return from injury

Question
How are you?  I am a girls H.S cross country coach in Arizona for one of the top 5 teams in the state.  We have been running this year thus far without our number one runner who coincidentally is one of the top runners in the state.  She injured herself mid-september but had an amazing summer of base building.  She is a tiny senior who now the doctors say has really started to grow thus she has weak bones....fast foward to her injury which is a fracture to her metarsal.  She has been off for 6 weeks and in a boot and now is allowed to begin training.  She has been doing quite a bit of training in the pool and on the bike.  The pool workouts have been done using a heart rate monitor to watch intensity levels I desire.  On hard days (4) she mimicks the workouts I do with my other girls but rather than distance i use time ex: 4 x 1 mile repeats for my healthy varsity girls would mean for her 5-6 x 6 minutes @ 85 to 92% (threshold pace).  The quality workouts vary in time and intensity with the opposite days being a long bike ride and a swimming laps.  Now the magical question sir:  She has been doing great, but now is ready to return to the ground, we have till november 3rd which is our state meet.  How shall I approach her return?  Do I go long an easy, do i do quality work on the track or park keeping it short and fast, do i do tempo runs or fartleks and again keep the time running minimum?  Maybe a little of everything but i don't want to pund her before the big race.  Like I said earlier she has had a great june, july, august, mid-september and pool trained immediatley following the injury.  Your suggestions and help are greatly appreciated.

sincere gratitude
Doug Christofis
Desert Vista Girls Cross Country

Answer
Doug,

Sounds like a great team and seems like you do well coaching. This runner obviously has worked out consistently and has kept the main part in tact...the cardiovascular system. After 6 weeks, she may experience a slight adjustment period getting to running again, and even some soreness in the muscles. Time is sort of short, but ideally I would take a few days to ease into running....maybe BOTH in pool and  30 minutes easy running per day for a few days. Doing strides afterwards for some turnover. Ideally then a few uptempo runs with some pickups within it...possibly 10 X 90 seconds building with a rest between...maybe 90 seconds. Two longer type runs easy. Otherwise get in with the others and do the intervals. She sould have stayed in overall excellent shape and her biggest problem may be psychological...believing she isn't ready for the big one since she didn't run for 6 weeks. If this is the case, have her do a confidence workout. One we did in college a few weeks before nationals was this: After a 5 mi tempo to a huge hill, then running repeats till vomiting with JIM SPIVEY, and after our usual 5 mile hily TEMPO cooldown our coach would drop this on us: A MAINTENENCE MILE. We would all have to write down what we thought we could run a mile in, right then, right there , on a limestone trail, after all that workout. I remember once saying I could do 4:40. I ran 4:27 This was the biggest confidence builder I could have had. I remember nationals came, I got tripped, trampled and severely spiked at the start and with two miles to go was no where in the race. I remebered the maintenance mile and told myself to roll it out. I closed in 9:16 and we won by 2 points as a team.
As far as the pool goes, I had a teammate run 29:50 then get injured with a broken foot. He was in the pool for a month, started running and 1 week later ran a PR of 29:36
I think most of the challenge will be mental. Hope this helps. GOOD LUCK