Training Young Distance Runners

As the best-selling guide in the sport, Training Young Distance Runners has helped countless runners achieve their best times, avoid injuries, and improve their performance progressively from season to season. Updated, expanded, and enhanced, this new edition further solidifies its standing as a must-have for athletes and coaches in cross country, track and field, and road racing.

Running experts Larry Greene and Russ Pate combine the latest research with training, development, and conditioning plans from the most successful high school and college programs in the world. You’ll learn to optimize performance through tempo running, interval training, and technique work to improve form. You’ll gain a competitive advantage with expert advice and strategies for event-specific training, avoiding injuries, and overcoming setbacks.

With guidelines for designing customized daily, weekly, and seasonal programs—as well as coverage of hot topics including nutritional supplements, barefoot running and minimalist shoes, and gearing training to the specific needs of girls and boys—Training Young Distance Runners is the most complete and current training guide for the sport. Essential reading for coaches, parents, and young runners, this book has everything you need to get and stay ahead of the pack.

Larry Greene knows all about the challenges facing young distance runners. He won state championships in high school cross country and track, becoming a Florida state champion in cross country and the 2-mile run and finishing 10th in the national Junior Olympic Cross Country Meet as a senior. Greene’s high school accomplishments earned him a scholarship to Florida State University, where he set the school record for the indoor 3,000-meter run and qualified for the NCAA championship meet three times. After college, Greene excelled as a distance runner. In 1984, he ran the fastest half marathon in the world (1:01:27) and finished 4th in the 10,000-meter run at the U.S. Track and Field Championships. In 1987, he finished 3rd in the half marathon at the U.S. Olympic Festival.

Greene is a scientific and medical writer in South Florida. He received an MS in movement science from Florida State University and a PhD in exercise science from the University of South Carolina. He has coached distance runners at the youth, university, and professional levels. He has also served as the director of the Carolina Marathon Youth Cross Country Run. His leisure interests include running, cycling, and cross-country skiing.

Russ Pate has been an exercise science instructor and researcher since 1972. He serves as a professor in the department of exercise science at the University of South Carolina, where his research is focused on the relationship between physical activity and health in children and adolescents. Pate is a lifelong distance runner. He has a personal best time of 2:15:20 in the marathon and competed in three U.S. Olympic Trials Marathons.

Pate has served as president of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity, and the National Physical Activity Plan Alliance. He has been recognized with awards by the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance; the American College of Sports Medicine; the National Fitness Leaders Association; and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. He has also directed two U.S. Olympic Trials Women’s Marathons.

Pate received a PhD in exercise physiology from the University of Oregon in 1974. In his free time, he enjoys running, reading, theater, traveling, and spending time with his family.