The Gift of Parker Valby

The short version. Parker Valby won the 2023 NCAA cross country title on about three runs and 30 miles a week, with six to eight hard cross-training sessions on the arc trainer and in the pool filling the rest. Injuries pushed her there. Her result is the best case study we have that a runner can keep most of the aerobic work off the legs and still race at the front, which is what we have been telling injured and injury-prone runners for twenty years.

Of the 254 athletes who competed in the 2023 NCAA Division I Women’s Cross Country Championship, the one who did the least running in preparation for the event (averaging just three runs per week for a total of about 30 miles) was University of Florida Junior Parker Valby. But the best runner of the bunch, who cruised to a 10-second victory over the grassy 6-kilometer course in Charlottesville, Virginia, was . . . also Parker Valby. That’s right: The best female college runner in America runs just three times per week on average.

This doesn’t mean Valby only exercises three times per week. In addition to her running, the Tampa native does a lot of cross-training—six to eight sessions per week on the arc trainer and in the pool. And what her training regimen may lack in overall quantity it makes up for in quality. “It’s not like I’m jogging on those days [that I’m running] or that I’m cross training easily,” she said in an interview for Citius. “I think people underestimate what I’m doing. When I cross-train, there are puddles of sweat on the floor . . . Workout days are quality miles. That’s where all the miles come in–workout days.”

If some running fans were shocked by revelations of how little running Valby does, I was not. I’ve been preaching the value of cross-training to runners since 2004, when I released my second book, Runner’s World Guide to Cross-Training, which was inspired by my own encounters with cross-training. Decades before a spate of injuries forced Parker Valby to adopt a multimodal approach to training for running events, a spate of injuries (complemented by an interest in triathlon) caused me to do the same. My hope in embracing this approach was that the combination a manageable amount of running and a whole lot of vigorous swimming, cycling and elliptical training would enable me to perform at the same level as a competitive runner as I would have done had my body permitted me to do as much running as I wanted to do. But a hope is not a belief, and I didn’t become a true believer in cross-training until  had experiential proof that it worked.

The first such experience that comes to mind is also the last—Ironman Santa Rosa in 2019. Given the nature of this event, I would have cross-trained for it regardless of my injury status, but it so happened that a pesky groin injury severely limited my run training. With less than 12 weeks remaining before race day, I was doing all of my running on a treadmill, with the belt set at a steep incline and at a very slow speed, taking just enough stress off the affected tendon to keep it from going sproing. Not until five weeks until race day was I able to transition to doing running outside covering a total of 25 miles in a span of seven days, or one mile less than the distance of the run portion of the triathlon I was preparing for. And just eighteen days before the event, I was finally healthy enough to attempt my first speed workout—one of only three I managed to squeeze in. Despite these restrictions, I split 3:17:38 for the marathon portion of Ironman Santa Rosa, matching the goal I’d set when I signed up for the race eleven months earlier, having no idea how little running I’d be able to do.

Now, I will be the first to admit that winning the NCAA Cross Country Championship is a far more impressive achievement than running a 3:17 marathon in an Ironman. That’s why I consider Parker Valby a gift. For more than 20 years I’ve been using myself as an example when delivering pep talks to injured or injury-prone runners I coach. Understanding their skepticism concerning the effectiveness of cross-training, I tell them my Ironman Santa Rosa story, or one of many other stories I have about things I was able to achieve as a runner thanks to cross-training. But now I can retire these personal anecdotes and point to Park Valby instead. She proved the possibility of something that was not known to be possible before. Sure, there’s some science showing that cross-training  benefits runners, but a case study like Valby’s is far more effective in getting runners to believe that cross-training is worth their while.

Perhaps I’ll get a chance to do a second edition of Runner’s World Guide to Cross-Training (which flopped, by the way). The original contained what I called a “Cross-Training Hall of Fame”—vignettes of notable runners who relied on cross-training to achieve great things. There were some good ones in there (Alan Webb, Joan Benoit Samuelson), but Parker Valby tops them all. No runner of the modern are has achieved more with less actual running, and as a coach I intend to get a lot of mileage out of it, so to speak.

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Speaking of books and injuries, check out my latest book, coauthored with Ryan Whited: Pain & Performance: The Revolutionary New Way to Use Training As Treatment for Pain and Injury.

Frequently asked questions

How does Parker Valby train?
At the time of this post, three runs a week averaging about 30 miles in total, nearly all of it quality, plus six to eight cross-training sessions a week on the arc trainer and in the pool, done hard. The easy aerobic volume that most runners get from jogging, she gets without impact.

Why does Parker Valby cross-train instead of running more?
Injuries. A run of them forced her onto the arc trainer and into the pool, and the approach worked well enough that it became her method rather than a stopgap. That is the same path many of our athletes take after a stress fracture or a tendon that will not settle.

What is an arc trainer?
A gym machine like an elliptical, with the pedals moving in an arc instead of a flat oval, which keeps the hips and knees in a range closer to running. It carries no impact, so it is the cross-training machine we point injured runners to first, with the pool and the bike close behind.

Can cross-training replace running?
Not all of it. Running fitness needs some running, which is why she still does three hard runs a week. But most of the aerobic work can come from elsewhere, and the research on injured runners backs that up. Our rule for athletes coming back from injury is to keep the key runs and move the easy volume to a bike, pool or elliptical.

How much of my training can be cross-training?
As a working rule, three runs a week is the floor if you want to race well, and everything above that can be nonimpact if your body prefers it. The sessions still follow the 80/20 intensity balance, about 80 percent easy and 20 percent moderate or hard, whatever the machine.

Do 80/20 plans allow cross-training?
Yes. Every 80/20 run plan marks the sessions that can be swapped for a nonimpact workout at the same intensity, and the triathlon plans build the swim and bike volume in by design. Team 80/20 includes all of them.