Harriers employ variety of workout strategies to fine-tune skills

Over the summer, most sports teams condition their players, focusing on the physical fitness aspect of athletics. After the intensive sessions of conditioning are over, athletes turn to fine-tuning their sports savvy and skills. But what do you do when your sport consists of exactly that: conditioning? Cross country runners condition themselves year-round, but it's a lot more complicated than most people would think.

Some popular cross country shirts have the witty saying, "My sport is your sport's punishment" emblazoned on the back. Though it is said in jest, the popular witticism is completely true. There is, however, a great deal more to cross country training than just running. Runners must participate in a great variety of workouts, and this proves to be just as true at Princeton as at any other school.

"Cross country is a huge time commitment," assistant coach Stephen Dolan said. "There is a year-round commitment to running here."

What do cross country runners do to train year-round? The season is broken up into several different training blocks, during which the team works on specific things.

The training begins early in the summer with the team initially working on building a large base of mileage through lots of long-distance runs.

"You want a good, sound aerobic base," Dolan said. "It makes you more resilient to injuries later on. Harder interval workouts come after the aerobic interval."

Easy runs are generally sixto seven-miles long, and the longer, more strenuous runs are 10 to 11 miles. Some of the Tigers will even push themselves in 16- to 17-mile runs once every couple of weeks.

"At the beginning of the season, part of the coach's job is to get a sense of someone's running history," Dolan said. "How long have they been running? How healthy are they? How much have they run in terms of miles per week? There are many differences between individuals, and they factor into an individual's training regimen."

Beyond the long-distance runs are intervals. Intervals are much more strenuous than long-distance runs, and they are run at various lengths at various paces. One typical variety of interval is repeats. Oftentimes, runners will repeatedly run a certain distance with a specified amount of rest time between each interval.

On Monday, the men's cross country team did a mile-repeat workout, running a mile at a fast pace, resting for three minutes and then running another mile, each at race pace or slightly faster. The Tigers repeated this process until they had completed four, five or six miles, depending on their individual workout.

Another workout strategy that Dolan employs is training at the anaerobic threshold.

Aerobic training means that oxygen is getting to the muscles at a fast-enough rate that lactic acid is not produced; anaerobic training means that oxygen isn't getting to the muscles quickly enough, and, as a result, lactic acid is produced and cramping ensues. The anaerobic threshold is the fine line right between aerobic and anaerobic training.

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The Tigers will run at this anaerobic threshold for roughly 20 minutes, take a rest break and then do a couple more runs in this fashion.

Cross country runners do more than just run, though. Cross-training is also a key to any successful training regimen; runners participate regularly in weight training in addition to circuit training (pushups, sit-ups, lunges, etc.), biking and running drills. The Princeton players will also do 'aquajogging' now and then as a method of cross-training.

Training for a season as a collegiate cross country runner, however, is vastly different from the training necessary for a high schooler in the same sport.

What are the differences between high school and college-training regimens?

"Well, first the amount of guys you can run with," freshman Brian Sharkey said. "There are like 35 guys on the team, and there are so many guys to push you in workouts. Secondly, I would say the pace and the distance run is much more intense — in high school I would do eight miles at 7:30 pace, here it's like 10-12 miles at 6:45-6:30 pace."

Princeton's facilities are also above and beyond the capabilities of any high school.

"The extras are great," Sharkey said. "The awesome running trails, facilities, trainers, ice baths, massages, etc."

One of the greatest differences between training for cross country and training for most other sports is the way in which success is judged. Whereas the win and loss columns are extremely important for sports like football, soccer and volleyball, the only truly important competition for the Tiger cross country team is the ultimate one against their Ancient Eight opponents.

"That's what we're working toward," Dolan said. "Our season's success will be judged on our performance at the end of the year: the Ivy League Championship."