Cross Country

When I was in high school cc the coaches didn't run, when we did road work they drove behind us. I suspect a part of the reason was that they would be more available in case of a problem. Although they were in decent shape I'm sure they couldn't have kept up anyway.

I've been thinking about how we trained as I get back into running. Our knowledge of physical fitness has increased so much since then (mid 1970's). We did daily runs from 5 to 13 miles, occasional hill work, fartleck and sprints. Overall it was pretty good training, as I remember. The hard part would be that you'll have 9th graders who maybe running for the first time and seniors that have been running both track and cc for at least four years and you'll need to develop both.

Back then our special running shoes were adidas gazelles which encouraged us to land on the balls of our feet because they weren't what we would call running shoes today, no lift and little padding.

Try to make sure everyone has fun and good luck.

This is my second year doing cross country. My coach includes intervals, long runs, speed workouts and once a week circuits in the weight room. On weekends sometimes workouts are assigned, other days we have off. I hope this helps!

I was on a Maryland State Champion XC team in high school. Our coach was an older guy but he know how to turn us into XC runners. We had a hilly course, and we hit the hills at least twice in one week, and three times the next. mean hit them hard--hill repeats and more hill repeats! I think another portion of our success was that he taught us how to run down the hills... sounds simple but we passed many runners who would run the uphill hard, but back off on the downhill and run cautiously. In between the hilsls we did speed work (indian runs were fun) and of course distance work. He was big on stride and technique and although he didn't completely cure my naturally long stride, he taught us the importace of leg turnover to maintain speed.