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As her Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference counterparts raved about their training regimen, Hampden Academy cross country coach Danielle Johnson was of a completely different train of thought.

At a season-opening meet in Bangor on Friday, Johnson heard from her fellow coaches about the different workouts they’d done all offseason. The Broncos’ head coach of nine seasons couldn’t relate.

“We haven’t even done any workouts yet,” Johnson said. “We’ll do our first one this week, but right now, we’re focused on base running. I want to prevent injuries, and I feel like if you focus on just workouts, kids are just going to get injured.”

For a Hampden girls team that swept the top six places at the Bangor meet, Johnson’s strategy clearly worked for this stage of the season. In a cross country scene where there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to success, Johnson’s approach is merely one of many that Maine’s best teams use to plot out success.

If there’s a standard-bearer in Maine high school cross country, it might be Orono, which has won 10 of the past 12 Class C girls state titles and four of the past nine boys crowns. One of longtime coach Lin White’s strategies is that he doesn’t spend too much time worrying about race day.

“As much as I can limit meets, I do, because I think it’s the training that actually inspires them to get the results,” White said. “I think, also, smaller schools have a statistical average that you always have to play with. There’s only so many runner types in a population, so you’ve got to hope to get that smaller percent of runner types.”

Yarmouth should be one of the top teams in boys cross country this fall. Class B state champions a year ago, the Clippers have five of their top seven runners from that squad — and their aspirations go beyond a repeat title. They’re planning to time their taper (lowering intensity and number of miles) to peak for the New England championships.

“Our expectations are bigger (this year) than they’ve ever been before,” said Yarmouth junior Eli Chalmers. “We’re going to taper for New Englands this year instead of states; we’re trying to go beyond states, because we’re the clear favorites for that.”

In Class C, one might look to the Houlton/Greater Houlton Christian Academy boys. Houlton/GHCA claimed its first boys state championship last season, and the Shiretowners are a smart bet to do so again because they return five of the six runners who competed in that race.

A week before the state meet, Houlton/GHCA coach Chris Rines decided to test something at the North regional. Instead of having his team go all-out in that race, Rines had the Shires run at a pace slower than usual for 2 miles before “letting them have at it” for the third mile.

“I wanted them to feel the difference between how they had been racing and what it’s like to come in with a more strategic plan,” Rines said. “A couple of my coaching counterparts were concerned (for us) because it wasn’t looking good when they came through at a mile and a half, but we had a plan, and it was kind of like a glorified practice that got us ready.”

Race preparation is one thing, but competing for championships requires quality runners who can keep pace with one another in a pack. That’s an attribute for the Hampden girls, although they sometimes have to guard against being too competitive with each other.

“We actually (had a meeting Tuesday) to kind of address that, kind of to say, ‘Hey, it’s OK if you have a bad race or if a teammate beats you,’” Johnson said. “That’s something we’re going to work on with the team because, as much as they want their teammates to do their best, if they’re our third runner, they want to be our third runner.”

Portland, the defending Class A girls champion, executed pack running exactly how coach Frank Myatt wanted in a meet last Friday at Scarborough. After teammates Nora Schmidt and Kate Morrison took the top two spots, Eloise Roush, Lucy Harkness, Maren Krovel and Eleanor Kmack swept the next four places.

“I think (it stems from training) a lot,” Krovel said. “We’re all really close, and we kind of knew we were going to be close (in our times). I said I was going to stick onto (Eleanor), and she said she was going to stick onto (Eloise and Lucy), and we were going to all push each other to the finish.”

In a few weeks, Johnson said, Hampden’s approach will change. Once October rolls around, the Broncos begin doing what she calls the “Michigan” workout, which features four 1-mile runs at tempo (sometimes described as 25 to 30 seconds slower than race pace), followed by runs of 1,600, 1,200, 800 and 400 meters. It provides a push that Johnson says her runners feel like they need as championship season nears.

Ultimately, White and Portland coach Frank Myatt said, winning comes down to the runners and their abilities. Combine talented athletes, strategy and depth with a little luck, Myatt said, and the result is a formula that’s pretty tough to beat on race day.

“We could have a 40-girl team, but if we don’t have that top-end talent, we’re not going to be able to compete for a championship,” Myatt said. “I think it’s just about having the right group of kids at the right time, and that’s where we are right now.”