When Hajar Sattarzadeh (10) looked down at her phone after her run a few weeks ago, and saw that she had completed a 10 mile run for the first time, she was in shock. She said there was no way her younger self would ever believe she could run that many miles. Seeing that number on her screen during the peak of her cross country season training was a reminder for her of how far she’s come. Reaching goals and achievements like these are possible because of cross country’s unique training with varied workload and mandatory breaks in place. The cycle is in place to help with how mentally and physically intense running can be.
Tobias Rivera-Garcia (11), primarily a 1600m runner, said the season starts almost immediately after spring sports come to an end.
“The season starts two weeks after track,” Rivera-Garcia said. “We do really easy training during the summer because we don’t want to burn out during the actual season.”
Captain Parker McDevitt (12) described summer training as the beginning of preparation for cross country training, where runners slowly increase their mileage as summer progresses.
“Our training is almost like a big pyramid,” McDevitt said. “You have to start with your base. This base is called an aerobic base, which is how well your body can handle oxygen during exercise. This is being built with doing easy runs and adding mileage every week.”
According to Coach Amanda Sandstrom, who is in her 11th season of coaching cross country at Westview, the fall season is dependent on athletes’ participation in stamina and endurance building through the summer runs.
“The training cycle is a little different based on if an athlete is involved in summer runs or not, because my viewpoint when it comes to the cross country season is that you’ve got the summer,” Sandstrom said. “The summer is all about getting your mileage up there, so when it comes to having a tough workload, you have all this base underneath you that you’re capable of doing.”
Once the official season starts and the lower intensity summer training comes to an end, McDevitt said that workouts begin getting more difficult, especially with the added element of speed workouts.
“Once we start to have races, we’ll add in certain speed workouts, and these speed workouts are almost like the second tier to the pyramid,” he said. “At this point, we’re working on our actual race pacing. So when you’re at the end of the race and you’re tired, then you’ll have the speed to carry you across that finish line strongly.”
Training at race pace or faster than race pace in speed workouts, is essential for practicing pacing as well as the body’s ability to handle the build up of lactic acid. According to Texas MileSplit, speed training accelerates the clearing of lactic acid from the body, so that the runner can maintain their maximum effort for a longer time period before fatiguing.
These speed workouts during the beginning of the season take place at least twice per week and vary for different terrains and distances. They consist of either hill repeats, track interval workouts, or long runs with speed elements.
Another aspect of cross country training is what runners do in between their hard workout days, which McDevitt says differs greatly from other sports’ training programs.
“Unlike other sports where you can train with the same workouts as intensely every day, with cross country — or just running in general — it’s different,” McDevitt said. “You need to balance doing easy and hard days, as well as rest, which is very important. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays in between workouts, we are doing shakeout runs that give you a way of active recovery.”
“Shake out runs” are runs that consist of lower mileage and are taken at a slower pace than workouts or long runs. According to Pelaton, recovery runs benefit athletes by providing faster muscle recovery while also maintaining endurance.
After a few weeks of increased intensity, Sandstrom said that mileage stops being added to training because athletes reach what she calls their “peak.” This peak in training is where each cross country athlete reaches the maximum mileage they will gain for the season. For Rivera-Garcia, this looks like 50-60 miles a week, but he said it varies for each athlete.
According to McDevitt, this “peak” is maintained for a few weeks, then mileage begins to be lowered, because the team starts what is called a “taper”.
“Afterwards is the post-season, which is in the November time frame, and it’s the last month of our training,” McDevitt said. “We do a thing called a taper, which is where you reduce the amount of work you’re doing while keeping the intensity. We went from peaking where we’re having high mileage, which is anywhere upwards of 55 miles a week, but once we start tapering, it’s going to cut downwards. Instead of having long runs at 80 minutes, we’ll have it for 60 minutes, and even our recovery runs are going to be 5-10 minutes shorter.”
Sattarzadeh said tapering prepares the team for their races and provides necessary relief to their minds and bodies.
“Tapering is really helpful because it not only gives you a break for your legs, but it also gives you a break mentally,” she said.
Sandstrom said that the reason tapering is necessary is comparable to the academic burnout some students feel in school.
“With the school year, you learn so much that when you get to the end, mentally, students are very burnt out and they’re ready to be done,” Sandstrom said. “That’s kind of where we’re at as we get to the end of the season, and we’re starting to get burnt out and tire a little bit easier, and that’s why we taper. We’re not putting as much mileage onto our legs and we’re ready to have the best race at the very end of the season.”
After the final races of the season, the majority of cross country athletes begin preseason for track and field. However, this training doesn’t start until a mandatory two week break from running, which Sandstrom said is essential to the training cycle.
“I am a big believer in rest,” she said. “If you look at what the professional athletes do, they all have off-seasons because they need to take that rest. It’s too much to maintain that performance 365 days of the year.’”
Although time off can be controversial for runners, The San Francisco Marathon notes, between season breaks provide runners with both physical and mental benefits, allowing them to have more thorough muscle repair and tissue strengthening than what takes place during continuous training, as well as critical mental burnout prevention.
For Sattarzadeh, when the season comes to an end and she reminisces on the moments that pushed her through the rigorous days of running, she said she believes that the workouts were what inspired her to push to the finish line.
“What motivates me throughout the cross country cycle is all the workouts,” she said. “It helps me to know that the workouts I’m doing now will be helping me during my races, and I know everything I put into them will show when I reach my goals and get the race times I’ve had in my mind all season.”
