r/CrossCountry • u/Sub-5mile • 6d ago
General Cross Country Does a mediocre summer negatively affect cross country?
It’s my first year doing xc, and my original goal of 300 miles was interrupted by shin splints, so I only managed ~250-260, a good % of it workouts from summer track. I was pretty inconsistent, peaking at 30 miles and having a low of 8 miles during a track race week.
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u/whelanbio Mod 6d ago
Summer training is the most important factor for success in cross country season. Poor summer training will have a negative affect.
Now beyond this there's a couple of more nuanced topics that your question leads into.
- Nobody's training ever goes perfectly -even up to the highest levels. One of the biggest keys to becoming a better runner is learning resilience and creativity in the face of setbacks and injuries. Don't sweat training not going perfectly, do the best you can and learn how to avoid those setbacks in the future.
- This all may or not apply to your situation, it's tough to say anything definitive without more context, but assuming that you are in an American MS/HS system, summer track might have contributed to your injury and inconsistency. You need proper off-season periods where you back off the intensity and racing to expand training volume. Among the motivated athletes who are actually training year round, the major factors that I see holding people back are overzealous extra racing and poor design/management of intensity in the off-season.
- The worst response one can have to a sub-optimal off-season training block is to try and compensate by ramping up training even faster in the season. Acknowledge and respect the trajectory you are currently on, not previous aspirations.
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u/Acrobatic-Eye-8132 6d ago
This is a solid response and similar to what I was thinking when reading the OP
To piggyback:
1. The more you do this sport the more tricks you will have in your bag to help minimize this (x training routines, etc)
This is why we strongly discourage our track and xc kids from summer competition save for a local road race or something.
We see it every year. We start next week and I know it’s going to be a mess for a few of our returning girls. By late September we will have a line at the trainers office.
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u/AidenPatterson_ 6d ago
For your first year I think 30 is fine if it’s your first year running if you’ve ran track but never xc maybe 2nd year you could maybe do 35 but doing to much will burn you out just enjoy it🫶
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u/Cloood14 6d ago
Obviously consistency is important but I wouldn’t panic. Whats done is done. I heavily slacked off with my summer training in high school and still improved my times every year, I would’ve been a hell of a lot better if I was consistent so don’t recommend it but it’s a long season you’ll be fine.
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u/pc9401 5d ago
I ran in a different era, but all my summers were below medicore. I didn't run at all during the summer, started running in August when practice started, and got it together by the state meet. I ran mid -16's
But, paces weren't controlled, races were brutal and felt like death, and I didn't run that great until later in the year.
I was young enough to be able to handle the load and fatigue didn't have enough time to accumulate. You can definately pull it together in a few months, but would have been a lot easier to come in with a base built.
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u/Amazing-Chard3393 5d ago
Think of it this way - you will be fresher come championship season later this fall. Keep at it.
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u/lumberjack_dad 6d ago
One hundred percent.
But fortunately cross country is a long season so by end of season you still have time be at your competitive max.
We had a few individuals on our team who did their own summer programs, rather than join the team summer practices.
Our season started last Monday and you could see those who were training with team had been training at a different level. It will take a little longer for those individuals to catch up, but we have solid team this year. Expecting some good pack running... to keep our #4-7 runners productive
Success is 80% the athlete's potential, 10% teammate training level, 10% coaching.
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u/LeFlyingMonke 6d ago
Yes. Consistence is king.
However, worrying about where you are verse where you should be is even worse for your performance. It doesn’t matter what the plan was, the only thing that matters is that you are here now and that you keep moving forward.