100 mpw in high school

distance guy wrote:

I've always found that 100s are more mentally demanding than physically, assuming you've worked up to that mileage gradually and your legs are ready for it. For that reason, I think it's beneficial to not double every day, so it doesn't feel like you're running all the time. With that in mind, I'd say something like this is achievable and sustainable.

Mon: 10/6

Tues: 12

Wed: 10/6

Thur: 14

Fri: 8/6

Sat: 12

Sun: 16

so you want a plan to go from 60 mpw in the winter to 100 mpw by the next fall? You'll be lucky if you make it through september if you try to increase that much over that short a period of time. I think you should "care what the side effects are" because there is a good chance you injure yourself and don't get to run at all. It takes people years to reach 100mpw. Cam Levins, one of the highest mileage track runners on the scene right now only reached 100 mpw by the summer before his junior year of college, and he's a freak.

Have some faith in your coach, he was probably hired for a reason.

ccrunner627 wrote:

Have some faith in your coach, he was probably hired for a reason.

He's a teacher with no running experience. Also, going from 80 in the winter to 100 in the summer.

GO FOR IT. It's your life, live it how you choose.

More more more is not always the answer.

If you're running 60-80 mpw, just keep that up for a long time. Maintaining mileage doesn't mean maintaining fitness. Eventually your body will better adapt to running say 75 mpw and then you'll be able to run those 75 miles faster everyday and not have to take longer recovery time. That will be more beneficial than running a lot of slow 100 mile weeks.

Trust me, when you get up there, so many things come into play that it becomes very difficult to maintain the mileage without many minor setbacks. So usually your weeks ends up looking like:

100, 100, 70 (minor injury), 75 (still coming back), 100, 80 (dead tired/injured, came back too fast).

You'll end up running just as many, if not more miles by finding a comfrotable number and consistently hitting it. Let your body adapt to the current mileage and then add intensity.

Getting as far as you can in one last season is fine, but you aren't going to do it by running 100mpw for the entire Summer. You WILL become stale.

100miles. OK to get in a few like every other week, or every third week, but bring it down to a level that you are comfortable with to recover in between.

If you are running a 4:41 mile at 80mpw, what makes you think that the leap to 100 is going to help?

Give me some examples of typical weeks at 80?

Listen to Malmo.

Further, listen to your coach. Not because he knows anything about running but because he is the one who is going to be planning half or more of your training in the fall.

The point of summer training is NOT to improve. The point of summer training is to get in good enough shape so that you can MAXIMALLY benefit from the training you ARE going to do in the fall.

100 miles is an arbitrary number. Nothing special with that.

I'd concentrate on three things:

1. Doing some pretty controlled workouts over the summer. E.g. once per week shortish intervall stuff, once per week tempoish intervall stuff or a tempo run and once per week some longer easy-moderate running. Everything should be well within yourself.

2. When you have the time - double on those quality days.

3. Try to not run slower than 7 - 7:15 avg. on your easy days and gradually increase the lenghth of those runs.

A week might look like this:

Mo - 10 easy + strides

Tu - 3 x 2 miles tempo (half mile jogg) (tot.: 11); 5 easy

We - 10 easy

Th - 8 x 400 @ 5k pace, 400 jogg (tot.: 10); 5 easy

Fr - 10 easy

Sat - 13 progression

Sun - 7 easy

Play with the workouts - but keep it relaxed. Fast & relaxed running is what you wanna do.

Better than 100 miles of slogging around.

Pikachu

Hell yes! Do it!

Summer of Malmo is the answer here.

Definitely go for it if that's what you want to do!

You could definitely run in college if you want, probably D2 or D3. But you never know how much you will approve with a summer of 100 mpw.

Kenny Cormier who won the footlocker national championships in 2004 after greatly improving from a summer of 110 mpw.

Anyone with talent will be running far faster off of 1/3 the mileage. Remember all those ridiculous hours of wasted training and refusal to be coached as you watch them stride past you in the final straight.

Here's what you're saying kid: You're going to increase stimulus and work by 25% and reduce recovery between runs. Keep in mind that the recovery is where adaptation takes place. It's not a well thought out idea. Malmo is correct in saying that if you're going to do this, just for the sake of accomplishment or whatever, you need to come down for a few weeks and allow rest and recovery before jumping back up to that level of work. If you just string together a shit-ton of high mileage weeks you'll never reap any benefits from the work. What you're describing is the fundamental running equation of >>> more stress + less recovery = injured runner.

It's a great idea and you should totally go for it. I'd recommend though doing 3 weeks at 100 miles and 1 week down at say 75-80 miles. This way you get a recovery week every 4th week so you don't burn out.

Also, I had a friend who went from 60 mpw to 100 mpw pretty much over night while a sophomore in HS and he improved exponentially after he got out of the "zombie phase" of being tired all the time. His 3 mile went from 18:06 xc as a sophomore at 60 mpw, to a 14:58 solo indoor 3 mile time trial in the winter before junior track season.

High mileage isn't the answer for all, but based on your history, it should do the trick for you.

Running that much, especially if you live in the south, can put you in over training mode pretty quickly. If you must do it though, my recommendations are: sleep at least 8 or 9 hours a night if not more, and take a power nap in the afternoon. Double as much as possible and don't do long runs. At that mileage they are worthless, especially considering you are training for 5k. Hydrate and eat like it is going out of style. Stay on soft surfaces. Stay out of the sun when not running. That is just some ideas. I've seen plenty of kids stagnate because their body couldn't handle the mileage.

You are either a troll or have no understanding of running. More training does not equal faster times, and the fact that you went from 60 to 80mpw and made ok progress for your age and your performance level, does not proof that running more miles is better for you. You probably would've made the same progress if you had stayed at 60mpw just because you are getting older and stronger.

If you are wanting to run 100mpw just to be able to say you run 100mpw, you should go for it. If it is your goal to beat the talented punks in your league, you shouldn't do it. If it really is the last year in your life you want to run, you should lower the mileage to probably 60mpw and up the intensity a bit. Take the easy days easy and the hard days hard. Even someone without much talent should be able to run quite a bit faster this way than your current prs.

ccrunner627 wrote:

so you want a plan to go from 60 mpw in the winter to 100 mpw by the next fall? You'll be lucky if you make it through september if you try to increase that much over that short a period of time. I think you should "care what the side effects are" because there is a good chance you injure yourself and don't get to run at all. It takes people years to reach 100mpw. Cam Levins, one of the highest mileage track runners on the scene right now only reached 100 mpw by the summer before his junior year of college, and he's a freak.

Have some faith in your coach, he was probably hired for a reason.

I got my Soph brother who started running last fall (Sept) for the first time ever on 90 mpw in these months: Jan-Feb-Mar., First time runner, no prior experience, went 3 months of 90 from 60mpw and didn't even have so much as a sore knee.

It ain't that hard. if a 15 soph can do it, i'm sure a junior who's been running for 3 years can at least do 10 mpw than a 15yr old who only ran for 4 months b4 going 90.

Lucky brother you got. Some people just don't get hurt as quickly as others. It will still be interesting to see how long it will take him to get his first stress fracture, and how long after he will stop running altogether.

What is the point of a sophomore in HS who only just started running to be going 90mpw? He would probably already make a lot of progress running 30mpw.

Despite of what some people think, running more is not always better. Every time you train you wear your body down. You get better when your body recovers, because it adapts to the stress you put on it making it a little bit stronger than before. If you put too much stress on your body, your body will not have time to recover to this point and you will actually wear your body down. Yes, elite athletes often run 80+ miles a week. The only difference is that they have build up to this in years of training.

I second this. I went from 70mpw in the winter to 90mpw in the summer when I was 14/15. The important thing is running easy on recovery days and loving it. Not sure why there is so much negativity. To the OP, at least in my experience there is no substitute for talent and the best runners will kill you on 30-40mpw. But most of the guys in your league and state? No way can they hang with 100mpw.

I say go for it and enjoy the ride. Its not going to ruin your body if you do it right, and whats more this may be your only chance to do it. If you're not talented enough to win on a D1 college team then absolutely no one cares after this. High school is still exciting though.

Anyways, go for it.

I do recommend doubles 3-4 times a week - I found more than two days of doubles in a row to be too exhausting though. Doubling Monday-Tuesday-Thursday-Friday worked great for me. Also, don't be scared of a long run to build strength. Please don't go out and slog 2+ hours, but learn how to run 1:30-1:50, say, 12 to 15miles, progressing and feeling great at the end. Strides are a good idea and maybe some light tempo work, but even that's not a big deal if you make sure to run some of your runs more steady.

Good luck!

Plenty of high schoolers did this. Dominant was worried about his actual talent and starting running 100mpw in the summer and winter months. Worked well for him!