The New Jersey High School Cross Country Season: Is It Too Long?

With the 37^th running of the Shore Coaches Invitational at venerable Holmdel Park earlier this month, the New Jersey state cross country season officially switched into high gear. Teams and individuals are now in the Championship portion of the season, which for most runners will include competing for county, conference, sectional and state group championships. For the truly elite runners, their seasons will continue on towards the New Jersey State Meet of Champions (MOC), and perhaps regional and national competitions.  Having been a harrier “back in the day”, an ardent fan of the sport and having now watched my own children make their way through several New Jersey high school cross country seasons, I am of the firm belief that the New Jersey cross country (XC) season is much too long.

I mark the first of July as the official start of the season and the MOC as the end for the majority of the state’s harriers. While most programs don’t usually start racing until mid September, I believe virtually every team in the state (and perhaps the country) has started its push for November in early July (and by that I mean they have held organized practices and have begun interval based training), and in some cases sooner, depending on when their Spring season ended and how lofty their year-end goals are. That would mean the XC season is approximately 20 weeks long, and in some cases even longer. That’s almost FIVE months of training and racing with no real break. Match that to the indoor season, (which I define as December through February) which is roughly 13 weeks, and the outdoor season, (Mid March through early June), or approximately 12 weeks, and there is no comparison.

Over the last few years, I have noticed a trend in performances from the beginning of the season to the end that might in fact validate my contention that the season is too long. Being a numbers guy and statistics freak, I decided to do some digging into the data. What I found was not surprising to me, but will likely be somewhat surprising to many others.

In order to quantify my suspicions, I needed an “apples to apples” comparison of early season races to late season performances.  I thought a reasonable conclusion could be drawn by comparing the top 25 boys performances at the Shore Coaches Meet at Holmdel Park in early October with those same twenty five individual’s performances at either the State Group Championships or the State Meet of Champions, whichever was faster, for the past five years.

I’d bet that if I were to poll coaches, athletes and fans as to how much they thought runners would improve from the first of October to the third week in November,  I think the consensus would be at least  a 10-15 second improvement over that time frame, if not more. I know I would expect that level of improvement if I were coaching.

 Here are the results:

Based on the above, perhaps there is something here to think about. From talking to my own children during the season about their races, how they felt, what they did at practice etc., I always felt they were “hanging on” to some extent in November, and if they were, then so were a lot of other kids as well.  

If I were coaching, I would seriously contemplate giving my team from three to four days to maybe a full week off during the last week in August or the first week in September, especially if their cross country training started in late June/early July, and as a team we were expected to contend for championship season honors. It would be a no brainer for my team if we had NXN aspirations and as such planned to compete into December.  I have found with my own children that one week off at other times of the year (between XC and indoors for example) results in little or no loss of fitness, and they usually get back to normal training within two weeks and feel fully recharged. A one week Fall layoff would put teams back on track by the third week of September, with two full months of training and racing ahead of them, and they are now teams equipped with fresh legs, fully adjusted to the school day time schedule, and possessing a clearer and fresher mind ready to focus on the upcoming invitational and championship seasons. A forced layoff just as the school year is starting and a coach is trying to get a handle on his team would be really tough to do, and may take some guts the first time, but I really think it would help. Absent time off, I would certainly scale back my team’s summer training to make it less intense.  I am a firm believer in the cumulative effect of training, but I really feel  our teenagers need periodic mental and physical breaks to recharge their batteries, allow their bodies to rebound from the constant pounding, and simply put, let the work sink in.

If one argues that the season is not too long, then are New Jersey coaches doing it right? Should they be given credit for holding their team’s peak for a full seven weeks (Shore Coaches to MOC), or are they perhaps sacrificing their team’s crucial year-end performance by not building a better base during the early part of the season and/or burning them out with early season races that are less meaningful?  I never held my peak for anything close to seven weeks, and my kids haven’t either.  Certainly there are points to ponder, and this is merely one man’s opinion, but the numbers don’t lie.     

Kevin Byrne was the 1975 NJSIAA All-Groups XC Champion and the 1978 National Junior XC Champion, running 23:46 for 8k. His son Kevin Jr. competes for the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, his daughters Mary Kate and Eileen run for the Caseys of Red Bank Catholic and his daughter Bridget recently broke seven minutes for the mile at the Bennett Twilight Mile Series.

Tomorrow we will bring you an opposite point of view on the issue. Feel free to weigh in with your opinion. Visit the forum thread on this topic