Cross Country Training - Preparing for the season. (Read 1122 times)

This is the 1st year i want to run cross country and odviously you have to do running to prepare. So i don't know if training for cross country is really cross training but i didn't know what other group it would fit in. Any way i just finished up the soccer season and i play keeper so there wasn't that much running invovled. Also i only just started logging my running (time, distance ex..) and keeping track of how many miles are on my shoes. Wow i didn't know there was so much to running (shoes, hydration, not over working ex..) So far i can run around 9-10 miles a week with my long runs being around 4-6 miles at a slow pace. I want to work up to running 5-6 days a week with one long run (8-9 miles) and other runs being 4-5 miles. O yea i also live in Florida so the terrian is very flat. Do you have any recommendation on preparing/training for cross country. (schedule, if goal is good?, how to reach goal, and how much you should increase by weekly, and anything else you can think of.Thanks for your time.

I'm assuming you mean for high school, right? I'd get in touch with the coach or some people already on the team. Ask what they'd recommend for training. I dunno if you have to "make" the team, or if XC takes anyone. Either way, it'll show some determination. Modify whatever advice you're given to your needs, then FOLLOW it. Come XC season, if they do take anyone, there will be folks who show up with no base. You'll have it. But don't overdo it. I'm trying to recall how I went about it, decades ago. Oh yeah, I think I just showed up and thought I'd be good because I'd been "kind of" running for a few years. I wasn't good then, but I didn't really try harder. And I quit when I thought the coach was an idiot. I don't recommend that method, even if the coach is an idiot. Wow i didn't know there was so much to running (shoes, hydration, not over working ex..) Don't worry about all the complicated stuff you read here. A lot of us like to buy stuff to make up for inadequacies in other areas of our life (you'll understand when you get older,) or because we couldn't get cool toys when we were kids. Running allows you to be a kid all your life. And that's great. Get a decent pair of shoes at a running store (they may give team discounts.) And you don't need the best shoe. There is no best shoe, only about a dozen that are right for you. It ain't gonna be the most expensive, either. A $25 or $30 Timex will do just fine. Get a simple water/bike bottle. You don't need a Camelbak. In fact, you should be fine drinking water ahead of your run and after. Probably no need to carry for the distances you'll be running. Running is just putting one foot in front of the other, repeatedly, faster than walking. And cross training is other types of training that isn't running focused (biking, lifting weights, etc.) But I understand the confusion. You may also wanna post your question in Running 101 or General Running. Good luck.

I'm assuming you are in High School so a good thing to do would be to talk to whoever is going to be the coach at your school and see if he/she has a particular summer program (some do some don't). That being I think it is fantastic that you are already thinking about training for the fall season so soon. Most kids aren't thinking about training for cross-country until sometime in August when official team practices start so any training you can do over the summer will put you way ahead of a lot of your competition. I think your goals of running 5-6 days a week and running a 8-9 mile long run are very attainable, but I wouldn't get to hung up on hitting a certain mileage per week or certain long run distance, and I wouldn't limit myself to those numbers either. Ultimately you are training to race well in the fall not to fill up a training log in the summer. As for your training you said you were running about 10 miles a week, with a 4-6 mile long run right now, so you're running a total of about 3 days a week right now with 2 days of 2-3 miles and a 4-6 mile long run is that right? If yu don't have any injuries and are so young (again assuming High School) there is no reason why you can't be running every day or nearly every day over the summer. You could probably do 3 miles 5 days a week plus a 6 mile long run this comming week with no problem as long as you kept the pace easy (not necessarily slow, but easy) that would give you 21 miles for the week right there and still have a day off. Do that for 2 weeks then increase the length of a few of the runs (3 miles x 3-4 days, 4 miles x 2 days, 8 mile long run). Do that for 2-3 weeks. You get the idea. You can't keep increasing like that forever, but given your age, fitness level from playing soccer, and low starting mileage you could reasonably make a 5-10 mile per week jump every 2-3 weeks for the whole summer. A couple times a week at the end of a few of the shorter/easy runs throw in a few striders 50-60 meters at a fast pace, but not all out, these will help you keep your footspeed and transition to faster work later. If you're feeling sick or run down take an extra day off and stay at your current level for at least another week even. Good luck and happy training!