I want to make the leap from 9:40s and 4:30s this spring to being a top guy in my state in cross country and as low in the 9:00s and sub 4:20 as possible in the spring. To date I average about 40mpw and am not very fast. Hoping some lifting and strides will help with that.
What type of training in cross should I do? My coach is a chem teacher who doesn't know anything about running and lets us do our own thing. I am thinking something like the following, though (everything subject to change, depends on how I feel, and feedback I get).
- 55-65 mpw week
- Over the summer run by feel. Have a day of tempo and alternate weeks of something like 4x4min smooth with 2:00 recovery and 10 or 20 x 35-50 seconds hard with full recovery. Never feel pressed though. Also strength work, plyos and strides twice a week.
- As we get into the season start adding a hill work and mix in hard fartleks in replacement of the 10 or 20 35-50 seconds hard in addition to the tempo every week (bringing it up a mile every few weeks... so starting at 3 and ending at 5)
- Once end of September rolls around and into October start adding things like 8x1k (threshold), 10x800 (threshold), 12x400 (V02Max), 5:00/4:00/3:00/2:00/1:00 at V02max, 5X1000 (v02max) in place of tempos and hills. Also start racing.
- By 3rd week of October til end of season (mid November) cut back on mileage and do what???
What do the top guys in the country do that is not in my plan? Or do they do something completely different? Would they structure it differently? What would you do?
Malmo, if you're out there would love to get your thoughts too.