High School Training Fun!!

Are you guys, girls or mixed?

If you are not mixed, why not?

How good is your team?

We are mostly mixed but have a very small girls team-probably only 4-5 girls will go to summer practice. The boys team this year is looking to go to state, which we should be able to accomplish

Is your school small or just the girls team?

If your school is small, can you talk to the coaches of other sports and see if a few days a week you can get their captains to run conditioning practices at the same time?

If you can get a big group of several sports that warm up together and then run 2 miles before breaking up into sport specific groups, it will be easier to get the kids who get cut from the other sports to consider XC.

We are a 3A school but we have a pretty small xc team-about 30-35 people last year

Do you have a city pool or a lake that you can start runs from and swim after?

You guys could do a beer mile. Or something better tailored to the young athlete, like a soda mile, an eggnog mile, a milk mile, a cheeseburger mile, a poptart mile, a waffle mile, etc... Heck, even a bowl of cereal mile could get really interesting and funny, giving you guys something to bond over, and increasing daily turnout.

We do live close to the ocean. And the "beer mile" is a good idea too

Renevah wrote:

We are a 3A school but we have a pretty small xc team-about 30-35 people last year

You do realize this is a national site, right?

3A means different things in different states. For example:

In Illinois, 3A is the biggest schools in the state with enrollments around 2000.

In Oregon, 3A is pretty small schools with enrollments around 200.

In Washington, 3A is fairly big schools with enrollments around 1400.

Renevah wrote:

We do live close to the ocean. And the "beer mile" is a good idea too

Beach runs are a great way as well as having a preseason "race" possibly with alumni welcome on your home course, barbecue afterward

Always have a frisbee or football handy for after runs to toss around. Just hang out after runs and socialize and get to know one another. Frozen popsicles are a cheap and good post run snack to keep everyone around and talking. Bring a cooler full for every run.

My sons team played a lot of Ultimate during the summer, sometime just going on a short run then using the game for some speed work.

As mentioned, jumping in water after a summer run is always fun. Try to end your runs at the beach occasionally if you can.

We did a point to point relay race that started at the school and ended at the pool where we'd swim and eat. Each leg was a random distance determined mostly by convenient exchange points. Everyone would pile into the back of someones truck and drive along with the runners, cheering for your guy and yelling insults at the opposition. When we got close to an exchange we'd drive on ahead, drop off whoever was next, and pick up the finishing runner.

Oh? wrote:

Renevah wrote:

We are a 3A school but we have a pretty small xc team-about 30-35 people last year

You do realize this is a national site, right?

3A means different things in different states. For example:

In Illinois, 3A is the biggest schools in the state with enrollments around 2000.

In Oregon, 3A is pretty small schools with enrollments around 200.

In Washington, 3A is fairly big schools with enrollments around 1400.

Yeah I do realize that sorry I was too lazy to include it the first time. We are in Washington, I think there's about 1600 at our school

We do have a local 5k on the 4th of July that 8-10 of us usually do. We could advertise it more and turn it into a barbecue afterwards though, thanks for the idea!

dreamin wrote:

We did a point to point relay race that started at the school and ended at the pool where we'd swim and eat. Each leg was a random distance determined mostly by convenient exchange points. Everyone would pile into the back of someones truck and drive along with the runners, cheering for your guy and yelling insults at the opposition. When we got close to an exchange we'd drive on ahead, drop off whoever was next, and pick up the finishing runner.

That's a good idea how long was the race

For long runs, we'd take turns bringing breakfast for everyone, which usually consisted of donuts.

I still do this as an adult, but instead we go to somewhere like Starbucks or an actual restaurant for breakfast/brunch.

That's a good idea too thanks!

Thanks for all the ideas everyone i will definitely put all of them into the works this summer. Any other ideas out there?

My team usually does color wars.

It's week-month long competition with mini-games and other stuff to get points. We split our team into different teams. One of the favorite mini-games is a plank competition (who can hold a plank the longest). Another one is a scavenger hunt. Each mini-game/ other stuff has points involved and the team in the end with the most wins.

You can have predict your time "races" most days.

The idea is to run the days workout in exactly the amount of time you predicted.

If you are supposed to be running 8:00 pace for your easy days and the days run is 5.5 miles, you would predict finishing in 44:00. The person closest wins. You can either have small prizes like the winner gets to determine the next days run or larger prizes for having the best paced month of runs.