Planning Your Cross Country Season?  Work Backwards!!!

As a high school social science teacher, I was surprised at colleagues who would lament that they did not get to the period in history their class required. I encouraged them to “work backwards”. Figure out where you need to end up, then decide how long you need for each period or unit you need to cover before that. Adjust to make it all fit!

When I began developing my training for my Cross-Country teams, I realized that the same principle definitely applied. You need to plan the start of your training by counting backward from the projected end of your season or goal race. This allows you to place the workouts necessary in the different phases of your training in the correct sequence across your season.

For example, if you are ending at end of October and you plan on starting mid-June then you have a twenty-week training cycle. Then decide how many weeks for each of your phases, base, stamina, speed and peak that your philosophy requires. This can be done backwards as well. Perhaps three weeks for peak, four weeks for speed, five weeks for stamina and that leaves eight weeks for base.