2024 Summer Recovery Weeks, Week 1, Day 2: Take it easy!

Week 1, Day 7, Summer Mileage Program

Welcome to the seventh day and first week of the 2024 Summer Mileage Program, which runs for ten weeks until mid-September.

European Cross Country Championships in Portugal

2025 Fall Cross Country & Racing Season, December 14, 2025, Week 15, Day 7, Sunday is a long run day!

How the Kinney National High School Cross-Country National Championships Began (1979), by Walt Murphy from This Day in Track & Field

Our goal is to build you into a strong cross-country runner.

We keep it relaxed this week and add, week by week, more challenges and more inspiration!

Sunday, July 14, 2024

Sunday is a good day; enjoy a moderate run of 60-65 minutes. As we begin the summer mileage, it is about building some miles.

Summer mileage will change your life.

Steve Prefontaine did not like to run over 15 miles.

He would run into the cemetery behind Hayward Field, in the rain, for an hour, and his training buddies would just hand on his shoulder as he went up and down the pathways of the old Oregon cemetery.

I ran at the Santa Clara Mission Cemetary, on the path around the inside of the cemetery, founded in the 1850s. I did 10-15 milers there as a guard at the Mission Cemetary in the evening. The gravel path was easy on my trail shoes (adidas Marathon trainers), and I enjoyed the quiet in the cemetery. Always ask permission before you run on private property.

Steve Prefontaine, post-workout with Coach Bill Dellinger, photo courtesy of The Eugene Register-Guard.

What do you want to do this summer? What do you want to achieve?

To learn about the late Steve Prefontaine (1951-1975), please read this fantastic book by Tom Jordan ( I have gone through six copies and read it 12 times): https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Americas-Greatest-Running-Prefontaine/dp/0875964575

To enjoy a wonderful photo gallery of Steve Prefontaine, courtesy of the Eugene-Register Guard, please go here: https://www.registerguard.com/picture-gallery/sports/2022/07/07/oregon-distance-runner-phenomenon-steve-prefontaine-olympican-eugene-hayward-field/7336370001/

Author

Larry Eder

Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys.

Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."

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