Pace your Summer Training:

When planning your Summer Training Regiment:

- Don’t procrastinate
- Increase mileage slowly – consider the 10% guideline
- Be consistent
- Don’t procrastinate!!!

I remember as a child my mom telling me about the race of the turtle and the hare. Even though the hare was faster, the turtle always won because even though he was slow, he was steady. And I can still recall my fourth grade teacher, Ms. King, leading our running club and yelling “don’t dash-and-die!!”

While these memories seem childish, there is plenty of truth too the message they sent and not only in a single race, but it is a great concept for overall training regiments…research is proving it. Most running injuries are cause by poor training strategy. One of the most common mistakes is increasing weekly running mileage too quickly. Here’s a tip: don’t wait until August 1st to start training for cross-country season. Your goal should be to increase your summer weekly mileage gradually so that you have a solid foundation of training to work from when you show up to that first practice in August. One guideline that is commonly used is to increase your mileage by no more than 10% each week. Lets do the math on two scenarios.

Slowpoke Suzy had a promising track season and decided that after all that hard work she deserved a break. She took 2 weeks off from running. After two weeks, summer had started and her social calendar got in the way of training. Soon, two weeks turned into two months. She ran occasionally, lets say 8 miles a week- but she doesn’t really know since she wasn’t writing it down (hint hint: keep a running log). Fast forward to August 15th. The first week of cross-country season had started. Suzy completed all of the workouts that week: a total of 30 miles. In other words, Silly Suzy increased her mileage by 375%. With this kind increase, Suzy is asking to be injured before the first meet.

Then there is Blazing Billy. Billy had a fair track season. He also took 2 weeks off of running once the season was over. And he too became very busy once school was out. But Billy was also bright, and he networked with friends before school ended. He planned to meet up with some long distance buddies for a morning run twice a week throughout summer. Billy’s buddies weren’t as fast as he, but he enjoyed the company and they motivated him to stay committed to his summer training. Each week he ran a few more miles. Sure there was that weeklong family vacation where his training was put on hold, but in general, he slowly increased his mileage. Fast forward to August 15th. The week prior to the first day of cross-country, Billy logged 37 miles. The first week of cross-country season he logged 41 miles (about a 10% increase). You get the picture. Billy is not only less likely to get injured, but more likely to be Blazing this fall.