I'm about to begin cross country. I want to know if this is a good program for cross country, so I can follow it. It's a 2 week plan. I am only going to bump up the mileage for the long run and for the rest only the intensity in which I run them at.
I also want to do all this in the morning and practice with my team on the afternoon, but I won't go that fast with them, sort of like a recovery. Is this good? My team is unorganized (they mostly all jog and play around) so I've decided to do this program by myself.
first week Monday - tempo 5 miles Tuesday - tempo 6 miles Wednesday - fartlek for 35 mins with 2 min floating and 1 min fast Thursday - long interval 3 x 1 mile Friday - hills (going up for one minute 10 times) Saturday - long run 6 miles Sunday - rest
second week Monday - tempo 5 miles Tuesday - fartlek for 35 mins with 2 min floating and 1 min fast Wednesday - long interval 3 x 1 mile Thursday - short interval 6 x 800s Friday - hills going up for one minute 10 times) Saturday - long run 6 miles Sunday - rest
Answer by Dominique:
Hi, Thanks for your running training question. It looks like you are pretty serious about cross country! That's great.
As far as the practice on your own, recovery with the team goes: if they really only joke and play around and it is never much of a serious running training session, then I guess the only thing you can do is devise your own running training program. You need to make sure you do not run yourself completely in the ground with so much running.
Regarding your running program: I think it is very, very intense. A balanced approach to running training is the hard/easy approach. After each day of increased intensity or increased mileage you have an easy day on which you run easily or you even rest.
The hard-hard-hard-hard-hard-hard-rest training program that you set up is likely to either get you injured or get you worn out after a few weeks. When this happens, your legs go stale and you will not be able to run your workouts at the proper speed anymore and your race performances during the season are likely to deteriorate.
Not that expensive and worth its money tenfold is a great running training book like Daniels' Running Formula. There are running programs in there which are very much focused on the university / high school cross country running schedules with regular races.
He also explains a lot about why you do certain workouts, how to increase your mileage, when to increase the speed on your workouts etc.
Best of luck with the cross country running. Hope you will get some great results this year. Cheers, Dominique
100 Day Marathon Plan from Marius Bakken
presents a welcome fresh training approach to marathon running that has proven to be very effective. It's the best marathon training program available today.
Marius has competed in the Olympics and has trained with world-class
athletes from Italy and Kenya. He has learnt from these runners and has made those training
methods applicable to marathon training programs for normal people like
ourselves.
This marathon plan prepares you well for a marathon by first focusing
on 5k and 10k training. Only when you are ready
Marius moves on to marathon training.
Want to get ready for a marathon within 100 days?
Then you need to give the 100 Day Marathon Plan a try.
Fat Loss 4 Idiots is based on a simple idea:
if you keep on doing what you are doing, you can not expect to be having a different outcome.
When you want to lose weight, and you find that only running is not enough, then try out Fat Loss 4 Idiots. It will provide you with a new way of thinking about food and could just be that little help you need to shed the pounds and start living the life you want.
