So You're Coaching Middle School Cross Country?

Christian Booze
Please note: These are helpful guidelines and by no means the only way to coach middle school cross country. This is also aimed at coaches new to the sport/training and general middle school teams, not for elite middle school runners.

Basic Planning Guidelines

  • Do not let practices go on for more than one hour
  • Have 1 to 2 locations that you use for practice (make sure one has a hill)
  • Always practice near a bathroom
  • Practice Monday-Friday, Saturday only if necessary

Preseason

  • It is beneficial to have 1 or 2 voluntary practices a week in the summer
  • Give out calendars for kids to keep track of the miles/minutes they've ran. Reward them for doing so.
  • Keep it simple and easy. No workouts.
  • Allow lots of walking and water breaks as necessary.

Basic Weekly Planning

  • 2 Hard Days (repeats/workouts, races take the place of workouts in season)
  • 1-2 Normal Days (run around the length a race would be)
  • 1 Easy Day (run shorter than the length of the race or shorter than usual)
  • 1 Long Day (run longer than the length of the race)
  • I HIGHLY recommend playing a game on the Easy Day. This allows for team bonding and breaking up the monotony of training. (Do not play a game during championship week.)

Basic Daily Planning

  • Have a set meeting spot at your practice location
  • Have a standard warmup that the kids can memorize and get used to (add in strides on workout days)
  • Have a standard cool down that the kids can memorize and get used to

Incorporating Strength Training

  • Incorporate body weight strength exercises once a week
  • Incorporate one day of core training per week
  • Incorporate plyometric exercises once per week
  • Incorporate one day per week of extended stretching beyond the normal cool down (primarily after a workout)

Tips for Getting Athletes to do Workouts Appropriately

  • Give the time the athlete needs to hit on their workout reps. Tell them to hit the time exactly, any seconds they are off, whether faster or slower, will result in that many extra seconds of core workouts.
  • When training hills, practice going UP AND DOWN. Athletes need to push hard up a hill, while also controlling themselves down.
  • Do repeats in the grass with random turns. The goal is to run a certain time/distance, they need to people able to do that with sharp turns in the grass, just like they would in a meet. Avoid running at the track.
  • Never do repeats or time trials on public sidewalks. Athletes need to look out for cars and roadways, they will not do that if they are going all out.

Pre-Competition Phase

  • The part of the season from the first mandatory practice to the week of the first meet
  • Prioritize completion over perfection
  • Discourage walking but don't disallow it. Set limits on how long an athlete can walk before they have to run again
  • DO NOT have a time trial run until the second week. Let athletes get used to the sport before they have to run a time trial

  • Example Pre-Competition Phase Week:
  • Monday - Normal Run + Plyometrics
  • Tuesday - Workout + Core
  • Wednesday - Easy Run + Game
  • Thursday - Long Run + Body Weight Strength Exercises
  • Friday - Workout + Extended Stretching

  • Example Pre-Competition Workouts:
  • 30sec. walk/jog alternated with 30sec. of running for 10 minutes. Take a 10 minutes break after then repeat
  • Jog 300m then Sprint 100m, Jog 200m then Sprint 200m, Jog 100m then Sprint 300m. Repeat if possible
  • Alternate fast and slow running at 1 minute intervals until the athlete has finished their targeted distance

Competition Phase

  • The part of the season when meets are regularly occurring
  • Build off of training that has already taken please
  • Realize putting in the work at this point in the year leads to success later, not immediately
  • It takes 1-2 weeks for a workout to give its full benefit to an athlete.
  • Never schedule an easy run or game day before a meet, only after

  • Example Competition Phase Week:
  • Monday - Long Run + Core
  • Tuesday - Meet or Normal Day
  • Wednesday - Easy Day + Game
  • Thursday - Workout + Bodyweight Strength Exercises
  • Friday - Normal Day + Plyometrics
  • Saturday - Meet

  • Example Competition Phase Workouts:
  • Repeats at their personal best pace for the same length as the race or longer
  • Repeats at their goal pace for the same length as the race or longer
  • Repeats at 10 sec. slower than PR pace for 50% longer than the race distance
  • Turn the repeats into races. Award points for where they finish and add all the scores up at the end to determine a winner.
  • Reverse race. Tell the athletes to race over a certain amount of distance. Record the times they finish. Tell them they are going to race again but in reverse order, sending out the athletes at the given intervals that they finished.
  • Water bottle run. Have athletes run with the water bottle on a closed loop course. Tell them to run as fast as possible for 90 seconds and set the water bottle down where they stop. They then have 90 seconds to return to the start line. Then tell them they have to get farther than their water bottle or they have five pushups before the next rep. If they reach their water bottle they need to pick it up and keep running so it now placed farther.

Championship Phase

  • The last 2-3 weeks of the season
  • Workouts and mileage should decrease
  • Emphasis on stretching and staying healthy
  • Do not do any plyometrics, core or body weight strength training the week of the championship meet
  • Workouts should be less volume and have longer rest

  • Example Championship Phase Week:
  • Monday - Normal Run
  • Tuesday - Mile Time Trial
  • Wednesday - Easy Run
  • Thursday - Repeats not to exceed 50% of the actual race distance
  • Friday - Easy Run
  • Saturday - Championship Meet

  • Example Championship Phase Workouts:
  • Repeats totaling 50% of the actual race distance with long breaks in between at a controlled pace
  • Tempo running alternating between jogging and faster paces
  • Repeats at a controlled pace practicing turns they would see at the championship meet

Ways to Take Your Program to the Next Level

  • Honor athletes that run 100+ miles in a season
  • Have a goal board that athletes see everyday with their goal(s) for the season on it. Make it a celebration when they get theirs.
  • Keep track of every athlete you've ever coached and the times than ran at each meet/course. Share the master list with your athletes so they can try and climb the leaderboard.
  • If you have to practice at supper time, order pizza for the team so parents don't have to worry about feeding them.