We have all seen the pictures and posters – "train insane or remain the same", "today train harder than you did yesterday". There are many more. It gives the impression that to get better at running you must train harder and longer than everybody else. Some of my athletes will scoff at the notion I am about to propose. That is - there are days that you need to run easy or not at all. Those that continually try to train harder, and never give themselves time to recover, are insecure with their training. You can improve more, by doing less. It is the recovery days when you improve as it is then that the body recovers and regenerates. Beginner recovery runs can start at a complete day off. For elite runners it might be two longer runs each day for 3 or 4 days. Such runs might be easy for them but will be longer and faster than the average runner could ever achieve. As key training days become more intense, the number of days recovering are also increased. It is a gradual process specific to each athlete and varies with age, experience and gender. There is no overriding principle. A good poster message should therefore be "there is no such thing as over training… only under resting". The cross country season is just about to end. If you didn’t quite achieve what you wanted, there is only one solution. Start working on all those weaknesses and prepare for next year’s cross-country season. It will come around again faster than you think.