Training Philosophy

Sanborn Regional High School

Cross Country (XC) requires lots of training. We start the year slow and gradual and increase distances and paces as we go. We like our athletes to start by putting in easy miles over the summer and building up distance and intensity as the season goes on.

Anyone can be a successful runner if they’re willing to work for it. If an athlete sticks with the sport for more than a few weeks, their effort will show for itself. Athletes will get out of the training and workouts what they put in.

At Sanborn, we generally train with a cycle of a “hard” day followed by one or often two “easy” days. We usually won’t do more than 2 (occasionally 3) hard days in a week. “Hard” days include speed workouts (short, fast repeats), tempo runs (sustained durations of faster running), long runs, intervals, and races. “Easy” days are runs and activities that help recover following a hard workout.

Consistency is the key to success. There are no magic workouts or any one thing that a team does that make them successful. Putting in the right type of work day after day will lead to improvement.

Everyone will participate in every meet. (The only exception to this is the end of season Division II Championship and Meet of Champions which limits us to 7 athletes). Invitational meets will often have separate JV and Varsity (top 7 athletes) races.

Cross Country is a team sport. Every scorer is equally important to the outcome of a competition. Scoring is determined by adding up the scores of the first 5 athletes on a team based on their finishing positions, so the lower the score the better. A perfect score would be 15 if the given team had the first 5 finishers in the race.

(1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = 15)

Training is individualized as much as possible. Each athlete will train and compete at a level that is right for them, based on their experience and fitness level.

The season is broken up into 4 main training phases:

Summer Training Phase (7 weeks: now until practice starts August 19)
1. Focus on building base (like a pyramid)
2. Mileage increases gradually throughout the summer
Pre-Competition Phase (3 weeks: August 19 - September 8)
1. Mileage continues to increase and introduce intervals, speed work, and hills into daily workouts
2. Speed work is usually longer distance repeats on short rest, and/or high repetitions of short distances
Competition Phase (4 weeks: September 9 - October 5)
1. Weekly mileage levels off
2. Lots of races - most Tuesdays and Saturdays
3. “Hard” days will vary between hills, intervals, and repeats
Championship Phase (3 - 4 weeks: October 6 - November 3)
1. Focus is getting ready for the Divisional Championship and NH Meet of Champions
2. Weekly mileage decreases
3. Workouts will be more about quality than quantity

A sample of our typical week once the season starts. Times/distances will vary by athlete.

Each practice starts with a warm up jog followed by dynamic drills/stretches.

“There are champions everywhere. Every street's got them. All we need to do is train them properly.” - Arthur Lydiard

Once our season starts, we have three types of races:

Dual/Triple/Quad meets - typically on Tuesdays, may be against 1-3 other schools. There will be one race for girls, one for boys. They usually start at 4:00 PM. Occasionally we will use these races as training.
Invitationals - typically on Saturdays, there may be anywhere from 5 - 25+ schools there. This meets are longer, and may have Freshman, Junior Varsity (JV), and Varsity races. We usually leave from school early in the morning and arrive back in the afternoon.
Championship - All three division championships (I, II, III) all take place on one day. The top 7 girls and top 7 boys will compete for each school The Meet of Champions (the following week) consists of the top finishing schools from Division I, II, and III, along with the top 25 individuals.

*Adopted from Jeff Johnson’s High School XC Guide