CROSS-COUNTRY getting ready Dear Coach Ed, I have an 11 year old boy(not that athletically inclined but a fierce competitor) and a thirteen year old daughter who is an excellent lacrosse player. They both want to run middle school cross country in Merrimack N.H. this fall. With about 8 weeks to train, what daily regiment would you recommend them to do so that when they start they are in great shape and will feel good about their first cross country track experience? Best regards, Bob Dear Bob, The age group I work with is 7 to 14 so your youngsters fall right in to that category. Here is a plan I have had success with. Build a good mileage base. Runs should be done on trails or grass. If that is not possible the road is good, but stay off the track. Run at a conversation pace with no attention paid to speed. Slightly increase the weekly mileage during this time. Run 3 to 4 times a week. A day rest in between runs. 2 miles a day would be good, because we are working with an 8 week schedule, but if they cannot manage that start off with a mile a day and work up. That will work. Increase one of the runs 1 mile a week until your daughter is doing a 5 mile run. Your son, because of is age, I recommend a 3 mile long run. The base mileage your daughter will be running would be about 11 miles a week your son about 9. If they feel up to it and you monitor the situation it would be OK to go a couple more miles a week but I would still leave the longest runs at 5 and 3. Once that weekly mileage is established twice a week try this workout. Warm up by running easy for 1/2 mile Then run 40 seconds fast, followed by 40 seconds easy. Repeat that 6 times. Then finish the run. This can be done on two 2 mile days. So what we have is a mileage base that will take 3 to 4 weeks to build. Stay at that mileage for a week or two. Then two to three weeks of fun type speed work. Now these kids are ready. Bob, experiment with the 40 seconds fast 40 seconds easy. One day surprise them with 20 seconds fast. Have fun with this. Run with them or ride a bike while they are doing this stuff. Rewards are good too. Good luck and write back to tell me how they do. Good luck, Coach Ed Ed Poirier, "Coach Ed", recently was invited by the United States Olympic committee to attend a workshop and training seminar at the Olympic training center in California. Feel free to email the kid's editor at goodrow@infi.net with comments on this column.