How To Train For Cross Country

I'm going to give some outlines about how to train for a cross country race. I'm thinking about people who are relatively new to running, they got into the regular training pattern, maybe done the odd race, and they are interested in trying cross country possibly as a diversion from road races, which is where most of the events that are based nowadays. A typical cross country race for a man will be 5 miles to 6, 6 1/2 miles, most of them are that distance.

The women's tends to be more between about 3 1/2 and 5 miles. Depending on your level of fitness, we're talking about a race for women of maybe 25 to 30 minutes or a bit longer, for men, more like 35 to 40 minutes. So you have to think about training to prepare for that duration of hard effort.

You should be running pretty regularly, I would recommend looking at 4 days a week, possibly 5 days a week if you have the enthusiasm, commitment and the time to do so. I'd say you look at once a week having a good run that's off roads, depending on what terrains' available to you in the season, and the mud, etc. doing some off road running so you're actually simulating the cross country environment that you'll be racing in.

Once a week, you should be doing some sort of harder effort that is about the kind of speed you would look at to do in a cross country race. You could do, after a warm up, about 25 minutes of sustained effort, cross country race pace or you might do 35 to 40 minutes just a bit slower, so you're working hard but with a bit of margin for comfort, so you're not absolutely wrecking yourself. You could alternate that each week with a set of interval sessions, which you could do on some off road terrain.

You're not worried about exact distance, obviously because it's going to be undulating, but you'd be working more about time. So you'd be thinking maybe some repititions, where each rep is between 2, 2 1/2 minutes up to maybe 6 or 7 minutes. You'd be looking for a total session of maybe 25 to 30 minutes of hard effort and the hard bursts would be interspersed with a recovery jog of 2, 2 1/2 minutes or so between each rep.

That would be quite a hard session with a warm up and a warm down, it could take you about an hour. Realistically, you're also going to be doing some fairly standard endurance running that won't all be cross country specific, but would have a lot of common ground with how you'd be training for a 5k race, or a 10k race, or a 10 mile race, because physiologically, it's in that ballpark of how you're testing your cardiovascular system, and it's just the specific nature of the cross country terrain that varies for the race. And those are some ideas on how to start training for a cross country race.

|If you're planning to run in a cross country race but never have, this video will help you achieve your goal. Included are tips from an expert, detailing what routine you should have, and different techniques to use.