Cross Country Champs Are Made In Summer

Photo by Jenny Hill on Unsplash

“Cross country champions are made in the summer.”  This is a common saying, and it is absolutely true.  But even if your goal is not so lofty, running in the summer is extremely important.

Injury Prevention
The first (and most important) reason summer running is critical is injury prevention.  Running is a repetitive action.  On average most people take about 1500 steps per mile when running.  With each step, your body has to absorb the force of about 40 times your weight.  That’s alot!  
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If you show up in the fall without running all summer and attempt to run several miles a day 5 or 6 days a week at practice, the potential for injury is high.  However, the human body is incredible and is more than capable of handling this if you ease into it in the summer.

Performance
Whether or not your goal is to win a medal or make it to state, I hope that you want to push yourself.  The best part of cross country in my opinion is testing your limits.  Seeing what focused, consistent, work can do and learning about yourself in the process.  The whole cross country season is only about 10 weeks long up to regionals.  The truth is that is just not enough training time to have your best possible race by the end.

The body has two primary energy systems:  aerobic and anaerobic.  The aerobic system is primarily used for long “easier” efforts, and the anaerobic system is used when you go hard or fast.  In a cross country race, you will use both, but it is long enough that you will mostly use your aerobic system.

The adaptations that your body makes when training aerobically typically take at least 6 to 8 weeks to start to show up.  If you wait to start this training until the beginning of the season there is not much time left to spend on speed and other race specific work.  So if you are fairly new to running, you will see some improvement for sure, but not as much as if you started in the summer.

You can think of training for cross country like making a katana (Japanese samurai sword).  You start as a shapeless lump of metal.  First you must be repeatedly heated in the fire, hammered, folded, and hammered again.  This process is long and challenging, but it makes you strong and durable.  Only after this is complete and the sword has taken shape can it then be sharpened.

Sure we can do the hammering and shaping during the season, but then we won’t have time for the sharpening.  You will end up with dull blade that looks the part but doesn’t cut anything.  It doesn’t sing when you swing it through the air.

In conclusion,  
summer running is important for you to remain injury free and have your best possible performance during the season.  Those two things will also make it much more enjoyable.  So I hope that you take some time each day this summer to run (with 1 or 2 rest days per week).  

It doesn’t have to be super long, but it does need to be consistent.  How much running you need will depend on your individual goals and current ability.  Go easy and start with an amount you are comfortable and build from there.  You might be surprised how much progress you make by the time the season begins.