Woodinville High School Cross Country

Information Page

Pre Season / Summer / Winter Training

Here I will try to make available as much information as possible about our summer training and cross country / distance running in general. Please feel free to contact me if you wish to have anything added or would like any clarification.

*Update* Coaches Notes on Pre-Season Training.

1. Our Meeting Schedule. Unofficial training sessions will be every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 9:00am, however I encourage light running on our “off” days, Wednesday and Sunday, whether it’s on your own or meeting with teammates or other friends. Check the training sheet for practice location. Why do we meet away from the high school? These summer training sessions are run for the most part by team captains, not coaches.

2. Our Training - Simply put. There are three basic phases to a distance runner’s season: base, interval, and taper. During the summer we train in the base phase. This means mostly easy running, building up the tolerance to run for longer periods of time before adding the intensity of more structured workout schedule (interval phase) which comes early in the actual cross country season. During the taper phase (usually the last few weeks before the final race of the season), we gradually decrease the mileage and intensity to allow more rest for the championship season in late fall.

3. Our Training - Somewhat more specific. Summer, being in the base phase, means long runs and low intensity for the most part, with a few days of harder effort. Expect a long run one day a week, a tempo run once a week later in the summer, and a few hill and/or fartlek workouts towards the end of summer.  Other than that, just easy to medium effort running. We keep the recovery days easy and work hard on the hard days. How do I know how hard I should be running?

4. Hydration / Recovery. Most people don’t drink enough water. This is made worse by running for long periods of time in the summer heat. When you aren’t properly hydrated, your muscles lose power and recovery time is lengthened. Everyone should have a water bottle they can bring to practice to rehydrate after their run. Runners can lose pounds and pounds of water in sweat just from one running session. It’s a good idea to replace any water weight you lose during a run in addition to staying fully hydrated at all other points in the day. The easiest way to tell if you’re properly hydrated: clear urine. If it’s not clear, you need to up your water intake. Another way to aid recovery is eating a small snack within 15 minutes of completing a hard run. Getting fuel to your muscles quickly will speed up the regeneration of broken-down muscle tissue in the legs.

Terms / Concepts:

Soft Surface Running - Keeping injury and fatigue at bay. When a person runson a hard surface like pavement (which is hard to avoid when running from the high school), the foot can hit the ground with a force 2-3 times their body weight. As resillient as the human body is, having this force repeated over and over during the course of an entire season can take it’s toll. Injuries can result from having too much impact on your feet, as the shock travels up the entire leg, and in extremely high mileage (mileage that we won’t even get close to running) can cause pain in the back and shoulders. Generally, no one will be running enough that foot strike injuries should be a problem, but it never hurts to be safe. Softer surfaces like dirt, grass, bark, gravel, etc that are found in the places we meet away from the high school will absorb a lot of the shock and help prevent injury.

But softer surfaces may also keep excessive fatigue away. Footstrike Hemolysis is the loss of blood iron through your feet when they hit the ground. The impact causes blood cells in the feet to rupture and lose iron (iron is necessary for blood to transport oxygen to muscles). Loss of too much iron can result in unnecessary and more-than-normal fatigue during runs and extended recovery time. Though this is mainly found in very high mileage athletes, again, it never hurts to be safe. So aside from getting a change in scenery from the school, there are scientific reasons as well for meeting in different places.

Long Runs - Why so long? You might be looking at the training schedule (especially the Monday runs) thinking “why is it necessary to run that far?” The simple answer is endurance. The complex answer (if you don’t want to be bored, move on to the next topic) is, well, more complex. The long run has always been a staple of distance runners, but even a lot of distance runners who’ve been doing a weekly long run for many years never know why it’s important they do it. Here are a few of the benefits: Prolonged periods of activity create more capillaries around the muscle fibers being used, which increases oxygen flow to those muscles. It also creates more mitochondria in the cells (mitochondria are how your cells create energy). When you run for long periods of time, you also deplete your carbohydrate stores (training your body to store more carbohydrate) and also train your body to burn fat as fuel. Carbohydrate is an excellent fuel source, so having your body know to keep more of it handy will result in better performance.

Training Paces - How fast should I be running? Most of our summer runs are at an easy pace, but there are often misconceptions about how fast “easy” is. Easy pace is not the slowest possible pace you can run, it should be the fastest pace you can run while staying at a comfortable effort. I often use the term “conversation pace” meaning you should be able to have a conversation at easy pace without gasping for breath. Obviously there are many different levels of ability on the team with many different definitions of “easy”, so the best way to run is to get in a group of people that are at a similar ability level and train at or near the pace of the fastest person in the group. Over time, everyone’s easy pace should get gradually faster. A regular training run pace is nearly identical to easy run pace, just slightly faster and without the ability to hold a full conversation.

Fartlek - Not a dirty word. Actually a Swedish word meaning “Speed Play”, fartlek is a type of workout. After a warm-up run, athletes alternate between hard and easy efforts for a given amount of time. Because they aren’t done on a measured surface like a track, the wokout is completely “effort based” without the need to hit a certain time for an interval like we might do on the track. These types of workouts are a good segue into more structured interval work in the cross country season.

Running in the Pre-Season - Prepare for the Year. The simplest way to improve performance in running, like with any other activity, is to do it more. We schedule lightly structured practices in the summer for XC and winter for Track for this purpose. There is a difference in the mechanisms that create improvement in distance running vs other sports though. Take for instance this one facet of Basketball. Practicing shooting free throws in the off-season can help accuracy based on muscle memory, meaning your brain can remember to fire the neurons responsible for moving your arms in the correct pattern to propel the ball into the correct place. The more you do it, the more your brain is able to correctly coordinate your body to achieve the goal of getting the ball in the basket. With running, you can teach your body to behave differently under the stress and fatigue of running a race, to use alternate fuel sources to maximize energy, and buffer the accumulation of lactate in your blood (lactate is formed when your muscles are used and creates fatigue and soreness when participating in strenuous activity). Translated simply: more endurance. The processes taking place in your body are very complex but the simplicity of the sport makes it the easiest to improve on for the athlete.

Off-season training typically lasts around an hour and for the most part is easy running. Harder workout sessions are added into the training plan as we get in better shape and are able to handle the work. Important things to note: 1) The training plan provided should be looked at as a guideline, not set in stone for every person. For instance, if an athlete were to come out for their first time mid-summer and it happened to be a workout day, it would be better for that athlete to skip the workout and just do easy running for a few weeks until they feel ready. 2) It’s never too late to start. In fact, no matter what it’s always good to start whenever you can. One fear a lot of people have is that if they come into training too late they’ll be too far behind to participate. This isn’t the case. We tend to run in groups and have people of all abilities to run with. Everyone is encouraged to come out and make the best of their seasons regardless of the time of year or current fitness level.

Stay tuned for additional updates.