Summer Training

Girls: The goal is to run about 30 miles per week.  If you're coming off outdoor track, then you should be at this level already.  However, if you've been idle since last October or if you played some other spring sport then you need to start by running 20-25 minutes 5 days/ week for the first 3 weeks until you get comfortable.  Move up to 30 minutes on week 4.  You need to make your training into an integral part of your daily routine.  It takes about 3 weeks to develop a habit so the earlier you start developing your training routine the easier it will be to maintain it and the more you will accomplish when the season rolls around in August.

Boys:  Just like the girls we you need to make your training into part of your daily routine. Summer training is all about logging miles, miles, and more miles.  Without a proper mileage base, we won’t be able to fully execute our training plan.  And if we can’t execute our plan we won’t accomplish the high goals we’ve set for ourselves.

Juniors and Seniors: if you’re still in shape from spring track, you should expect to log about 50 miles per week by mid-June increasing to 55 miles by late July.  For those who didn’t run track, see “Incoming Freshmen & First-timers” listed below.

Sophomores: you should run a little less than the juniors & seniors.  Expect to log about 35 – 40 miles/ week by June 30th and 45 – 50 miles by late July.

Freshmen and First-timers: and those who didn’t run track should shoot for about 30 miiles/ week by the end of June and 35 miles/ week by late July according to your ability. Some may be able to handle more miles than this while others may not.

A good general plan goes something like this:

Alternate runs of 45 and 60 minutes.  Freshmen should shoot for at least 30 minutes or more of continuous running each time you head out the door.

Do one long run each week.  Upperclassmen should start with 75 minutes and gradually build up to 2 hours.  Add 5 minutes to your long run every other week. Freshmen should start at 45 minutes and build up to 70.

Run one tempo run per week. Tempo pace is approximately your 5K pace + 15-20 seconds per mile and should last between 20 to 40 minutes depending upon your fitness level. See the chart listed below for approximate Tempo pace.

Do 6 – 8 x 100 meter strides at least twice to keep up your legs sharp.  The preference is that you do your strides in the grass barefoot.

Add some sort of cross training.  Generally, add 1 mile to your weekly running mileage for every 5 miles biked.  However, the majority of your training mileage should be from running.

Note: Incoming Freshmen and First-timers should do about half the total miles.

If the majority of your runs are at 7:30 per mile pace, then this plan will enable you to reach approximately 50 miles.

Somewhere this fall we’ll see a t-shirt that says “fall holds no secrets how summer was spent.”  We want to make sure everyone knows how we spent our summer.

The untrained cross country runner's lament: "Coach, I can run fast. I just can't run fast for very long."

About going to the state meet: "There are two ways to make it into the state meet. The first is to train hard, make continual improvements, and stay injury-free. The other is to hand the guy $5 at the gate."