Chris Catton to Coach Ryan Deak

Disagree. They are outliers. You bring up a talented guy like Rupp, with a steady progression, and you can sustain a long, world-class career. Guys that ran hard, heavy mileage as preps tend to wind up constantly fighting the injury cycle (think Ritz, Solinksy) or burning out. No need to run more than 70-80 as a prep, just like the top guys of my era in Williams, Kennedy, and Croghan. The heavy mileage can come in college and beyond if they are good enough.

Did Hall even run 100 mpw in high school? I thought he topped out there but hardly "averaged" it.

Hall ran more then ritz

Rudy ran a ton of miles in HS he turned out ok.

Average to low mileage kids who got hurt in college

GF

Webb

Torrance

Coe

Fout

Finnerty

Brett Johnson

Forys

Hubers

The real question is:

How much of the mileage did Deak run with his waistband folded over?

Who the hell is Chris Catton???

He moved from FL to Co after jr year so he could qualify for ^in state and run for Wetmore.

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=4594

Seems like he improved very little at CO:

http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=111641

I'm surprised at how often threads about this guy pop... He was good, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't even the best in FL (one or two guys in the larger divisions would run a faster time). Seems like he seriously since A young age and never had a big jump fitness after. Someone posted recent race results from a small 10k and didn't seem like there was much hope for the olympics

He is a high school coach in NC that has coached some really big studs.

The deak thing is not true and neither is 2/3 of this site

Interesting outlook by some former elites and elite coaches on what high school training should look like. It says here that Deak only ran 75-80 as a senior, but I swear I read another article in the Post or Rocky Mountain News that had him running 90-100 with a 2 1/2 hour run on the weekend. Perhaps he was embellishing or only did it once. I remember reading it and thinking, this kid isn't going to do $hit after high school. FWIW, I think the "1000-mile" summer is fine for a 17-year old, having worked up to it.

http://www.sportscoach.netmx.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=603&theme=Printer

Wonder whatever happened to the Kaltenbachs?

Williams ran over 90. He explicitly stated the fact at Footlocker '07. Hall was also there. He said if he hadn't run high mileage in high school he never would have been able to handle the mega miles needed to run the kind of times he was running at that point. It was a great clinic.

LRC: What was your training like in high school?

I had a great high school coach Dave Bork and he pulled me into his office as a sophomore and said, “We have the 500 mile club, the 750 mile club and the 1,000 mile club” for over the summer running.

That's basically what I did. I got the 500 mile club (before sophomore year), then 750 (before junior year) and then 1,000 as a senior. I probably maxed out going into my senior year during the summer at around 80 miles – 75 to 80 miles per week. Once the season started, you were only running once a day – maybe 40 or 30-40 miles per week.

That's what I always tell high school kids. The point when you can get ahead of people is in the summer - when a lot of people are doing nothing. It's the summer running for the high school runner that's extremely important. Once school starts, it's so hard as there is so much stuff going on and you have your team practices and some of the states have Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday meets so your core training in high school has to be in the summer. That's when you get ahead of people.

http://www.letsrun.com/2003/toddwilliamsiii.php

As for Hall, I'm sure that's true for him. He's an outlier. Many more 90+ mpw has-beens than success stories. Anyone can throw out an anecdote about a few 90+ guys that had long and storied careers. But there aren't many. I think William's approach was smart.

Deak was an age-group runner before high school who was pushed by a domineering father. The father would post on DyeStat before Ryan was even in high school. Some of us felt sorry for the kid even before we knew who he was.

I recall Deak being shipped around to numerous schools, as his father didn't like his coaches, and that he was in Florida and then in Colorado in hs before, I think, going to the University of Colorado but maybe not lasting? He was a high profile prospect very early and then disappointed, as do many.

After Deak won a national indoor championship (or a big mile race, I can't remember) on year , he was hanging in a hotel room with a bunch of other prep runners. His dad called him at 10pm and told him he had to go out and get his second run in for the day. So Deak went out and did it.

That explains his lack of success in the sport, not mileage. It became something that wasn't fun.

The kid was having plenty of fun when he was winning:

http://nw.dyestat.com/3us/4out/arcadia/album-boys/pages/27e%20Deak%20wins_jpg.htm

I just heard that Matt Withrow was also going to be joining Deak under Coach Catton... is this true, can anyone confirm or deny this?????

By the way, even as it may seem like it, I'm not picking on Deak. There are many stories of controlling fathers pushing their kids, which is quite an unfortunate situation.

Once again, Williams ran 90+ according to his own words in response to an athlete's question. You can't hit 1000 miles over the summer without being over 90 mpw. It doesn't go into September, only mid June to end of August. I don't think you know when to use the word outlier. Any kid who runs well in college is an outlier. You can pick any mileage range you want and more kids fail than succeed in later years. This goes back to the Once a Runner line about the kid in the school play not winning an Oscar. The school play didn't "burn him out," it's just that very few people win Oscars. There is no physiological premise for "burnout." There is also no statistical correlation between mileage and "burnout." I personally have never had a kid run over 80 in high school but to make a blanket statement that 90+ will affect a kids' chances in college is completely unsubstantiated. For every kid you know who ran 90s an burned out I can name ten who ran 50 and burned out, or 30, or 60.

Most high school kids have summers that range from mid-May to mid-Aug. That's three months or 13 weeks. I agree that if they rest and start low, they won't be hitting maximum mileage until the end, but just for a couple of weeks probably. Maybe Williams ran one week over 90. Who knows? I just quoted his interview with LRC, and he didn't seem to indicate it there. If he ran 75-80 every week, then he surely could hit 1000 without having run 90+. But you heard what you heard.

As for your last sentence, it's a silly analogy. Most kids are, appropriately, running in the 40-60 mile range in high school, probably by a factor of in the 100s to every kid that's running 90 per week. It's like me saying for every 6'4"+ marathoner you can point to who has ever broken 2:10, I can point to hundreds more shorter marathoners who have done it, because being 6'4" is a statistical outlier in and of itself, just like running 90 miles+ per week.

When I was in high school, I only ran one year, ran maybe 20 miles over the summer, and then averaged 55 mpw over the winter. I think I hit 70 miles one time just to do it, running a two-miler in the evening just to hit the number on dead legs. But I sure as heck wasn't a 70 mpw runner.

I'm not against mileage, but I think extreme mileage in high school is higher risk/reward, for any number of reasons. Most of the elites in that first link I posted tend to agree, including some of the most notable coaches around.