Cross Country Concepts For Competitive Runners
By Ric Rojas
10/2/2000

Planning and goal setting are the most important steps for an effective cross country program. These must happen before the season starts, preferably shortly after the spring track season. This should also be done with the help of your coach. The following are the basics of goal-setting.

• Set a performance goal for the season
• Work with the coach to set your performance goal.
• Use your spring track times as a guide to set a challenging but achievable goal.
• Write your goal time in your plan.
• Be specific, e.g.., "My goal is to run 18:10 at the Liberty Bell on September 19th"
• Work with the coach to design your program
  • Ask your coach to help you set up the program specific to your goal.
  • If the coach has already designed a program, ask him/her to review it with you.
  • Make sure the program is compatible with your personal goals
  • Be sure to ask the coach about specific training details if you have any questions.
  • Have the coach write out the program for the entire season.
  • Include miles per week and per day, specific intervals, and races.
  • If you have a team goal, have the coach integrate it into your program
  • Be flexible with your plan, you may end up running either faster or slower than planned.
• Once the season starts
  • Set specific goals and have a plan for each meet
    • Write the goal down including mile splits.
    • Write the plan out down including any tactics you plan to use.
    • Review your race plan with the coach
    • Incorporate any "lessons learned" into your season plan and next race plan.
  • Keep your base mileage up during the season
    • Your weekly mileage is an integral part of you training
    • Your miles per week should be contained in your written plan.
    • Add miles to warm-downs after interval sessions and races
    • Take and easy long run on at least one weekend day.
  • Continue your weekly long run until the last three weeks of the season.
  • Ask your coach to help you monitor your progress
  • Make any necessary adjustments throughout the season.
  • Don't taper/rest for early season meets.
  • Be prepared to be tired
  • Track and chart your progress in a journal. Ask your coach to help you with this
• Improve your mile time during cross-country season.
  • You should be able to run 1600 meters at least as fast as you did in spring track.
    • Four months after spring track you are stronger and more experienced
    • You should improve based on maturity and appropriate speedwork.
  • Include 1500-Meters training in your plan: short fast track intervals, i.e. 100's, 150's, and 200's.
  • Use time trials (400M, 600M, 1000M) to improve your mile.
  • All training intervals need to be at 5K goal race pace or faster
    • Start with short intervals and gradually increase the length and number.
    • Run no more than 5K (12x400, 5x1000, 3x1Mile) in interval sessions (not including warm-up and warm-down). All intervals need to be a race goal pace or faster.
    • If you can't consistently maintain your goal 5K pace for 400s, or longer intervals, be prepared to revise your performance goals. You may be too aggressive.
    • If you consistently exceed your goal 5K pace for 400s, or longer intervals, be prepared to revise your performance goals. You may be more aggressive.
• Race sparingly @ 5000 - Meters
  • Race 3 races before League/Regionals/State.*
  • A total of 6 X 5K Races during the season is more than adequate.
  • Do short time trials on alternate weeks (see "Improve your Mile..." above)
• Cross-Training
  • 2-3x drill sessions/week (before each interval session and before races).
  • Weight training until the last two weeks of the season if time allows.

* This applies to runners who will be competitive at the State Cross Country Meet. Runners who will not qualify for the state meet should run a total of 6 meets for the season, hence would run 4 or 5 meets before League or Regionals, depending on their competitive schedule.

Coaching High School Cross Country Teams
By Ric Rojas Boulder, Colorado
11/4/02

Create a Shared Vision

• Listen to the players
• Ask players about their personal dreams and visions
• Refine and sharpen these dreams into actual event-specific training and breakthrough racing performances!
• Continually reinforce the vision and effectively implement the plan to make it a reality.
  • Keeping the vision in front of the team eliminates the need to create "artificial motivation".
  • How to do this? Simply ask the players, "Why are you here?"
  • Let them answer their own question within the context of the shared team vision.
• Dream and plan long-term for each player (for the entire 4-year high school career of a freshman and beyond for gifted runners).
  • This captures the imagination, hearts, and commitment of the players.
  • Create a plan from the shared vision
  • Build the team strategy around these dreams, document the strategy in detail.
    • Be specific - i.e. write down goals and plans in quantitative terms.
    • Everything you do must support individual/team goals: Workouts, race selection and frequency, rest, drills, equipment, weight training, etc.
    • You must be able to answer: Why? Where? When? How fast and hard?
• Don't be distracted by secondary, arbitrary, or fuzzy objectives (e.g. "to have fun," "build character," "have a good attitude," etc.).
  • These may be achieved as a byproduct of reaching primary performance goals but are not the main reason the athletes are here.
  • Placing emphasis on these will distract and confuse the coaches and players and waste valuable time. Keeping focused on the primary performance goals on an ongoing basis will cover any secondary concerns.

Planning

• Plan the entire season - every workout, every meeting, and every race.
  • Communicate the plan to your team members
  • Be able to explain why you do anything from a technical and motivational point of view.
  • Be specific in terms of workout and race performances, i.e. have baseline performance objectives for each workout and race.
  • Post all workouts at least one week in advance
  • Coach individuals - honor individual differences in style and ability
  • Make sure each individual knows his/her specific workout "numbers".

Communication

• Learn how to set and communicate goals
  • Teach team members how to set personal and team goals
  • Empower each team member to "own" their personal and team commitments
  • Sort out varying individual commitment levels early in the program (e.g. some players may have other commitments such as soccer, music, church, etc. - don't argue with the player about their commitment - just find out what it is. By creating a bigger vision for the player, the coach may be able to capture a greater individual commitment.)
• Learn how to display and reinforce goals
  • Display weekly workout and race results on a team "leader board".
  • Be able to measure these against the original goals and be prepared to modify the goals as the athletes progress.
• Training Train 6 days/week
  
  • Run 5 days, the 6th (every Saturday) is for stretching, drills, and a formal "chalk talk" (review, reinforce, and update individual and team goals (based on quantitative workouts and racing performances), or technical training such as pacing, racing strategy, running form (videotape analysis), etc.

Train your Assistant Coaches

• Take the time to explain exactly what each coach's role is
  • Mentor and train assistant coaches
  • Assistants should reinforce the team philosophy
  • Teach your coaches how to coach within the context of the team goals and plan
• Leverage your coaches
  • Assign specific tasks and goals for each
  • Assign each team member to a coach
  • The assistant coach is responsible for implementing the individual and team plan
  • The assistant coach is responsible for preparing his/her team members for workouts and competitions (stretching, warm-ups, and special consideration allowances)
• Coaching basics.
  • The coach is responsible for documenting all workouts and listening to issues and concerns of individual team members and resolving these issues before they become a problem.
  • Ask each athlete how he/she feels on a weekly basis.
  • Let them talk and listen to what they have to say.
  • Be prepared to implement their suggestions.
  • Be firm yet flexible
  • Document every workout for every player, including non-supervised sessions and cross training.
  • Pay attention to detail

Goal-setting Process

• At the beginning of the season schedule the annual "team goals two-a-day session(s)".
  • This is the most important activity of the year and may be the most important event of the person's life!!!
  • Have a written agenda - this demonstrates preparedness on your part.
  • The runners will take this seriously only if you do. It must be communicated that this season is the most important season of their lives!
• Let the players know what the plan is by stepping them through the agenda at the beginning of the meeting.
  • Morning Team Meeting
  • Invite the parents to this meeting. Encourage them to attend and participate as if they were trying out for the team.
  • Pass out the questionnaire * and have them fill in only the basics.
  • Then have them place the questionnaire in front of them face down.
  • Get everyone relaxed and focused - breathing/stretching exercises are good.
• This is the time to ask everyone if they want to be here.
  • Make sure they understand that they are making a conscious personal decision to be here and give them the option to either discuss any concerns with the head coach after the meeting or opt out of participating on the team.
  • Let them know what the entire season schedule - pass a copy out (this includes the 6-day-a-week practice schedule).
  • Ask them, "Is anyone is pressuring you to go out for cross country or are there any other concerns regarding your participation?" (This should be a question on your questionnaire.)
  • They may have other commitments, injuries, illness, peer-group politics, etc.
  • Let them tell you what their concerns are on the questionnaire.
  • Let them know that they even think that they fall into this category to note it on their questionnaire in the designated space and that it will be discussed in the one-on-one coach-player meetings to be scheduled within the next two days.
• Make sure that they understand that they must complete the questionnaire thoroughly.
  • If they have no concerns at this point and are "in" **, let them know that you are expecting them to live up to their personal commitment, whatever it happens to be (state championship, make varsity/letter, or condition for basketball). (Specific competitive commitments will become clearer at the end of the session and may evolve over the course of the season).
• Make sure the players understand that it is not your (the coach's) program - it is theirs and that you are there to help them be successful.
  • By walking them through this session, they will intuitively understand your commitment as a coach
  • If, after going through this planning session, a particular individual is not interested, he/she has the choice to opt out. Hopefully, they will want to discuss any concerns in the one-on-one and you will not loose any players. The key is to let them own the program and their personal commitment.

The Goal Setting Session

• Once the players are relaxed, ask each player to imagine their most successful personal sports experience (scoring a goal, making a touchdown, winning a race, hitting a ball, etc.).
  • If they don't have a sports moment, let them imagine another specific achievement in some other personal endeavor.
  • Give them time to find and enjoy their moment, then let them come down with a few deep breaths.
  • Ask a few to share their experience and how they enjoyed it
  • Have a brief discussion with each and let anyone volunteer who wants to talk.
  • Make sure to ask at least one parent to share their experience.
• Let them know that this program is about commitment, work, and the great feelings of athletic achievement like the one they just experienced.
• Also let them know that goals are personal - not everyone will be on varsity or win the state championship, but that all personal achievements will be honored and everyone is nevertheless a team-member and will share in the team accomplishments. (This puts the coach on the spot, because they are on the hook to track the progress of each player for recognition at the end of the season. A personal tracking sheet will be kept and provided to each player at the end of the season.)
• Now let the players fill out the goals portion of the questionnaire.
• After they are done, you will collect the questionnaires and review and comment on them with the coaches collectively the same day.
• In the afternoon session, you will review the goals with each athlete individually, each coach being assigned to a group of athletes.
• The goals are discussed with the athlete and, if necessary, modified to reflect challenging, yet achievable goals. Note: If an individual's goals appear outrageous, don't talk he/she out if it… Just let the athlete know that you if he/she can accomplish the goal-specific workout program that you have set up for them, that he/she will have a good chance of achieving the goal.
• Multi-sport athletes should be encouraged to list their goals! Don't be surprised if goals end up being non-running related. Be ready to support these goals!
• Once the questionnaires are compiled, the coach can evaluate the overall team picture.
  • What team goals can be supported by the individual commitments?
  • How can the commitment level be influenced?
  • You may be able to take the information and stretch the vision of the team. This is the subject for the "Building the Team Goals" follow up session.
  • This also lays the groundwork for long-term planning.
  • By developing a "training baseline" for the athlete, the coach can reasonably plan an individualized program, modify workouts to accommodate changing conditions, and predict performances.

Team Goals Process

• Team Goals must be as specific as individual goals.
  • The foundation of team goals is the goals of the individual team members.
  • However, developing individual and team goals is by its nature an ongoing process. It will require constant communication, care, and attention to a myriad of dynamic factors. To begin with, the coach should have a good sense of what is possible as a team goal after reviewing the goals and historical of the individual players.
• This is where the coach helps the players develop a "stretch" team goal.
  • For example, lets say the profile of the team's top 5 runners is as follows:
    • Average PR of 17:45 for the 5K, set during last fall's cross-country season.
    • Qualified for state XC last year, team finished 8th §
    • Average Mile times of 4:47 in spring track.
    • Highly motivated. Want to do very well but need help with goals.
  • The coach researches the results from state for the past three years and finds out the average finishing times for the top three teams: 1st (16:45 - top finisher 4th in 16:00, last finisher 34th in 17:00), 2nd, 3rd. Etc.
  • Do the players match up with the historical players?
  • How much improvement is necessary to reach any goal?
  • These questions can now be answered immediately because we have the actual performance data.
• From the information we compiled, the team would have to average a specific time in order to win state.
  • Is it possible to place in the top three or win state with the present player pool? Maybe, but at least we know where we stand against the historical record and in specific terms what it will take to win, place, or show at State.
• The capacity of the present player pool may fall far short of even qualifying for state or it may turn out to be a real contender based the information we have now - last year's performances, the present motivation level, and the capacity to improve.
  • What really matters at this point is that the players can see possibilities for themselves and develop stretch goals based on specific numbers. Their commitment is of their own choosing once the key information is made available.

Team Depth Chart

• Develop a Player "Depth Chart"
  • This chart supports the overall effort by communicating goals, performance, and progression.
  • The chart should include everyone on the team.
  • Here are some chart details:
    • Develop the player Depth Chart/Leader Board in Microsoft excel
    • Update the chart weekly - ready for display each Monday
    • Post this Leader Board on the team web site and and post a big copy in the locker room weekly
    • Include performance goals and results for each meet
    • Include the school, names and times of last years top three teams at State Districts or League (depending on goals) in the last three columns.
• The depth chart is essential in facilitating the team goal-setting process.
  • The team members can see where their individual contribution are being made in specific terms and engage in the team goal-setting process
  • Recognition of each athletes progress is made at the Saturday am session. Everyone is recognized.

Coach evaluations - with specific metrics. (To be published later.)

Leverage community resources (To be published later.)

The Program
(Event-Specific Programs to be published later)

• Program implementation is the crux of achieving goals.
  • This is where the coach will need to be specific about the relationship between the level of training performance and peak race performance.
  • The coach must know the individual athlete's performance goal, exactly what it will take to achieve it, and how to implement the training program. (Please see "The Program" and "Baseline Training".)
  • If the athlete can accomplish the workout levels outlined in the program for his/her specific goal, and he/she shows improvement in competition, reasonable projections can be made about his/her season peak performance.
  • If ongoing improvements are not seen, there is likely a flaw in the program implementation - the coach must identify the flaw and modify the program to correct the deficiency.
• The training program/training numbers progression is built around the individual/team goals.
  • The coach must understand the relationship between the training and racing and know how to implement the training program.