How to Assign Training Plans to a Full XC Roster

You might have 35 athletes on your roster. The fastest can run a 5K in under 17 minutes, and the slowest is a few weeks into running at all. One schedule for everyone shortchanges half the team, and no coach with a full teaching load is writing 35 separate schedules.

The fix is to sort your athletes into a few groups, give each group a plan built for its level, and adjust individuals as needed. Set it up once and it stops eating your week.

1. Sort athletes into groups

Start with what you already know. Recent race times and how each kid handled the summer will tell you more than a form will. A simple split for a high school team:

• Front group: Your varsity runners, ready for the biggest training load on the team.
• Middle group: Solid runners who are still building.
• Development group: Freshmen and new runners, where the priority is easy aerobic running and staying healthy.

Three groups is enough for most programs. If you also have athletes returning from injury, treat them as a temporary fourth group and move them into a regular group once they're cleared and set back to active.

2. Pick a representative athlete for each group

A plan needs four inputs: age, current easy pace, heart rate at that pace, and the hours an athlete can train each week. For a group, enter values that represent the group rather than any one athlete.

Choose a typical runner from the middle of each group and use their numbers. If your development group is mostly freshmen, use a typical freshman's numbers, not your best freshman's. A plan pitched slightly conservative is safer than one pitched too hot.

3. Assign the plan to the group

In StartLane, open the Training Plans page from your team hub. Enter the age, easy pace, heart rate, and weekly hours, then select the athletes the plan is for. Only active athletes appear in the list, so anyone marked injured or inactive on your roster is left out until you change their status.

When you assign, StartLane builds an 8-week Norwegian Method plan and attaches it to everyone you selected. Every workout has a heart rate target and a pace range.

Everyone you select in one pass gets a plan built from the same inputs, so run the assignment once per group. The groups differ in their pace ranges, heart rate targets, and weekly hours, and the session mix comes from the Norwegian Method plan itself. If an athlete moves to a different group later, select them and assign a new plan. That replaces the old one.

4. Keep the roster current

The plans are only as good as your roster. Before you assign anything, check that every athlete who joined with your team code shows up, and that squads and levels are filled in. That lets you filter the roster by squad, and the Training Plans page shows how many athletes have plans and how many still need one.

5. Adjust individuals without rebuilding

Group plans cover most of the job. The rest is the athlete with a sore knee, a big exam on Thursday, or a family trip that wipes out a week.

Rather than rewriting a plan, you override a single workout for a single athlete. Open the athlete's page, pick the workout, choose an override type and a reason, and add a short note. Your reason tells the athlete the change is deliberate, and you keep a record of what you adjusted and why.

A sample setup for a 30-athlete team

| Group | Athletes | What you enter | |-------|----------|----------------| | Front | 8 | Pace and heart rate from a typical varsity runner, more weekly hours | | Middle | 12 | Pace and heart rate from a mid-pack runner, moderate weekly hours | | Development | 10 | Pace and heart rate from a typical newer runner, fewer weekly hours |

That is three assignments instead of thirty.

What to check after assigning

In the first two weeks, look at check-in data for anyone whose readiness or sleep is dropping. Ask athletes whether easy runs feel easy at the prescribed heart rate. If they don't, the inputs for that group are probably off, so fix them and assign again.

Getting started

Create your team in StartLane, share your invite code, and have your athletes join. Once they show up on your roster, you can sort them into groups and assign the first plans.

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