The First Two Weeks of Cross Country Season: What I Watch For As a Coach

Practice is starting or has already started for most Indiana high school teams, and this is one of the most important stretches of the entire season, even though almost nobody treats it that way. The first two weeks aren't about racing fitness. They're about whether your body can absorb the jump from summer training to a full team schedule without breaking down in week three.

I've coached at the NCAA Division I level and worked with dozens of high school athletes here in Indiana, and the pattern is almost always the same. Runners who had a strong, structured summer show up to the first week of practice and feel great, because they're finally running with teammates again and the energy is contagious. Then the coach's system stacks two-a-days, hill work, and a scrimmage into the same week, and by day ten, that same runner is dealing with shin pain, a nagging hip, or just flat, heavy legs that won't respond.

Here's what I'm actually watching for with my own athletes right now:

How the body responds to the jump in frequency, not just mileage. Going from running four or five days a week over the summer to six or seven days with a team is a bigger jump than most people realize, even if the pace and distance per run barely change.

Whether soreness resolves within 48 hours or lingers. Normal early-season soreness fades. Soreness that's still there three days later, especially if it's isolated to one spot, is your body asking for a lighter week before it turns into something that costs you a month.

Sleep and appetite. This sounds unrelated to running, but it's one of the clearest early signs of an athlete who's absorbing the new training load versus one who's starting to break down under it.

If you're a parent reading this, the best thing you can do right now isn't asking about splits. It's asking how your athlete's legs feel in the morning, two days after a hard practice. That answer tells you more than any workout time will.

For athletes who want a plan built specifically around their event, whether that's the 800m or the 5K, and season-long load management instead of a generic team template, that's exactly what our high school coaching program is built for. We also use lactate threshold testing with our athletes early in the season to build training zones off real data instead of guesswork.

If your athlete had a strong summer and you want to make sure the next six weeks build on that instead of undoing it, fill out our athlete questionnaire and let's talk about where they're starting from. You can also check our Indiana running and track calendar for meet dates this fall, and reach out anytime through our contact page with questions.

The runners who have the best seasons aren't the ones who came in the fittest in week one. They're the ones who were still healthy in week six.

Coach Justin