Peace, love, fat week.

My cross country season officially ended last Thursday, and I have been enjoying the annual post season "fat week." Which basically means we finally get to eat whatever we want all week long instead of having to plan out healthy meals in preparation for practices and meets.
In my off season, I usually like to continue training. But even though its important to stay in shape, and to make sure you don't lose all the progress you made this season, its still a good idea to take at least a week off at the end of your season (especially when it comes to running) to give your body a break. You don't want to over do it and injure yourself. It always amuses me when I'm driving home from school and I see girls on my team who are still running miles and miles after school, trying to keep in shape and prepare for next year, when we aren't even a week into off season.
As far as what you should be doing in the off season, it depends a lot on whether or not you are planning on running track in the Spring. I play tennis in the Spring, so in my off season I take privet lesson at my local tennis club once or twice a week. But track runners should work on establishing and aerobic base. Why is this such a simple answer?
Everything stems from this aerobic base, especially when it comes to distance running, and it takes time to properly establish this. That's what makes the off season the perfect time. Almost the entire time your are running a cross country race, you are using this aerobic base.
As far as how long you should run.. However far you can run today and still be able to run again tomorrow. How fast? Go by feel. Sometimes that may mean fairly fast, other times, more slowly depending on how tired you are from your run the previous day.
Most people like to make some fancy schedule of workouts that are strenuous and aimed at optimizing every last second the time they have. But if you can maintain most of your effort and training from your previous season, you are doing pretty well. Don't over due it. Just run as much as you think is appropriate.


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