transitioning from sprinting to distance

Be wary of the move upwards. It often doesn't work. My PB was 10.8x but I did not do so well at mile and above when training for higher distances (although I did not do those on a formal team). Just as there is sprinting "talent," at least as much natural endurance ability and 'trainability' are required for higher distances (contrary to almost everyone's assertions on this thread). Why not join a local track club and continue with sprints, occasionally dabbling in 800 if you like?

Unfortunately there's no local track club in my area, so I'll be done with sprints. The xc team does becomes a distance track club in the spring offseason however so I'll probably be doing the 800 then.

Bump

Moving up wrote:

Hello, I thought I'd try to get some advice for the upcoming xc season. I have been primarily a sprinter in high school,with just one year of cross that was uneventful. I will be starting school at my local junior college this fall and while they don't have a track team they do have an xc team. While never running more than 35 mpw, I wanted to see if anyone had any advice on how much mileage I should do this summer, any base workouts, and what time I should aim for on my first race (4 miles)

PR's

100m-11.53

200m-23.27

400m-51.40

800m-2:06.2 (ran it once this season)

3 mile- 19:36 (only ran one soph year)

I would say that you don't need to feel like you should train the exact same way as your teammates. They will probably run higher mileage that you and go faster for the easy stuff. You'll be faster doing 200 repeats.

That said, I would think there are two areas where you could train to become more distance-y.

1) Your long run. It may not be as long as everyone else's, but try to steadily (but slowly) increase the distance on this. Don't worry whatsoever about the pace.

2) Cruise-interval type sessions (on a track if you have one). Something like 6 x 1000m with 1:00 jog rest. Should be really steady, and not so hard, but you'll probably hold a decent pace without worrying about it. But the point of the workout is just to be running reasonably fast while staying aerobic.

Working on these two things should set you up pretty well. You work on running for a long time and you work on running fast aerobically. Two keys for a sprinter moving up.

I feel you don't need to hammer 8 mile runs at 7:00 pace every day with your teammates. A 4-mile jog at 8:30 or so would leave you fresher for the quality days.

There's no need to lose touch with your sprinting! Keep incorporating some sprint stuff, just don't make it your focus.

Thanks for the advice, I've just started running again last week with 32 miles and a long run of 7, with a goal of getting up to about 50-60mpw by the first week of August, which is when the season starts. I'll probably max out my long run to about 10 miles but I'm about 3 weeks away from getting there. While I know that doing this much distance would cause me to lose some sprint speed, are there any recommended workouts for me to retain some of that speed? My coach told me to do 6 strides 3x a week.

Moving up wrote:

Thanks for the advice, I've just started running again last week with 32 miles and a long run of 7, with a goal of getting up to about 50-60mpw by the first week of August, which is when the season starts. I'll probably max out my long run to about 10 miles but I'm about 3 weeks away from getting there. While I know that doing this much distance would cause me to lose some sprint speed, are there any recommended workouts for me to retain some of that speed? My coach told me to do 6 strides 3x a week.

Not a ton of advice for you but the strides are a good idea. The other would be to be conservative and avoid doing too much this summer. You need to make sure to let your body adjust to consistently doing more distance. Better to go a little slower at first than getting hurt.

Interesting topic here. I was in a similar situation as you. Mainly was a 200/400 sprinter and jumper until halfway through my senior track season. The coach was looking for someone that could run a decent 800 for the 4x800. Had 3 solid guys and had aspirations for state. Gave it a try and I ran 1:58 by the end of the season. My sprint times were similar to yours. I had run 50.5 in the 400. I ended up going to a division II school with the coach not being sure what my event was going to be. We found that the 1,500 was my max range to really be competitive. The 800 was really my race and ultimately I was more of a 400/800 guy. I ran xc but was never close to being varsity. That said, I just didn't have the body type for the longer distances at 6'4" and 170lbs at the time.

I think the key for you is getting in 3 key workout types per week.

Work up to 12 miles for your long run by the end of the summer.

Do a tempo run once per week, I usually went 5 miles with the middle 3.5 miles fast. Longer intervals could serve the same purpose. If there's a local 5k race, enter and substitute it for this workout to test your fitness in a month or so.

Then do your easy runs in the middle, with doing some strides when you are done. You have some speed and don't want to lose it. I think your coaches suggestion on the strides is solid. If you have a decent grass hill, you could get some hill work in 1 of those days. I always liked to do my strides on the grass football field. I'd build up the first 30 yards to about 90-95%, then when I hit the other 20 I'd ease off.

Wish you luck in this transition.