cross country workouts Archives - High School Running Coach

Joan Hunter – Key Workout and Typical Training Week

Joan and her husband, Marc, are in their 4th year of coaching cross country at Loudoun Valley HS, in Purcellville, VA. For 10 years in the 1980’s and 1990’s, Joan coached at James Madison HS and South Lakes HS, where she and Marc had the privilege of being Alan Webb’s 9th grade coaches. During this time, they coached numerous state qualifiers and a handful of state champion relays and individuals.

After an 8 year hiatus from coaching while raising their many kids, Joan and Marc started a youth running club, NOVA Athletic Club, which enabled them to be involved in the sport without the huge time demands of high school coaching. However, once their son Drew began running in 9th grade, the Hunters saw his potential and wanted to ensure he would have every opportunity to develop, so they began volunteering at Loudoun Valley and eventually took over the distance program spring of Drew’s sophomore year.

The Hunters have led the Viking boys XC team to 3 consecutive state team titles, and 3 Viking boys (Drew Hunter, Peter Morris, Sam Affolder) have won the last 6 individual state titles. In 2017, the Viking boys scored 15 points at their state meet- something no Virginia team has ever done. That team went on to win the 2017 Nike Cross Nationals. Drew Hunter qualified for Foot Locker in 2014 and 2015, winning in 2015. Last year, Peter Morris qualified for NXN. The Viking girls have been state runners-up in XC for the last four years, have had one individual state champion (Natalie Morris, 2017) and have had one individual girl, Ciara Donohue, qualify for Foot Locker in 2014. In track, the Viking boys have won 2 outdoor state team titles. Last year, in Loudoun Valley’s first full official indoor track season, the Viking boys were state runners-up. Other important wins include the 2016 NB indoor nationals DMR and the 2016 Penn Relays DMR.

Key mid-season workout: CV reps plus hills

Warm-up (Ebbett’s drills, posture check, joint rotations, lunge matrix, runner’s touch, 100 ups, heel flicks, easy jog about 800 meters, skips, strides, and dynamic flexibility). 10 mins of running plus 3 mins tempo. All this takes about 30-35 minutes.

1^st season kids:

8 mins easy run, then 2 mins at tempo effort.

4-6x 800 meters at CV pace, with 90 second jog recovery (about 175 meters or so, I don’t worry about how much ground they cover.)

3-4x 200 meter hill, mile race effort, with easy jog down for recovery.

Easy run till they get to 55-60 minutes, total time.

Veteran, but non-varsity level kids:

10 mins easy run, then 2 mins at tempo effort

5-6 x 800 meters or 1000 meters at CV pace, with 90 second jog, same as above.

4x 200 meter hill, same as above.

Easy run till they get to 60-70 minutes, total time.

Varsity level boys and some girls (freshman girls would do 800s or a mix of 800s and 1000s, most girls have 90 sec jog recovery)

10-12 mins easy run, then

5-7x 1000 meters at CV pace, with 75 second jog (about 175 meters)

4-5x 200 meter hill, same as above.

Easy run till they get to 65-70 minutes.

CV, or Critical Velocity pace, is about 90% of VO2 max pace. We estimate this using our kids’ current 5K race times, or a time trial in the early season. We also adjust the times based on what we think they could run the day of the workout, based on weather, terrain, etc. We use Tom Schwartz’s pace calculator: http://runfastcoach.com/calc2/index.php

Typical varsity week of training, late September, early October, no race that week:

Total mileage for my top boys was about 60-67 miles, depending on doubles. My top girl was about 55 miles on single runs, and my other girls were between 38-45 miles on single runs (freshmen were less.)

Monday: 50 mins easy [Read more…]

by Jay Johnson

Mike Callor – Key Workout

Cross-Country: “Death Quest”

This workout is done at a park about 2 miles away from the school on a hilly, grass course. It is a workout steeped in tradition where athletes of the present can compare themselves to athletes of the past (boys that get “around the turn” at the top of the hill typically have been sub 16:00 athletes). After a 2-mile warm-up and muscle activation exercises, it consists of anywhere between 4-6 x 4:00 on with 3:00 of recovery (walk/jog). The goal is to get further on the course with each one (progressive), with a stress placed on listening to your breathing. 2 mile cool-down back to the school, and that is it!

This is just an XC workout. The amount of rest before this workout depends on the time of the season. Early, they might have a steady run Saturday, off, or shake-out on Sunday and then the workout on Monday. Later, the Saturday before is typically easy. I have also added my own variations to the workout, such as 2 x 400 meter hills before the first Death Quest in order to make sure they don’t hammer the first one and regress.

I believe that progressive workouts (done correctly), build fitness as well as confidence, which can be much more important.

by Jay Johnson

Scott Bliss – Key Workout

Here is an example one of the staples of our xc training. It is kind of a combo of taking stuff from Scott Simmons book “Taking the Lead” and a workout I found in one of the running magazines done by one of the elites. We are trying to simulate a number of the things that they will experience in a race. We call it a combo workout and it includes three different training stimulus in the workout.

Warm up drills – lunge matrix, leg swings and dynamic warmup

Running warmup 15 minutes

First segment 10 minutes at tempo pace – we have a 1000 meter grass loop that is rolling that we will do this on for the full 10 minutes. We can change where we are doing this based on what we are wanting to accomplish with the tempo. This is followed by about a 4-5 minute jog down to where we will do hill repeats.

The second segment is hills and they will be determined by what race is coming up and what we want them to get out of the hills. We have a medium length stair step style climb, a shorter section with 2 hills that we call the “figure 8 hills” because they allow them to climb and then recover down to the next climb and they just keep doing them and it is basically in the shape of a figure 8 and then we have a much longer, hard hill that will do near our state meet. We again then jog for about 4-5 minutes to the last piece.

The third segment is very similar to strides to simulate the end of a race. We want them to change gears when they tired from the rest of the workout to feel what it feels like to do that when they are fatigued.

Cool down 15 minutes and any after practice work we will do if any.