Training sessions for Cross Country

pconn062

With the cross country season starting soon I'm sure a lot of people will be starting to think about doing some specific training. I'm just wondering what sessions would be most beneficial for cross country running? Normal distances (for men anyway) are 6-10k so would you just treat them the same way you would a road race, a good mix of endurance and speed? From reading around, hills seem to be a important aspect but anyone else have any favourite X-country sessions that have worked for you?

JosDel

pconn062 wrote: »

With the cross country season starting soon I'm sure a lot of people will be starting to think about doing some specific training. I'm just wondering what sessions would be most beneficial for cross country running? Normal distances (for men anyway) are 6-10k so would you just treat them the same way you would a road race, a good mix of endurance and speed? From reading around, hills seem to be a important aspect but anyone else have any favourite X-country sessions that have worked for you?

There is a great seesion we do in the phoenix park at the magazine fort, the course is 1400mtrs approx it has a great mixture of hills...

if you ran the BHAA Garda race it is most of that course..

pconn062

JosDel wrote: »

There is a great seesion we do in the phoenix park at the magazine fort, the course is 1400mtrs approx it has a great mixture of hills...

if you ran the BHAA Garda race it is most of that course..

Yeah ran the Garda race this year, that's a great loop alright, bit of a spin for me though to run it every week! But again hills are seen as a priority?

RayCun

The kids are doing a lot of fartlek sessions, to get used to changing effort levels, the need to put in bursts to pass other runners etc.
(And distance work, because their last training period was for the track and they've gotten lazy :pac:)

jfh

there's a training schedule in the jack daniels book, if you have it..

Timmaay

Yep, Fartleks are the weapon of choice to get ya in shape for XC, only think I say watch out for, if you are after coming off the track season its soo easy to mess up fartleks now, and go out waay too hard for the first part of them, and ya end up dying a 1000 deaths!

In terms of Hills being a priority, no I wouldn't go that far, but Hills are great for forcing you to get use of the change of pace etc during a race even if its a flat course. But some of the XC courses out there do have many hills on them, us track runners have spend the summer being spoilt with zero hills (same with many road racers also!), so the slightest hill now can seem like Everest, so best to take them in during training and get use of them now, rather then utterly struggle up them during a race!

ecoli

Doing it this year and plan to keep it simple enough

- Hills, alternating between short steep hills and gradual long (2-3 min) ones different weeks
-Fartleks
- Long reps
-Tempo's
- Mid long runs (13-16ish)

Its similar enough to what I usually do the only thing i plan to change is to do these on the grass. Many of the routes I am using will be on hilly reps so the focus will be on effort:

Hell fire club (hills, Tempo and fartlek)
Munichs or the XC loop referred to earlier (long reps)
Tymon Park (Long reps)
Papal Cross & Polo Grounds (Tempos)

pconn062

So I'm resurrecting this thread again as I have another query.
I've done a couple of x-country races this year and one thing I've noticed is that I seem to be lacking a bit of strength when it comes to the business end of the races. What I mean is in the final 1-2k my aerobic system seems to go into over drive and the legs start to give up. I struggle to hold onto groups and usually fade on the last lap. An example would be today where I was running in a group at a fairly comfortable pace but when it came to the last lap, the group pulled away and I just couldn't respond as my legs felt shot. I'm wondering if this is down to something being missing from my training? A typical week for me looks like this:

2 sessions (usually short intervals and a longer tempo run)
2 easy runs with strides
1 steady longer run (usually 10 miles)
1 long run (up to 16 miles)

Anyone ever find this with their own training/racing or have any ideas?

ThePiedPiper

pconn, as you know yourself, I don't remotely pretend to be any sort of an authority on cross-country or any shorter stuff but I think that my own relatively consistent finish to the shorter races is down mostly to putting in tempo miles at the end of long runs. Obviously, I go at everything from a marathon perspective, but I've taught myself to remain fairly strong at the tail end of half and full marathons, and this transfers over into shorter stuff..

How about putting in tempo miles at the end of your long runs? even if it's only one or two, I think it might start to address the issue of maintaining speed on tiring legs?

pconn062

Good idea RFR, so say 3 tempo miles at the end of a 12-13 mile long run could be a good idea.

Ceepo

Hi there,

For me Cross country is more about speed endurance, yes you need strength but you still need to be able to run fast, maybe not track fast but still fast.
There are may ways to train and i wouldnt knock RFR idea but i dont think it would be as specific as some other session's.
Doing a session like 1k with 45 sec recovery then 400m with 90 sec recovery x 5 maybe 6 reps, depending on what your are able for, the idea of this session is to get used of running hard when you are tired, another session would be 200m with 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 55, 60, 60, 55, 50, 45,40, 35, 30, sec rec, this can mimic the race where you have to start fast settle through the middle and try to pick it up towards the end,
I would keep more or less to your training with the long run, this should be about time on your feet, medium long run two easy runs and two days with sessions more so than the tempo run.
The thing to remember is all sessions will help and running cross country is slightly different in the sense that you probably will not be running as fast as road or track however the effort you will be making will be as much if not more.

Hope this helps

pconn062

Ceepo wrote: »

Hi there,

For me Cross country is more about speed endurance, yes you need strength but you still need to be able to run fast, maybe not track fast but still fast.
There are may ways to train and i wouldnt knock RFR idea but i dont think it would be as specific as some other session's.
Doing a session like 1k with 45 sec recovery then 400m with 90 sec recovery x 5 maybe 6 reps, depending on what your are able for, the idea of this session is to get used of running hard when you are tired, another session would be 200m with 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 55, 60, 60, 55, 50, 45,40, 35, 30, sec rec, this can mimic the race where you have to start fast settle through the middle and try to pick it up towards the end,
I would keep more or less to your training with the long run, this should be about time on your feet, medium long run two easy runs and two days with sessions more so than the tempo run.
The thing to remember is all sessions will help and running cross country is slightly different in the sense that you probably will not be running as fast as road or track however the effort you will be making will be as much if not more.

Hope this helps

Hi Ceepo, that's a great post thanks. I do a similar session to the 1k rep with the 400m but the 200m rep with alternating recovery times is a new one on me and sounds great. So you would place more importance on these rep/interval sessions than on long/medium tempo runs?

Timmaay

From the mental side of things, how deep were you willing to dig? The last 1 or 2 km is usually about pure survival, I myself have had times where late in the race I'm just not willing to push through the pain barrier, an anything small at all, like tired legs etc and I happily focus in on that and use it as a covenant excuse to drop the pace and let everyone on!!

I'll admit straight out I don't have a clue how ya finished 2bh ha, were you totally tanked and on the ground for a min or so after the race? in this care then you probably mentally get everything outa yourself, but it is important to look at that aspect as well as any actual physical problems you had!

Ceepo

In a word yes, that's not to say there is no benefit in tempo run's, but it just puts different
stresses on the body, i never really do them myself, but thats just me as i prefer to do speed/interval type of work.
As said there is many ways to do speed work and that session of 200's with say 1 min rec is a completely different session, other good sessions for cross country are 400's of maybe 45 sec rec, TRY TO KEEP ALL AT THE SAME PACE, k's above and below race pace (example race pace 4 min k, do 1st at 3.50 2nd at 4,10 and repeat) and mile reps, these should be done at the correct pace for you and not at someone else's pace and is important not to do them to quick,
Imo most people run to hard in training, There are a lot of people out there who do there 400's in sub 80 sec but can't come near 5.20 ml in there races, i'm not saying don't train above race pace but it should be relative to it, also your easy run should be just that Easy

pconn062

Timmaay wrote: »

From the mental side of things, how deep were you willing to dig? The last 1 or 2 km is usually about pure survival, I myself have had times where late in the race I'm just not willing to push through the pain barrier, an anything small at all, like tired legs etc and I happily focus in on that and use it as a covenant excuse to drop the pace and let everyone on!!

I'll admit straight out I don't have a clue how ya finished 2bh ha, were you totally tanked and on the ground for a min or so after the race? in this care then you probably mentally get everything outa yourself, but it is important to look at that aspect as well as any actual physical problems you had!

That's a very interesting point man, I think I gave it all I had, I pushed as much as I could and I was a mess at the end (I nearly puked on my brother!). But it is definitely something I could be accused of in the past, I can say that last week at the novice I didn't push as hard as I could at the end and it cost me a place, my legs were wrecked and I backed off because it hurt, and I was pretty sour about it all week! But definitely something to consider as well as the physical side of things. Cheers.

pconn062

Ceepo wrote: »

In a word yes, that's not to say there is no benefit in tempo run's, but it just puts different
stresses on the body, i never really do them myself, but thats just me as i prefer to do speed/interval type of work.
As said there is many ways to do speed work and that session of 200's with say 1 min rec is a completely different session, other good sessions for cross country are 400's of maybe 45 sec rec, TRY TO KEEP ALL AT THE SAME PACE, k's above and below race pace (example race pace 4 min k, do 1st at 3.50 2nd at 4,10 and repeat) and mile reps, these should be done at the correct pace for you and not at someone else's pace and is important not to do them to quick,
Imo most people run to hard in training, There are a lot of people out there who do there 400's in sub 80 sec but can't come near 5.20 ml in there races, i'm not saying don't train above race pace but it should be relative to it, also your easy run should be just that Easy

Thanks a million for that Ceepo, I will take everything you say on board. I prefer short/long intervals myself over tempo running but nearly always include one regularly as I just considered necessary. As for your comments on 400's, I can be accused of that, I regularly run 400's in under 80's in training but rarely get under 5.40 pace in races!

Timmaay

pconn062 wrote: »

I was a mess at the end (I nearly puked on my brother!)

Ok ok, thats proof enough that ya have no problems pushing yourself ha!

ThePiedPiper

Interesting point that on the intervals being at or close to race pace. Maybe my 10 x 800 session at 2:55 apiece, done for marathon training, actually turned out to be something that is as equally beneficial to 6-8k cross country as the long stuff. I think I said it before to you pconn, that at the very top level, there really is very little difference between the training that 5,000 track runners, cross-country and marathoners all do. One feeds into the other, Tadesse, or a prime Haile, being good examples.

I would still believe that in order to get the maximum benefit from your long run, there should be a few tempo miles in it. But, as creepo is saying, it's probably not the key session for cross country. You've been putting great variety into your training lately, I don't think you need to do anything very different to be honest, maybe just a couple of tweaks here and there.

Still though, I think you're being a bit hard on yourself. I was one minute 20 seconds off my 5 mile PB on that course yesterday, you were in and around the same. And I'm definitely in better shape now than I was in August, so there was probably a good 2 minutes at least on the course compared to the road. Everybody was in bits at the end of that. You ran a great race. You'll have me for breakfast by the time the Rás comes around.

pconn062

Cheers RFR, funnily enough I was nearly exactly 1 min and 20 secs slower than my PB as well (it being 31:20 from the Irish Runner 5 mile)! But I take everything you say on board and on another note I definitely think those 800's made a big difference to your marathon training this time around especially as you were doing 10 of them at a time and they definitely stood to you yesterday as well when it got tough.

EauRouge79

Ran my 1st cross coutry race yesterday. Thought I ran pretty well to finish the 6k in 22:01 especially with a marathon only 2 weeks back.
The standard of running out there was very high though and im a good was down the page in terms of results.
Where are all of these runners during to road racing season.

ThePiedPiper

Cross country's always like that EauRouge. A sub-3 marathon is good enough for top 2-5% of most fields. An equivelent time in cross country might be good enough for top 50%. The main reason is that cross country has very very few recreational runners. In the race I did yesterday, the field was only about 30 or so, and there were only really 1 or 2 recreational runners.

mrak

RunForestRun wrote: »

Cross country's always like that EauRouge. A sub-3 marathon is good enough for top 2-5% of most fields. An equivelent time in cross country might be good enough for top 50%. The main reason is that cross country has very very few recreational runners. In the race I did yesterday, the field was only about 30 or so, and there were only really 1 or 2 recreational runners.

Very true - I'll never forget running the intercounties for the first time in sligo .. many years ago now. There were 120-140 odd runners. I came about 80-somethingth and the lad that travelled up with me was a 2:45 marathoner and came 3rd last. Serious eye openener at the time.

EauRouge79

RunForestRun wrote: »

Cross country's always like that EauRouge. A sub-3 marathon is good enough for top 2-5% of most fields. An equivelent time in cross country might be good enough for top 50%. The main reason is that cross country has very very few recreational runners. In the race I did yesterday, the field was only about 30 or so, and there were only really 1 or 2 recreational runners.

Spot on id say, most of them must only run cross country or trails I guess. I was struck by how fit a lot of them looked when stretching and warming up beforehand. Thank god these fellas dont turn up at road races that often. Didnt even recognise a lot of the names on the results afterwards.

RayCun

I think it's just the depth of field you get for a club championship. I'm sure most of the people at yesterday's Dublin XC race regularly - I recognised plenty of faces. But they won't all usually come out for the same race.

pconn062

Thought I should give this thread a little bump as some people are starting to look at their cross country winter plans. I have a question if anyone could help me. How many sessions do you normally do a week for cross training? I was thinking of alternating tempo work/long reps/fartlek and hills.

I am only back into normal training for the last 10 days or so and I'm currently looking to up the mileage a bit before getting into full training. I don't want to risk upping the miles and adding sessions as I'll probably get hurt so was thinking of maybe doing a few weeks of just tempo work while simultaneously increasing the miles slowly.

Some Kind of Wizard

pconn062 wrote: »

I am only back into normal training for the last 10 days or so and I'm currently looking to up the mileage a bit before getting into full training. I don't want to risk upping the miles and adding sessions as I'll probably get hurt so was thinking of maybe doing a few weeks of just tempo work while simultaneously increasing the miles slowly.

Sounds good to me. At the end of the day, mileage is key for XC..... Another very simple way I think of altering training for cross country is by doing the majority of runs on grass. I know in the past my legs feel unresponsive/dead after a few kilometres of XC racing after having done a lot of work on the roads.

KielyUnusual

pconn062 wrote: »

Thought I should give this thread a little bump as some people are starting to look at their cross country winter plans. I have a question if anyone could help me. How many sessions do you normally do a week for cross training? I was thinking of alternating tempo work/long reps/fartlek and hills.

I am only back into normal training for the last 10 days or so and I'm currently looking to up the mileage a bit before getting into full training. I don't want to risk upping the miles and adding sessions as I'll probably get hurt so was thinking of maybe doing a few weeks of just tempo work while simultaneously increasing the miles slowly.

Nothing prepares you for XC :eek:

At the club, we stick to a very similar schedule for the Cross Country. The track sessions on Tuesday have longer repeats and shorter recovery with a little more volume too. Tempo run on Thursday is the same (3 X 8/9/10 mins) and then on the Saturday morning of course, its the muddy hills of the Military Fort in Phoenix Park. That's where the specific stuff comes in. This year i think I'll try a few more longer tempo runs on grass (4-6 miles) because I think this works better for me than the mile repeats. I certainly find it more difficult anyway.

TFBubendorfer

RunForestRun wrote: »

A sub-3 marathon is good enough for top 2-5% of most fields. An equivelent time in cross country might be good enough for top 50%.

Very much true. The last time I ran cross country I didn't make the top half of the field and it's been a very, very long time since that happened in a road race.

As for appropriate training session, I think finding a big heavy spiky club and getting someone to bash you around the head with it for about 30 minutes would be the ideal mental preparation for cross country running.

ThePiedPiper

Call me ignorant, but I'm just not sure its 100% necessary to do a lot of specific training for cross country. Now, before ye write this off as complete nonsense, my rationale for this is mainly based on two of the lads in our club. One of them is mainly an 800m/1500m track runner, and has done very well at national level. Yes, he does nicely on the road too, but as far as I know, has never raced beyond 10k on the road. Yet, he translates his track and road speed to cross-country very well, winning our county race last year. Another lad at the club is primarily 400m/800m, and to be honest, I've never seen him running a road race, yet he represented the county at the intercounties last year, and always runs very well at the county senior race.

Then, you'll have people coming at it from an entirely high mileage perspective, Fionnuala Britton being a prime example. There is no simple answer, and I really feel that if you've committed a decent amount of high mileage work, or conversely, come from the track and add some longer tempo work, then there's a good chance you'll arrive at the same place. The same people are going to be good at road, track and grass.

I'll get my coat on the way out, don't worry.

Sacksian

RunForestRun wrote: »

Call me ignorant, but I'm just not sure its 100% necessary to do a lot of specific training for cross country. Now, before ye write this off as complete nonsense, my rationale for this is mainly based on two of the lads in our club. One of them is mainly an 800m/1500m track runner, and has done very well at national level. Yes, he does nicely on the road too, but as far as I know, has never raced beyond 10k on the road. Yet, he translates his track and road speed to cross-country very well, winning our county race last year. Another lad at the club is primarily 400m/800m, and to be honest, I've never seen him running a road race, yet he represented the county at the intercounties last year, and always runs very well at the county senior race.

Then, you'll have people coming at it from an entirely high mileage perspective, Fionnuala Britton being a prime example. There is no simple answer, and I really feel that if you've committed a decent amount of high mileage work, or conversely, come from the track and add some longer tempo work, then there's a good chance you'll arrive at the same place. The same people are going to be good at road, track and grass.

I'll get my coat on the way out, don't worry.

I'd agree that good athletes are, relatively speaking, good at everything but your 800m/1500m runners will be doing very different training during the xc season than they do during the track season if they want to be competitive on the country.

You can get through the 800m (less so, the 1500m) without having great aerobic endurance or strength but you can't do the same at xc. The best 800m-10k-marathon runners have them both as well as speed, to varying degrees, but "hobbyjoggers" don't necessarily have the same amount of training to dedicate to being (relatively) great at everything, so we all have our respective weaknesses, depending on our choice of event.

Personally, I've found that I need to up the mileage a good bit and do the hilly, muddy mile repeats to feel comfortable at xc.

The other big difference I've found between track (and road) and xc is the wide variability in paces that you'll go through relatively quickly during the course of a race. Generally, I know I haven't run well in xc if I've had a chance to settle for more than one minute! And this is something you can train for too (it can be translated to track and road too but is less fundamental to them, especially if you're going after a time).

NiallG4

pconn062 wrote: »

Thought I should give this thread a little bump as some people are starting to look at their cross country winter plans. I have a question if anyone could help me. How many sessions do you normally do a week for cross training? I was thinking of alternating tempo work/long reps/fartlek and hills.

I am only back into normal training for the last 10 days or so and I'm currently looking to up the mileage a bit before getting into full training. I don't want to risk upping the miles and adding sessions as I'll probably get hurt so was thinking of maybe doing a few weeks of just tempo work while simultaneously increasing the miles slowly.

Are you preparing to stop our attempt on 2 in a row. We will be weakened badly this year as 4 of our 6 scorers from last year are doing the marathon 6 days prior to the Senior CC.