With rest days and season breaks planned in training of course. But if you you don't think you need to be consistent go ahead.

indoors 1500 - 4:17

800 - 2:05

3000 - 9:36

Your 2 mile is weakest, more tempos and more mileage will remedy that.

I'd read Jack Daniels' book. Check out the 5K / 10K training plan.

What you'll see is that it's not just about the mileage. You should build a base of mileage at an Easy pace, then transition into some Repeats, Intervals and Threshold training.

I think the Threshold stuff is most important for XC. So, you should be doing some tempo runs (about 20 mins of running at about mile pace + 60 secs), fartleks, cruise intervals, etc.

Stay off the track--run on trails and soft surfaces. Run more hills than you want to. Do some supplemental training (I like Jay Johnson's GSM stuff).

So, you should by all means slowly increase your mileage, but don't just run a bunch of miles at Easy pace.

Okay, thank you everyone for the tips

high school xc wrote:

I'd read Jack Daniels' book. Check out the 5K / 10K training plan.

The plans in DRF are season plans that culminate in peak performances during Phase 4, with the main goal (championship) race being the one at the end of the final week.

If you go through all four phases of a plan from DRF over the summer, expect to be really good the first week of school. Since you want to be good in Oct/Nov though, your goal for the summer should be to give your coach something to work with come September. Stay away from the hard stuff.

Do not trigger doubles at 60 minutes in the first run. Doubles imperil recovery and have become an ungrounded principle since Lydiard said 100. Just run miles and come back with fuel left in the tank for tomorrow. Monitor when you get depleted and learn how to run through that, a bit at a time. You will eventually find steady miles to be effortless and then you are ready for fall. It's fine to throw in pick-ups. Learn to monitor sensory data and how to relax.