Indian Runs are a great way to build up some speed and have a good time doing it. The workout should be done on your Cross Country course. Since you have two groups with differnt abilities, start them in those groups. After your standard warm up, have the groups run the course at an up-tempo pace in a single file line. As they run the person at the back of the line must increase their pace and make a pass of the entire group and settle in as the leader controlling the pace. The person now at the back of the line must make the pass and settle in as leader. Repeat for as long as you want the workout to last. This workout gets in everything your looking for and can be a fun workout.

Hope this helps.

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Robert Flanigan

Our two best runners (one girl and one boy) put in 50-60 mile weeks in July and August, mostly on their own. And they magically dropped 1-2 min. from last year's times. But I guess it may be a little too late for that ;-) ... (Obviously these kids are exceptional) ... We get creative with some loops we run, one that include a monster hill: It goes something like: Run hard from 150m before the hill, up it hard, run hard over, then recover on part of the loop. Do it again. No stopping. It takes the fast kids like 6 minutes and the slowest kids up to 10 to finish the loop. Nonstop for 30 minutes, but we pull out those who really struggle. So there's one idea. We are also experimenting with running the kids straight through some meets (lots of mileage, no tapering) and taking it easy on other weeks. The season is so short, it's hard to get most of them anywhere near their potential. Good luck!

few of the workouts my old coach used to do

-400m repeats, kids must keep water in their mouth only breathing through the nose, makes it harder. danm those sucked.
- do your normal 12x400m but the last 2-3 repeats have them do the normal 400 and jump straight into a 100m all out sprint. so 500m total. this helps with their turnover at the end of the race when it comes down to the wire.
- relay teams for the repeats, make the teams even if you can
- pushups inbetween the repeats (stronger arms means faster legs)
- add in some hills, more power = more speed
- intervals with your arms at your side...harder to run faster and really teaches them that you need to use your arms correctly when running.

As for a taper, threshold fartleks is pretty much the best taper workout you got. jazzing a taper up with an easy practice of ultimate frisbee wouldnt be a bad idea either. keep em moving and sometimes sprinting.

I second the Ultimate choice just to change things up- and I only say that because one year our coach allowed the varsity guys to play a game of soccer the day before a big race... one of our top 3 sprained an ankle. Ultimate is a little safer- and was our usual warmup between the end of school and the start of practice anyways.
I also have to say- we had our top guys running 60-70mi weeks. Once in a while a kid would come in on monday and talk about the 20miler he did- cause he was "feelin' good" during a scheduled 10.

hills make you faster, faster. up and downs are the way to go if you can find a 0.5 to 1 mile stretch on a road with shoulder you should be good to go.

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"Triathlon?!? I play a real sport, I don't want to be the best at exercising." ~Kenny Powers

agreed. if you can teach them to power over the hill and cruise down it will destroy the opponent mentally. You cruise up and over a hill while the opponent is struggling to get up it he/she will just give in.

No doubt you've already checked out Daniel's but he has lots of different speed workouts in his programs. I'm not going to guarantee this one will make your team faster, but I would imagine an acceleration run would be fun for the whole team. You could do it in place of the final 800 on your 6x800 day.

On the track, start out at 8:00/mile (2:00/400) and then increase the pace on each subsequent lap by 5 seconds less/400m. Once you miss the cut, you are out. So the laps would look like:
2:00
1:55
1:50
etc
The first mile is pretty easy, probably the whole team will still be hanging on, but by the 2 mile mark they are down to 85secs/400. The challenge it to see who can keep the pace for the most number of laps. Regardless of someone's ability or how many laps they do, the last 2 laps are hard.

Uhm...

Just a question - Why is your "B" team running less mpw than your "A" squad?

Our xc team in HS, everyone ran the same workouts. Top 7 times from the previous race were the varsity for the next race, regardless of which squad they started the day on. The top 3 or 4 runners rarely changed, but it was some serious competition for the last 3 spots on the varsity. EVERYONE was out there busting ass.

One of the fun workouts we did was 400 repeats, "first man out". First man across the line got to sit out for the next 3 400's, while the rest of the crew ran. Then it was separated into groups where everyone who won their first lap was in the same group, etc. Yeah, the slower runners ran a few more laps, but they can use it. ;)

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

I like 4x400, 2x800 & then 4X400. just keep them rolling, RI no more than 1/2 the time of the interval. That is a quick 3 mile interval.

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Like T says, "Remember it is all about the Bike because it is all about the Run!"

If by speed you mean 200, 400, 800 meter speed, I'd worry more about them running fast for 16-20 min. I'd have them do lots of repeats in the 6-15 min range with 1-4 min recovery.

If the B team isn't going to be racing, then I'd have them running a ton of miles, with some threshold work thrown in 1x per week. Might as well get them ready for outdoor track season.

For tapering I'd read stuff from Joe Houmard & Andy Johns published in the mid 1990's.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

At only ~30 miles per week, there is no need to actually "taper" (since there isn't much to taper from) other than giving them a couple of easy days before an event.

More mpw

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

A workout we've done that the kids seem to enjoy is as follows: It's a fartlek workout that allows them to choose the route. I bring in a small football, one from my six year old's stash of toys. After a mile warm up, we get together as a team and I toss the football to someone. That person takes off at whatever pace they feel like running for a specified work interval. They control the pace and the route -- the person with the ball can take the group wherever he/she wants to go. After the work interval is up, we recover and let the group re-form, and then someone else gets the ball. The pace and route vary, but the kids really like it. It's a break from running the same loops all the time, and they feel like they're in charge of the workout. Of course, if someone starts dogging it at the front, I let them know to pick up the pace.

x2

putting in 40-45 mpw would be very beneficial. anything after that the injury risks will increase and depending on the time gap of your number 5 and 6 runners you may not want to take the chance.

I don't really get the water in the mouth bit. What's that all about?

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Go Fast

1) teaches the kids to focus on their breathing and relaxing it, explain longer slower breathes are more efficent then quick short ones.

2) anarobic workout

3) its funny to watch the kids spew out the water when they take the repeat too hard.

Speedwork: My coaches did two things besides increasing mileage that had dramatic effect on my 5k time. One was hills. I definitely agree with the previous post about a workout that trains runners to start/finish hills strong, especially on the finish side. Also, I don't know if you have any sandy terrain in the area, but we had a sand hill repeat day at least once every couple of weeks. Have them run up sand until they barf(just make sure to reward them when you're done; it can be a demoralizing workout).

The other big helper was track runs. Our four coaches would set up lawn chair every 100m on our track and just have us do 800 repeats. They had clocks, but wouldn't tell us times. The key on those days was form-heckling. Watch your runners like a hawk, pick out every tiny flaw in their form, and make sure they know about it in the very loudest manner possible. NOTHING made me develop form like having a coach scream at me every 20 seconds for a 50 minute workout. What's especially cool about it is that the coaches would record some of our splits, and show us at the end. Even though we thought we were getting slower and slower from fatigue, we were actually holding race pace and above just from having such immaculate form.

Taper: Only advice I have to offer to try to up your mileage for a few weeks before taper. The best tapers I've had for running were with decreasing volume and increasing intensity. It's going to be a lot easier to decrease your volume if you start from something higher than 25-35 mpw.

Not that I necessarily disagree with that low of mileage; I appluad coaches who can maximize performance/minimize training time. Anyone who just tells you more mpw is ignoring many factors.

I can certainly imagine the hilarity of the situation. I'm guessing this would be something akin to a modified "shasta shootout" that was ohh so popular in my day. I have not heard of that before but am oddly curious about giving it a go at my next speed session.

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Go Fast

Let me start ths by saying that I graduated from a school that was second in the state, and really couldve been first. Out coach is now ass coach at Portland state, starting ths year.

A lot of the workouts your team can do depends on your teams attitude. One thing I noticed about the kids who ran sub 17:00 (elevation) was that they didn't complain- they showed up and did the work. The workout was not a question. Loved it.

I'm ok with you having two squads- but who chose the divisons? For example, I was usually our 7th guy. If i felt good that week, I'd be in the a group, and if I felt less than good, I ran b. Don't limit your jv guys. They're next years varsity.

Onto workouts. 600s and 800s are good. Try the tennis ball fartlek. Bring a tennis ball on the run. As your group runs, throw in down and have it bounce. Let someone else catch it. This gives a small
aerobic benefit to the guy who has to run to catch it. Also helps long medium distance runs go by quickly.

One of the most brutal runs ever was the stopwatch run. We'd go
to a soccer field and run around it. 4:00 hard 2:00 easy. For half an hour. Or forty minutes. By the end of the year, we'd be doing 50 minutes. Times can be flexible.

The pulling the trigger workout. Run a 100 m slow- 20 seconds. Jog back, then run 110 infintesimally faster- 21 seconds? Jog back, then 120, just barely faster, (22 seconds?), up to 300s. Only workout to make me throw up. Teaches you to run fast when tired, and to slowly control the pace. By 200m, they should be able
to nail it with no watch.

Mile repeats are fun. Don't shy away from those.

I cannot overstate the importance of hill running. When I threw hill running in, my 5k dropped by a minute and a half.

Ask how your runners are feeling. If they say tired, step it back a little. If they say good, don't be afraid to modify workouts as you keep going.

Had three great XC coaches in high school and Monday was speed, tuesday middle, wednesday long, thursday 2 miles max/easy and usually race friday. But we would run a mile to a huge park then when you were dead you would trudge back to school, we never did any track workouts of any kind.

The best speed work we did were 3 minute sessions where everyone started together and would take off and go over RP for 3 minutes, then you would have a 3 minute break to catch your breath, line up and repeat typically 6-10 of those in midseason and 3-5 when we tapered.

We also did the nerf football chase runs on thursday if we had a saturday race.

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Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A B A

i think i'd disagree with the utimate frisbee. i've always felt that doing another activity/sport as a workout sends an underlying message -- this hurts or isn't fun, or isn't something you want to do for its own intrinsic enjoyment. just plain running can be enjoyable in and of itself, and i don't think most hs runners are beyond discovering this.

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There are as many reasons for running as there are days in the year, years in my life. But mostly I run because I am an animal and a child, an artist and a saint. So, too, are you. Find your own play, your own self-renewing compulsion, and you will become the person you are meant to be. ~George Sheehan

Ultimate frisbee was a tradition with our team in the late summer, along with water polo. Until one day our #3,4,and 5 guys collided and got banged up pretty good. No more ultimate frisbee. We stuck to less contact oriented sports after that. But it was fun while it lasted.

In college instead of the scheduled Sunday run we'd play ultimate for 3 hours.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta