100mpw in high school

Greenliner,

I'd be interested in seeing a sample week from your son's summer training in highschool. Were they doing pretty much continuous distance runs? How did they split up the miles. By the way, congrats on putting your kids through a couple of great liberal arts schools. Many people don't realize the value such an experience can offer, even though you're only running d3.

um... runningat2004? does your last name start with a 'w' ?

If so, does it end with a 'ebb' ?

thanks.

If you can handle the 100 miles that's great, however most likely you'll not improve much once you get in college. Most college coaches don't have their athletes run 100miles anyway...I'd say max mileage should be in the 50's for a high schooler with more faster quality runs than long and slow ones. This helps sustain from injury, and still be competitive.

nope wrote:

They don't give awards to the dumbasses who rack up huge miles in practice--it's the guys who train consistantly and intelligently who end up on the awards stand.

no, but they DO give awards to the dumbasses who run 4:01... magness, you NEED to get in a good 3200 this season-- you're an 8:45 waiting to happen...

If I were coaching high school, which I want to do some day, I would have my distance guys progress like this (IN GENERAL... also... these are AVERAGES... so max may be higher...)

Frosh year cross: ~30

Frosh year winter AND spring: ~35

Summer before Soph year: 40

Cross Soph year: ~40

Winter Soph AND spring Soph year: ~45

Summer before Junior year: ~50

Cross Junior year: ~50

Winter Junior year: ~60

Spring Junior year: ~55

Summer before Senior year: 70

Cross Senior year: ~70

Winter Senior year: ~75

Spring Senior year: ~65

I would also pretty much have them do just base, strides and the occasional road race in the summer, exclusively threshold repeats, tempos, fartleks, hills during the fall and winter, and real speed track workouts only in the spring of their junior and senior years. HOWEVER, throughout ALL winters and springs (including frosh and soph year) I would have them do quite a bit of plyos, light lifting, drills and strides.

This program would serve several purposes. It would develop an UNBELIEVABLE cardiovasuclar system. It would leave the kids feeling fresh but strong. At age 16-17 they would be mature enough to handle real speed sessions and have 2 years of "base" behind them. By the time they were seniors they would be well prepared for college running and, if the coach is a good one, be set up for another similar 4 or 5 year peak. They would not fry themselves on too much anaerobic work, nor burn themselves out with too much mileage (both physiologically and mentally).

If anyone ever wants to discuss training or would like to try out my program, let me know!

M

i think 100mpw in high school is insane! i'm 16 and have run 15:13 for 5000m,which is alright, nothing too special compared to some of the hs kids in usa. but i've never even run 100km in a week let alone 100 miles. (100km = 60 miles in case you cant figure it out). and before i ran 15:13 my biggest ever week had been about 80km (50 miles). i think the key isnt how much mileage you do, its about the quality. running 100mpw means shit all if they are all long/easy runs. to run fast times you have to do quality sessions not just go for huge long runs or do easy runs twice a day all the time.

Jack a round,

Why would improvement stop? If you've built up to that volume you are still developing the aerobic system and adding background. I ran the occasional off season 90+ week in high school, but most of my senior year training weeks were in the 70s and less in track season. More than not too much quality w/o appropriate volume will lead to injury at one point or another.

Aussie,

Look across the Tasman Sea for wisdom about volume and quality.

http://www.runnersworld.com/home/0,1300,1-0-0-1963,00.html

Long runs and mileage help develop basic speed and in conjunction with lactate threshold work lay the foundation for improvement at all distances. Read up on it.

--trackhead

Peter Snell

by Rich Englehart

At the Rome Olympics in 1960, the 800 meters was won by an unknown New Zealander named Peter Snell, whose coach Arthur Lydiard was known for revolutionizing middle distance training

At the Rome Olympics in 1960, the 800 meters was won by an unknown New Zealander named Peter Snell. In 1962, he won the half-mile and the mile at the British Empire Games and set world records at 800 meters/880 yards (1:44.3/1:45.7), and one mile (3:54.4 on a 385 yard grass track). And in 1964 he broke the world record for 1,000 meters (2:16.7) and the mile again (3:54.1). His coach was Arthur Lydiard, whose training methods took even middle distance runners away from the track for long, slow runs, and were considered revolutionary at the time. After retiring in 1965, Snell eventually enrolled at the University of California/Davis, where he earned a BS in exercise physiology, and then a Ph.D. from Washington State University. As proud of his academic career as of his athletics, he is a faculty member in the medical school at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he researches human performance. He has written a book "Use It or Lose It", a practical guide for people who want to get or remain fit as they get older.

Runner's World Daily: What are distance runners in western countries doing today that is better than what they did in your prime?

Peter Snell: Nothing at all! The times certainly suggest that they aren't. They have the best university scholarships, the best facilities and the best exercise physiologists in the world. And the times are really no better than what we were doing. My 800 meter time would have placed second at Edmonton in the World Championships, and that was not a tactical race. It may have been that I had wonderful talent, but I don't think so. I think I had talent, but did the right training.

RWD: It seems that many, if not most, of those physiologists preach low volume, high intensity work, and think that Lydiard's methods are outdated.

PS: Even in New Zealand the feeling is that his ideas are passe. I can't believe it! I still hold the record there for 800 meters. It's forty years old. You'd think after forty years they might have figured out that they aren't doing something right. Most physiologists are trained on the idea of specificity, and simply can't understand that slow training makes you faster.

RWD: How?

PS: When you run at a moderate pace, your slow twitch muscle fibers are the first ones recruited. But if you run far enough, they become glycogen depleted and can no longer contract, so eventually the fast twitch fibers are recruited. As a sidebar, I was recently at a conference in Las Vegas sponsored by USATF to discuss reasons and suggest solutions for the lack of medals won by U.S. distance runners at Sydney and Edmonton. Because U.S. runners are often buried in the last lap, it was decided that the problem was a lack of speed. Ralph Mann (Olympic silver medalist in the 400 meter hurdles at the 1972 Olympics), who's now a biomechanics expert, was brought in to teach sprint technique. In my opinion, this will not work. The problem isn't lack of speed. They're running out of gas. Everyone else cruises past them because they've got superior endurance. After my presentation, John Chaplin (head coach at Sydney) said, "you're only rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."

RWD: Do you think the U.S. high school and collegiate system, with its emphasis on frequent racing and little time for coaches to get runners ready, inhibits long-term development?

PS: I'm surprised that Alan Webb went to college. I wouldn't have gone. Alan's very capable of supporting himself with his running. He won't be able to do a decent job on a degree if he's training hard. There is plenty of time to do a degree later, when the studies can have his full attention. I did mine at 34 years old. If his running career doesn't work out due to injury or something else, he can still go to college. The trouble with school is that you have an obligation to show up and compete excessively. That's not always in your best long-term interest.

RWD: So professionalism could work for a runner at Alan Webb's level. What about runners who don't have the same high profile?

PS: When John MacKenzie was chair of middle distance running for USATF, he put on a camp in Maine for "emerging elite" middle distance runners, teaching kids who had graduated recently how to survive without a shoe contract. I asked them, "what can we do to help your running career?" and they replied, "give me a ticket to Europe." I could never get it! Somehow, the perception is that they might get lucky and win some money. What about the idea of staying back and training until you're so good that the promoters are clamoring for you?

You can run 100 miles a week on an hour and three quarters a day. There's no reason you can't do that and hold a job. Once, talking to Paul McMullen, I mentioned that he'd been in Hawaii racing for money while we were having a camp in San Diego discussing strategies for getting better. Runners are tempted to do money races when some other activity might be more to their long-term interest.

trackhead wrote:

Long runs and mileage help develop basic speed and in conjunction with lactate threshold work lay the foundation for improvement at all distances.

Trackhead,

Define your term "basic speed". I'm not sure if I'm thinking the same way you're thinking or not. To me, basic speed is the maximum speed a person can attain over a short distance, typically less than 400m. Improvement in basic speed is due mostly to neuromuscular adaptations resulting from fast running, 50m to 150m repetitions. I don't see how LSD runs and high mileage will improve basic speed. Not saying you are wrong, just not sure if you are referring to "basic speed" as a specific training term or just mean speed in general.

IF A 17-18 YR OLD CANT RUN 6 AM AND 10 PM HE AINT WORTH CRAPKEY RICE SAKES.

CarolinaRunner wrote:

trackhead wrote:

Long runs and mileage help develop basic speed and in conjunction with lactate threshold work lay the foundation for improvement at all distances.

Trackhead,

Define your term "basic speed". I'm not sure if I'm thinking the same way you're thinking or not. To me, basic speed is the maximum speed a person can attain over a short distance, typically less than 400m. Improvement in basic speed is due mostly to neuromuscular adaptations resulting from fast running, 50m to 150m repetitions. I don't see how LSD runs and high mileage will improve basic speed. Not saying you are wrong, just not sure if you are referring to "basic speed" as a specific training term or just mean speed in general.

Carolina Runner,

I am refering to basic speed, that is 400m and below. IN the above interview with Snell (in addition to his athletic accolades he is also a doctor of exercise phys.), he explains how long distance running as a part of a program that also works on improving basic speed will also improve it.

PS:Most physiologists are trained on the idea of specificity, and simply can't understand that slow training makes you faster.

RWD: How?

PS: When you run at a moderate pace, your slow twitch muscle fibers are the first ones recruited. But if you run far enough, they become glycogen depleted and can no longer contract, so eventually the fast twitch fibers are recruited.

Additionally, but not mentioned in this article, is the fact that the long distance running also trains the fast-twitch fibers to have a higher endurance capacity tahn normal, thus also improving basic speed.

Here is a quote from Tony Benson's site regarding the same topic:

"Endurance running also trains the fast twitch fibres so they have greater aerobic capacity the normal. The counter proposition that long running slows an athlete down is only valid if the athlete´s programme does not contain any work that recruits fast twitch fibres."

http://www.benson.com.au/content/books/pub_articles/Book_Articles/Running/The%20Importance%20of%20Long%20Running.htm

--trackhead

One thing that should be noted is that Lydiard never talked about LSD, rather he advocated what would be considered hard mileage. He talked about 10mile morning runs in 55 minutes as a norm. He also said that running for 2 and a half or more hours was necessary to get this "recruiting of fast twitch fibers" to work. I think that most highschool runners would find themselves injurred or burnt out on such training.

Not everyone works the same way. Krummenacker smokes Snell's times and he doesn't do anything close to high mileage.

I agree that Lydiard never advocated huge volumes of slow mileage. Most of miles he and his guys ran were moderately paced. For his star athletes 5:30/mile was a moderate pace.

With regards to bruning out on running the 2.5 hrs, it all depends on how you approach it. Whatever the HS kids do, they have to be able to do it. The summer before my senior year in HS, I went on one mountain run that ended up being over 3hrs long; granted this wasn't a normal training run and it was apart of a running camp that was an unusually high (at the time) 96 mile week, but I could handle it. You can't expect a kid whose never done any real volume of running before to run 2.5 hrs, but you can work towards it. And simply b/c they are ready for it at the moment means that it isn't a system that doesn't get touched. Work up to 90 minutes, then 1:45, then 2hrs, with the distance/pace improving as the athlete improves. I get the sense that some people feel that people talk of graduating to these volumes in short periods of time -- it takes years to get to these volumes, but shouldn't that be the goal.

As for Krummenacker, I think that a lot of people who tout low volume approaches fail to mention that he spent several years under his Ga. Tech coach putting in significant volumes before switching last year to de Olivera. Those miles don't go away -- they're always there. I wouldn't be suprised if David K. had a lifetime mileage total of 20,000+. That's about how many miles you need to run good 1500s.

Improvement is not infinite. If it were easy to improve by constantly tacking on miles, then you would see some 200+ mile per week guys out there. Scientific studies can't even prove conclusively that anything past 75 miles per week leads to more improvement. I say 99% of your abilities will be found in the first 75 miles. Some people try for that last one percent and maybe get it, but most get injured. Over 75 miles per week with several 15+ mile runs comes into better play in marathons (specificity).

Think about the key ingredient Ritz has for busting out sub 14:00 5K? I can tell you for sure it is not 100 mile weeks. It is called talent. This guy could run 30 miles per week and slap around 99.9% of the 100 mile per week guys easy. The 0.1% that would give him trouble have a huge degree of talent to bring to the table as well. In summary, no amount of hard-core training will surpass a supremely talented runner that puts in a decent effort into training. The key to beating Ritz is to choose your parents carefully and train really hard. You have to do both to be at or near the top. Some people will resort to drugs to help them out as well.

"Improvement is not infinite."

An interesting statement. I would argue that while the initial leaps and bounds of improvement will not continue throughout one's career, that a properly trained athlete's performances will reach an asymptote, where imrpvement may level off or stay the same as a percent until age begins to rear its ugly head.

And while the aerobic work you get out of running is maxed out at around 75 mpw, additional miles still add to increasing mitochondria, myglobin, capilarization, etc.

I would wager that there are more kids in this coutnry that had/have more talent than Ritzenhein (10:20 2mi in 8th grade?) than you are claiming, but never do anything with it. He did something about it.

Guys get injured off of high volumes because they either a.) do too much too soon or b.) run too much too fast.

Gebrselassie can run 3:31/7:23/12:39/26:22 because he has tens and tens of thousands of miles behind him. He can outkick anyone in the world --not because he has the best speed, but because of all this background he has accumulated. Even now, during his base phase he's putting in something like 150+mi/week. Read that Snell interview; he knows his shit.

4.) You assume that you can put in the bank miles that you ran in the past. I definitely don't agree with this if you are talking about more than one year. I ran for ten years and I gave up running for ten years. I can tell you for a fact that after my huge layoff, my mileage bank account was totally empty. If there was such a bank account, then Geb could take off for a year and run near record times without one training run. That just is not going to happen.

Past training is just stepping stones for future training. You build yourself up as you step up to new levels. Back off from running too long, and you will start stepping backwards on the stepping-stones. As for me, I was back to the first stone minus 10 more for age and 20 for more weight.

Perhaps I should clarify. The mileage you run doesn't go anywhere -- you don't 'lose' capiliaries or mitochondria or anything like that. You can, however, lose muscle mass and put on new tissue that is low in concentration of the aforementioned capiliaries, etc., which is more or less dead weight you are carrying around.

The capilaries/organelles that anynone, let's just keep Geb as an example, built twently years ago are still there -- they don't go anywhere. Even if he were to go down with an injury and missed months or more, he would still have them. This is entirely hypothetical, but suppose he retires at 37 and reduces his training program to 30 mpw and puts on a few pounds, but 3 years later wants to get back out and destroy some master's WRs. He wouldn't start back out in the same shape he was years ealier, but in a relatively short time he would be back get pretty close. He has so much background that it wouldn't take long for him to back into racing shape, and although he probably would never get back to the level he had achieved, he would still be running very very well.

The miles you run in the past stay with you for life. Believe me, I've seen guys with many many years on me but can still kick my ass more than someone their age should because they've run tens of thoudands of miles (and have avoided putting on extra pounds).

I think if you can gain capillaries and mitochondria through training then you would lose them through detraining. Your idea does not sound logical, but maybe there is scientific proof behind what you are saying.

I think you are right about the miles from many months and years past helping out a runner only in that those miles have shaped the person physically to be a running machine. Quit cold turkey and your body will eventually forget most of what you did. Your example of Geb leaves him still in decent shape.

My argument about past miles is that they were stepping- stones and don't actually contribute directly to performance. When you are running a race, you are drawing on the type of workouts that were done during the past month or two. The long past workouts just shaped the person. If these older runners quit running for two months straight and then ran a race, they would do extremely bad. Because they trained for many years and the layoff was not huge, they could get fit again pretty fast. Maybe 3 or 4 months.

My argument about 100+ mile weeks is that you would not see a big difference in performance. Maybe Ritz would run 13:20 5K instead of 13:25 because of the extra miles over 75 miles a week. Of course those extra miles could give him a stress fracture and cause him to take a year get to back to the top again. So, is the risk of serious injury worth 5 seconds?

If done properly, there is less risk of injury at higher volumes than at lower ones. A higher volume of mileage will only improve muscle and skeletal strength and build more capilaries and organelles; as opposed to a low volume program where the skeletal structure has not been so strengthed, nor have the muscles. I see far more injuries from guys that run less mileage than more.

Additionally, most hgih mileage injuries are wither becuase they did too much too soon, or they did too much of it too fast. Either one of those can easily down a runner.

As far as accumulated background, the capilaries and organelles you build up don't go away. Whenever you run, the ones you built years and years before are still there working for you. If that weren't the case, would you stop growing new capiliaries or 'lose' old ones? It doesn't ahppen that way. Your ability to return to a former level of performance after a given layoff is dependant on the time taken off and the background you have within you.

Bob K. is a good example of this. He's been down for 1.5 years or something like that, and now he's back and healthy again. He's been training again, runs a race 13:43, pretty far back from his former level. Two weeks later he runs another race, 28flat, a much better time for Bob. He's able to come back to his competetitive level fairly quickly b/c he's run tens of thousnads of miles. Think of some high school kid who ran say 15:30 for 5k off of 35 mpw, then doesn't run for 2 years. It will take more time than the kid's taken off to get back to his former level (a generalization, yes.)