Balancing skating and XC

[xofivebyfive]

I'll be starting my junior year of HS this fall, and I finally gathered enough courage to join our school's cross country team. I would have done it freshman year but I did soccer then, and last fall I was trying to cope with my chronic headache pain. I still am, but I don't want my illness to completely screw up my HS experience.

I come from a whole family of runners(my dad and one brother both were on the XC team at USNA) and when I did run for soccer, it was apparent to a couple of people that I had a natural ability, although I didn't really care. Obviously I'm not in very good running shape anymore; I'd say I can run a mile in about 10 or 11 minutes.

Oh sorry, anyway my point is; how am I going to balance my hardcore running with my hardcore skating? Now that I've made the decision to do XC, how am I supposed to skate for 2 hours like I'd planned, and run 6 miles every day?

I just need some advice on how to manage my practices for both. Should I cut my skating down to only an hour? If I'm going to be running 5 or 6 miles a day, 6 days a week, what do you think my skating schedule should be like? Maybe every other day instead of every day?

I guess I'm just frustrated because I want to live up to my ability in both sports, but am afraid that I'll be too exhausted to train in both like I want to.

[jskater49]

I don't know what your school's practice is like but my daughter wanted to join the track team and they had practice every morning and every afternoon and there was no way she could skate and do track.

I'm not saying it's impossible but I'm going to tell you the hard truth of our experience - if you want to skate and skate well, you are not going to be able to do much of anything else. High school is the age when a lot of skaters drop skating because they want to do other things.

This is not say you can't do both...but you if you skate less, your progress will be slower. If you run less, your progress is that sport will be slower. You have to make some choices.

Welcome to the real world. Sucks doesn't it? ;)

j

[icetrix]

Tough one.. I think you should follow your heart and choose one sport you can truly excel in (or really enjoy). Otherwise you'll probably find you are tired mentally and physically going from one training session to another and not doing your best. And that's on top of being a High School junior - the second most stressful year of schooling!
Give XC a go to see if you could be as good a runner as you are a skater, and if that's the case, make a choice. Consider your prospects in both sports and also what you want to do after graduation. And don't succumb to family pressure, it's your life!

[newskaker5]

I competed in a pretty high level in gymnastics all throughout HS and did track every year (I was a sprinter and did javelin). I worked out for my because I had gym 5x per week from 5:30-9 and saturday from 8-2 or so. HS track was from 2-5 so my mother would pick me up w/ food and drive me to the next practice. It was intense, but you can manage. Best advice is to get in shape this summer. Practice running at least 1-2 miles a day after skating for a few weeks, then increase to 3, etc until you can skate 2 hours and run 6 miles. I would imagine you will run more than that at practice though, because XC usually runs 6 miles in a little over an hour or so, so tack on drills, strength training, etc.

I found that track was a great way to increase endurance, only thing is coaches had to be flexible. And if you are competing with skating, you will have to discuss this w/ XC coaches if you will need to miss time, etc. I couldnt miss gym for meets more than 1x every other week or so. But if you can make it work, go for it. I think it can only help skating- increased leg strength, endurance, etc

Good luck :)

[xofivebyfive]

The practices are usually at 7:30 or 8 AM and last for about 2 hours. Not two hours of continuous running, but yeah with warmups and cooldowns its about 2 hours. We'll probably run at least 5 miles at each practice. I don't really know if it's divided up or not.

And the coaches are cool, and know my situation (medical stuff and that I skate) so as long as I ran on my own, they wouldn't have a problem with me missing a few practices. I mean, if I just didn't want to run and wanted to sleep and that's why I missed practice, then that's not an excuse. But since I would be doing a vigorous physical activity it would be okay. I'd just say "well it's good cross training" lol.

I definitely would place skating before XC if it came down to that. I guess I'll just see how much my body can handle.

Thanks for replying, although I wasn't sure what replies I was looking for. I think I just want to know if anyone else had the same kind of experience, so that helped.

[mikawendy]

In high school, I did ballet (25+ hrs a week) and track & field (3-4 practices per week and meets). I did a few distance events but for the most part, I did sprinting (500 m, 400 m) and field events (triple jump and long jump). I definitely had to prioritize one over the other, and when I was trying to do both at a high level, I think I probably could have done better at one or the other had I chosen. (In running, I was just on the bubble of making it to the higher tier within the team and bettering my times, but never quite broke through, and in the field events, I was never very stellar.) I had a bout with bronchitis that also set me back.

Once I quit track and field, I made faster progress in ballet. However, when I was doing track and ballet, I wasn't doing it just to be best at either. The track team at my hs was very close knit, and I made a lot of friends across grades and school interests that way.

[xofivebyfive]

I ran 13 minutes straight today! WOOHOO! And I hit a mile at about 9:45. (I was supposed to run for 25 minutes but I couldn't. So after 13 minutes I ran for 2 minutes and walked for 2 minutes, for a total for 30 minutes)I guess that's good for someone who has never done track or XC before. I'm about to leave for my group lesson, so we'll see how I do after having ran/walked 2.2 miles.

[PattyP]

I'll add my 2 cents as I run marathons and skate.

I can usually skate for an hour in the morning and run 6 to 8 miles in the afternoon, but I can only do that a couple of days a week and not 2 days in a row. I am quite a bit older too, 44 yrs old.

I can usually maintain 20 miles per week running while training for competition, but no more. I run a marathon in the fall, so my increased milage (up to 40 mpw) falls when I'm not competing. When competition season starts I cut the miles back to 20. One year I tried to do both and suffered an injury that is still bothering me 2 years later, so be careful.

If you can see that your 2 sports don't peak at the same time, I think you can do it.

I should tell you that I only skate around 4 hours per week consistantly, probably much less than you.

[newskaker5]

I just wanted to follow up and add that is you really want to be the best at both sports, it is very hard. When I did track, I wasnt too great at it and that wasnt my goal. Gymnastics took priority, I just wanted to participate in a HS sport, get a varsity jacket, etc since gymanstics was through a private club (our HS did not offer it) and was much more competitive than a HS sport (kind of like USFSA skating) but I didnt get recognition at school like you did in a HS sport.

I did find that sometimes a was more injury prone during the time I did both sports. And you have to watch that too - when it is a "team" sport the team depends on you (track is sort of a team sport because your points count towards the team total - I think XC works this way too). I had to suck up a dislocated shoulder and a really badly sprained ankle for a few days because I had to hide one sport injury from the other or the coaches would have flipped. If you are upfront with the team about priorities, and especially if it is on the JV levels, it should be fine.

Skating might work better to balance because you can essentially make your own schedule and it is one on one coaching, so they can go easier on you if they know you just had an intense practice or have a meet the next day. I would definatley tell you to at least try it. Worse case scenario is you end the season early or you cut down a few hours of skating for one to two months - whichever means more to you. But you only get a chance to participate in HS sports once, skating you can do forever (of course I know you want to fit in as much skating time/progress as you can before college).

Another thought too - depending on your future plans, XC is an NCAA sport, skating isnt. If you do improve pretty rapidly in XC you can always compete in NCAA if you want - it might be DIII rather than DI, but NCAA is an awesome experience. So, if that is a goal too, you might want to prioritize XC for a few months to see if it is something you could realisticly attain (see how the season goes, talk to your coach, your a junior so you can call college coaches, make recuiting videos - I think you can do this junior year I forget now haha).

Anyway, good luck- Im sure you will do great at whatever you choose!

[xofivebyfive]

Thanks for the support and advice!

[cecealias]

this is sort of a side topic, but i really wish more schools would allow PE credit or even varsity sport status for figure skating given how much time and committment a lot of students have to give to it.

[xofivebyfive]

this is sort of a side topic, but i really wish more schools would allow PE credit or even varsity sport status for figure skating given how much time and committment a lot of students have to give to it.
I KNOW! Seriously..

[Sessy]

I ran 13 minutes straight today! WOOHOO! And I hit a mile at about 9:45. (I was supposed to run for 25 minutes but I couldn't. So after 13 minutes I ran for 2 minutes and walked for 2 minutes, for a total for 30 minutes)I guess that's good for someone who has never done track or XC before. I'm about to leave for my group lesson, so we'll see how I do after having ran/walked 2.2 miles.

After 12 minutes, the muscles start to sour up with waste products. So it's very logical you only could do it for about 13 minutes straight.

[xofivebyfive]

Just remembered that I started the stop watch 2 minutes late, so really my mile time was about 12:30 and I ran for 15 minutes, but today I did it right and got to the mile at 9:45 and made it about 15 minutes again. But I felt a lot less stomach pain this time, I just wanted to take a break. :roll: Ha, I have no will power. But after that I walked for a minute and ran for 2 minutes the whole way and cut my total time down by 6 minutes.

Oh and the skating was okay on Tuesday night, except after a while every time I put weight on my right leg, there was so much pain on like.. the outside of my thigh? Oh right where the hip bone is. haha.