Well, Labor Day is over and most cross country programs around the country are starting up. Nearly sixteen thousand high schools, and 500,000 high school boys and girls will run cross country in the fall of 2013! Numbers will be up, once again, for the seventeenth straight year!
Here is week ten, in its entirety, for your Summer and now Fall Training program. This program is geared to the high school and college athlete. We suggest that college athletes run morning runs three days a week of 30-40 minutes, as long as it does not hurt their afternoon workouts.
If you have questions, send us a note to [email protected]. If you want the entire fourteen weeks plus the two championship week training schedule, then go to www.american-trackandfield.com and sign up for the free ATF ezine subscription and we will send you the links.
The program is sponsored by Saucony, a company who cares about cross country and has supported our cross country programs for several years. We suggest that you check out their training and racing products. The Shay XC is one of the best selling cross country racing shoes in North America, and the Carrera XC won the Running Network’s best Racing shoe for the 2013 Cross Country Shoe review.
Enjoy week ten!
Shay XC, photo from Saucony Running
Week 10: Early Racing Begins
Your first real race will be a revelation. You should be able to handle the distance, but perhaps your pace will be slower than you expect. You’ll recover quickly, so that you’ll be racing fit in 3 to 5 races.
Monday: Warm up; 45-50 minutes easy running; 8×150 yards relaxed strideouts on grass, jogging back to the start after each, no rest between; cool down.
Tuesday: 1-mile warm up, 20-minute tempo run, 1-mile cool down.
To determine your tempo run pace, add a half-minute to your present mile pace for a 5K. So if you can run 18:30 for a 5K now, that’s a 6:00 pace. Add 30 seconds and your tempo run pace is 6:30 per mile.
Wednesday: Warm up; 45-50 minutes easy running; 8×150 yards relaxed strideouts on grass, jogging back to the start after each, no rest between; cool down
Thursday: 1-mile warm up, 8 hill repeats (run 200 yds uphill, turn, jog downhill to start. Repeat seven more times, no rests); on the flat at the bottom of the hill, try for 8×150 yards as easy strikeouts, jogging back to start, no rest between; 1-mile easy cool down.
Friday: Warm up; 45-50 minutes easy running; 8×150 yards relaxed strideouts on grass, jogging back to the start after each, no rest between; cool down.
Saturday: Easy warmup, 5K race for high school/4 miles for college.
Go out well, but pick it up each mile, with 800 meters to go, see what you can do.
Sunday: Long, easy run, 65Â-70 minutes, on grass or dirt with friends. Keep this on soft ground, and run relaxed. If you are sore from Saturday, then, really slow it down, and consider, if there is any pain, cutting it back.
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Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys.
Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."
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