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...

Once I decided to create my own system based on my philosophy, understanding of workouts and what I believed would work best for my athletes at my school, we became much more successful.

In this article I will take you through the phases of a training cycle, the key workouts in each and the amount of time each phase should take.

In this article I am going to help you understand the different types of workouts you can do to improve your running and racing. I’ll explain how and when to do them in your training cycle or plan.

WORKOUT GOAL SHEETS Few people leave on a road trip without knowing where they are going. Most people use a map or maps on their device to help them get there. Similarly, coaches and athletes benefit from specific goal setting during workouts. I don't believe it is...

PLANNING FOR THE STATE MEET When planning for the State Meet, a cross country coach needs to do several things. First, study the race results for past years. Note what race times it takes to get to the State Meet from your qualifying races. In California this would be...

Keep Track of Summer Miles Establishing a strong base of miles run in the summer prior to a fall cross country season is an important precursor to sucess. I have discussed this principle in Coach, Run, Win and in other articles on this website. Summer Workout Plan I...

Summer Workout Plan for Fall Cross Country This article presents an overall approach to setting up and implementing a summer workout plan. https://coachrunwin.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Summer-Workout-Plan.xlsx The examples here were for a high school cross...

Determining Training Paces For a Fall Cross Country season, begin in the summer with the earliest workouts, recording distances, times, and paces for each athlete. Once you have two weeks of workout recorded, begin to individualize the workouts. Use my “Training Paces...

Tempo Runs The tempo run has been THE workout in my training system. I attribute much of our teams' success to this one workout! Tempo runs occur weekly for 8 to 10 weeks, beginning around the sixth week of the 23–24-week season cycle. You may see this workout done in...

BREATHE RIGHT AS A RUNNER Runners should breathe from the diaphragm (or stomach) and not the upper chest. One way I found to do this was to put one hand on your chest and one hand on your stomach. See if you can tell where more of the movement is originating from. The...

First, the health and safety of the runner depends on proper hydration.

People have asked me, “Whats the best running shoe?”
I always answer, “there is no BEST running shoe, there is only the shoe That is BEST FOR YOU!”

In this article I will take you through the phases of a training cycle, the key workouts in each and the amount of time each phase should take.

In this article I am going to help you understand the different types of workouts you can do to improve your running and racing. I’ll explain how and when to do them in your training cycle or plan.

WORKOUT GOAL SHEETS Few people leave on a road trip without knowing where they are going. Most people use a map or maps on their device to help them get there. Similarly, coaches and athletes benefit from specific goal setting during workouts. I don't believe it is...

Keep Track of Summer Miles Establishing a strong base of miles run in the summer prior to a fall cross country season is an important precursor to sucess. I have discussed this principle in Coach, Run, Win and in other articles on this website. Summer Workout Plan I...

Summer Workout Plan for Fall Cross Country This article presents an overall approach to setting up and implementing a summer workout plan. https://coachrunwin.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Summer-Workout-Plan.xlsx The examples here were for a high school cross...

Determining Training Paces For a Fall Cross Country season, begin in the summer with the earliest workouts, recording distances, times, and paces for each athlete. Once you have two weeks of workout recorded, begin to individualize the workouts. Use my “Training Paces...