Cross Training Questions

What would a good 5k time be for a Freshman Cross Country runner?

My personal record is 19:21 and I know that there is a lot of room for improvement in between now and the start of the season. (sometime in August) Also, what would a good workout plan be to train for the season?

Public Comments

1. First of all my personal best is around 20 min and it was my first year running last year as a freshman. For JV I would say that 17 to 21 is good and 22 about average, but for V 16 to 18 is good and 20 is average. Even though I compete against small 1a schools it may change depending on the size of the school so they might be faster. Are shool record is around 17min. so don't worry your pretty fast. For practice I would run 3 to 5 miles every other day, remember to warm up before, are you may hurt yourself.
2. My best 5k in high school was around 17:30, and now I'm running as a freshman in college. My time in high school was OK, but not great. You'll be a sophomore this year. I tended to improve almost a minute a year in high school until my senior year, ad I started about the same level as you, so I would shoot for about 18:15 to 18:30 in August. For a summer training plan. Run 6 days a week, and go for about 40 to 50 miles a week. That comes to something like 7 or 8 a day. I would alternate 3 days of easy, fairly long runs with 2 days of tempo runs and one day of a longer, fairly easy run, about 10 miles or so on the long day. Then take the 7th day off. That's what I would work up to. At the start of the summer, do about 30-35 miles a week and adjust the mileage accordingly, then build up to the longer distance. Around the beginning of August, replace one of the tempo runs with a track workout to start really working on speed. Good Luck in the fall!
3. A good 5k time for a freshman would somewhere around 19's, so you're all good. If you want to get faster, say, 2 minutes, you'll need to run 500 miles in the summer. That's roughly 8 miles a day without sunday. 3 miles in the morning and 5 miles in the afternoon. If you want to try for the varsity, and run like 17's, you'd probably want to run 1000 miles. It sounds like time-consuming thing, but it'll pay off eventually. That's 16 miles a day. 5 miles in the morning and 11 miles in the afternoon. For tuesdays and thursdays, you should do speed and hill workouts. Don't drink carbonated water and don't donate blood! Get at least 7.5 hrs of sleep. More sleep = more energy. edit: if you want to know, my PR in my freshman year for the 5k was 16:54