Not racing for all of the last fall season got me thinking: do we race too often? Like most running-related questions, the answer is simple; but unfortunately, that's where it gets complicated.
I decided to break this down into two parts with two different answers. And really, I think these parts speak to the divide between the competitive sport and the participant activity. The first one (this one) is a scholastic edition, focusing on high school and collegiate cross country and track athletes. The next one will cover more of the road, trail, and ultra racing scene.
So. Do scholastic athletes race too often?
Yes. Absolutely unequivocally 100% in the affirmative.
Ok sure there are a select few elite NCAA teams who have the luxury of resting their top athletes for most of the season until conference champs and NCAAs (then I think the case could be made for racing more), but the vast majority of the rest do, in fact, race too often.
Think of the high school team which, during the fall, has a cross country meet every weekend from August until November. Then, come spring, they're racing on the track at least once a week, sometimes multiple times per week when we count in smaller dual or JV meets. And then, many of the distance runners do multiple events each meet! That's too much.
For collegiate distance athletes, the problem comes during indoor season. Generally, cross country and outdoor track meets are spaced out enough to prevent over-racing; however, the entirety of indoor season often precludes a successful outdoor campaign. Going from a long cross country season straight into a winter indoor season and then straight again into spring's outdoor? In college we used to joke that we were in season 9 months out of the year, which isn't really too far from the truth. That's too much.
Where it gets complicated, though, is that having a long racing season isn't the true problem. 30, 40, 50+ years ago, runners competed all summer in European track meets, often racing multiple times per week for months. Even Arthur Lydiard's athletes, who were famous for their style of training that involved a sharp peak, would race a long summer season.
The real problem, however, is the training intensity that accompanies modern scholastic racing seasons. If you want to have a successful racing season, then you need to already be in peak shape, which you can then sustain for 6-ish weeks by racing often and running easy between. High school and college runners, though, don't enter the season in peak shape; they use the season to get into fitness. And what happens all too often? They get in good shape real quick (because after you've established a solid base, anaerobic race fitness comes fast) but then can't sustain it -- they either get stale, burnt out, or injured.
The most efficient way to get yourself burnt out or injured is to run too hard too often. A dense racing schedule won't necessarily do that -- so long as you are fit and each race is punctuated with appropriate easy running -- but running hard workouts between races absolutely will. And that's exactly what scholastic runners do. It's not uncommon to see a weekly schedule that has two workouts, a race, and a long run. That's four hard days! You'll get fit fast, but that's not sustainable. Not for a season, and definitely not for nine months.
It's time we rethought how often we're running hard. Perhaps the dense racing schedule is fine (or, at least, not changeable), but we back off the workouts. Perhaps we need a more thorough base-building offseason -- more than just running, instead touching on all efforts and establishing supreme aerobic fitness. Perhaps we should stop taking indoor season too seriously.
It's tough for scholastic runners -- they love racing, competing, kicking ass; it's hard to ask them to back off the races. Instead, maybe it's time we adjusted the training to appropriately fit that training schedule.
I decided to break this down into two parts with two different answers. And really, I think these parts speak to the divide between the competitive sport and the participant activity. The first one (this one) is a scholastic edition, focusing on high school and collegiate cross country and track athletes. The next one will cover more of the road, trail, and ultra racing scene.
So. Do scholastic athletes race too often?
Yes. Absolutely unequivocally 100% in the affirmative.
Ok sure there are a select few elite NCAA teams who have the luxury of resting their top athletes for most of the season until conference champs and NCAAs (then I think the case could be made for racing more), but the vast majority of the rest do, in fact, race too often.
Think of the high school team which, during the fall, has a cross country meet every weekend from August until November. Then, come spring, they're racing on the track at least once a week, sometimes multiple times per week when we count in smaller dual or JV meets. And then, many of the distance runners do multiple events each meet! That's too much.
For collegiate distance athletes, the problem comes during indoor season. Generally, cross country and outdoor track meets are spaced out enough to prevent over-racing; however, the entirety of indoor season often precludes a successful outdoor campaign. Going from a long cross country season straight into a winter indoor season and then straight again into spring's outdoor? In college we used to joke that we were in season 9 months out of the year, which isn't really too far from the truth. That's too much.
Where it gets complicated, though, is that having a long racing season isn't the true problem. 30, 40, 50+ years ago, runners competed all summer in European track meets, often racing multiple times per week for months. Even Arthur Lydiard's athletes, who were famous for their style of training that involved a sharp peak, would race a long summer season.
The real problem, however, is the training intensity that accompanies modern scholastic racing seasons. If you want to have a successful racing season, then you need to already be in peak shape, which you can then sustain for 6-ish weeks by racing often and running easy between. High school and college runners, though, don't enter the season in peak shape; they use the season to get into fitness. And what happens all too often? They get in good shape real quick (because after you've established a solid base, anaerobic race fitness comes fast) but then can't sustain it -- they either get stale, burnt out, or injured.
The most efficient way to get yourself burnt out or injured is to run too hard too often. A dense racing schedule won't necessarily do that -- so long as you are fit and each race is punctuated with appropriate easy running -- but running hard workouts between races absolutely will. And that's exactly what scholastic runners do. It's not uncommon to see a weekly schedule that has two workouts, a race, and a long run. That's four hard days! You'll get fit fast, but that's not sustainable. Not for a season, and definitely not for nine months.
It's time we rethought how often we're running hard. Perhaps the dense racing schedule is fine (or, at least, not changeable), but we back off the workouts. Perhaps we need a more thorough base-building offseason -- more than just running, instead touching on all efforts and establishing supreme aerobic fitness. Perhaps we should stop taking indoor season too seriously.
It's tough for scholastic runners -- they love racing, competing, kicking ass; it's hard to ask them to back off the races. Instead, maybe it's time we adjusted the training to appropriately fit that training schedule.
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