latic acid wrote:
My daughter runs division I college track and her specialty is the 800. She is a senior this year and the (new) coach suggested cross country which she had never done before. So, she did that and was good enough to make the 7 person roster and compete all the way through regionals.
It is now most of the way through indoor track and its safe to say she is behind…her times are just not where they usually are at this point in the season. Can Fall XC have this effect for some people? Are 800 runners better off staying away from XC? Does it sometimes take longer for those who ran XC to get their speed back?
Not looking for any miracle workouts suggestions, she is sticking with the coaches training program and hope the coach knows what she is doing. Just curious what others have to say about running XC (and high miles associated with it) and its effects on 800 running.
I think a coach needs to know what they are doing.
I would do different things with the pure 800 runners. I think building up a base is good but you don't want to tear them up in xc, you want to build them up. I found if they did a full xc season, it wasn't ideal. What's the point of having to take a break in November, if indoors is a priority. They dont' really have much time to build up again.
Then again, if they don't do xc, there is like a lot of time to wast. Some years, I'd let them screw around with the 400 guys doing their drills and what not in sept/october. Then I said, "Oh your summer starts now, we are doing oct Nov December as base building as I want us ready to roll in January. Indoors is way more important for 800 people at most schools as you have 4 x 800s and DMRs so the 5th best 800 guy can make an impact.
Other years I let them do xc but they'd do like 1/2 to 2/3rds of the xc workouts and then we cut it in octobe as i wanted them to have 6-8 weeks to build up through december.
But it's tough for you daughter as she was in the top 7.
My first year in xc, I had an 800 guy who was a junior who was a HS runningback so he'd never done xc. I had them show up at xc practice and he'd do like 1/2 the workout. At the end of the season, hewas gettin in the xc guys faces and yelling at them as he was beating half of them. He thought they weren't trying.
I said, "There trying. They just aren't that good. You'd definitely be in our top 12, do you want to run conference." So he ran conference.
The next year, he really wanted to train for xc. I let him do it over the summer but when he came back i said to him, "Look I don't know if this xc work is right for you. I want the fall to build you up, not tear you down." Halfway through the season he wasn't one of our to gusy so I just pulled the plug and let him do like 1/2 of teh stuff again. He may or may not have run conference i dont' remember - it wasn't important but he did make NCAA regional finals and have a massive pb.
Email me if you have questions
robertjohnson@letsrun.com