HS girl running 100-120 miles a week?

First and foremost, 6:57.49 for a 2k steeple is very impressive for a high school girl, especially one with a 5:11 mile.

Secondly, I doubt that a girl running 5:11 / 10:59 would gain anything from 100 MPW that she wouldn't get from 50 MPW. In fact, I'd assume that she's doing herself damage. I've known a number of 4:4x high school girls, and very rarely were they training over 60 MPW. Generally the ones that were doing the lowest miles--usually in the 40 MPW range--were the ones that saw the greatest improvement come college. 100 MPW, even for top high school boys, is generally a good way to destroy yourself. Most top 8/16 guys can't handle that kind of mileage. Hell, most very strong 3200/5k guys (say, 9:20 / 15:30 guys--which is at least equal to, and probably stronger than 5:11/10:59 girls) cannot and generally should not be running 100 MPW. Hell, Ritz was doing "only" 90 MPW or so when he won Footlocker.

I also have trouble believing that she's running that much. Competitive soccer adds on at least 20 MPW, and I'd imagine typical soccer practices last about two hours. 100 MPW for an 11 minute 2 miler means at least two hours of running a day. Add in the time necessary to take care of one's body--100 MPW will require regular rolling and stretching, very specific nutritional habits, and at least 9 hours of sleep daily--and you're devoting over half of every day to running.

Probably just a misprint; it was probably supposed to be 30 - 40 MPW or something along those lines.

cali boy wrote:

100 MPW will require regular rolling and stretching, very specific nutritional habits, and at least 9 hours of sleep daily--and you're devoting over half of every day to running.

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How do you come up with this?

I did 140mpw over the summer, jumped from 80-90, ran up and down hills, and didn't even eat very healthy - I was a sugar-lover. If I can do 140mpw in the dead heat of summer, with minimal rest in between doubles (5-6 hours), then anyone can.

Good for her. Knock out the mikes and see what she can achieve.

dreaming wrote:

cali boy wrote:

100 MPW will require regular rolling and stretching, very specific nutritional habits, and at least 9 hours of sleep daily--and you're devoting over half of every day to running.

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How do you come up with this?

At this and the above, presumably you're not 17 year old girls. Comparing 100 MPW for a 20 or 30-some year old guy who's been running competitively for over a decade, has spent years building up a mileage base, and can do his easy days at 6 minute pace, to a high school girl who's got an 11 minute 2-mile PR is comparing apples to oranges.

A 5:10 girl running 100 MPW is going to need to spend a huge amount of time to maintain that sort of schedule. If you're tacking on ~2 hours a day of soccer to 2 hours of a day of running, 9 hours of sleep a night, and a couple hours a week spent on recovery work, core work, high calorie meals, and so on, and you're spending a huge amount of time on running/running related activities.

If you're going to try and call me out, at least put in some effort and don't cherrypick lines with literally zero context. Plenty of people CAN run 100 MPW without spending a ton of time on it, without keeping a healthy diet, and without making sure to recover properly from every run. Most of these people are young adult men with very developed running backgrounds.

There's a reason why any good coach won't have high school girls run 100 MPW: for very close to 100% of them, it'll lead to stress fractures, worsened performances, and more damage than good.

I know that typical letsrun advice is "more mileage," given by someone who hasn't run since college and assumes their 80 mile weeks were "about 100," but everyone has a threshold at which slogging out more miles leads to worsened returns, and for the vast majority of high school girls, that threshold is far below 100 MPW.

There is an easier answer to this. She isn't doing 120 miles a week. It's either kilometers, or volume every two weeks, or something funky like that.

What's more likely, an 11-flat 2-miler runs 120 miles a week, or a high school sports reporter makes an error?

In high school, I was an 11 flat 2-miler who ran 119 miles per week for two weeks in a row and several other 100 mile weeks that summer. My guess is that I averaged about 1 min per mile slower than my 2 mile. No typos, no exaggeration.

I did no rolling, no stretching and my diet was based around the concept of see food. You know, if I saw food, I ate it. While I slept 9-10 hours a night, my secret was that I worked construction 40 hours a week as cross training so every muscle in my body was in good condition.

The point of running that much was to learn about training. I wanted to see what Bill Roger's training was like. I learned that I did much better on 90 mpw.

Man is she wasting a lot of time. Lotta miles and getting nothing out of it.

joyce19 wrote:

I did 140mpw over the summer, jumped from 80-90, ran up and down hills, and didn't even eat very healthy - I was a sugar-lover. If I can do 140mpw in the dead heat of summer, with minimal rest in between doubles (5-6 hours), then anyone can.

What is "very unhealthy" about sugar? Do you not know that's what your body fuels itself with?

NJ doesn't even contest the steeplechase so it's a weird discipline for her to be so good at.

And Pennsauken is certainly not a distance running powerhouse.

But good for her. Hope she stays healthy.

Maybe the coach is getting guidance from Alana Hadley's dad? He's the only other coach I know stupid enough to have a HS kid run 110-120 mpw.

I'd be reluctant to recruit a HS runner doing that kind of mileage. There's a good chance she'd have achieved most if not all of her potential and would be a candidate for decline and/or injury problems as a college runner. I'd rather go with someone who achieved somewhat less on much lower mileage who would have more room to grow.

I agree. Also if she wants to run in college why the heck is she playing soccer as a senior. Run xc already. Soccer is a fun game but shows lack of commitment. Perhaps the 100 to 120 miles per week are meant to show more commitment despite the preference for soccer?

Let her run wrote:

Good for her. Knock out the mikes and see what she can achieve.

exactly

The event has not been called Nike Nationals for years. It is the New Balance Nationals. Yet, Jim Lambert, the reporter of the article, has on his Wiki page, "Lambert was referred to as "the gold standard" of high school track & field journalism in New Jersey by NJ Runners.com."

I think it is more than likely the reporter miscalculated the weekly mileage based on something else that was said or he did not actually get the mileage from someone who really knows the correct amount.

Some high school girls who are in the top 20 in the national in 3200 meter up to 5K are running 40 to 65 miles per week. One of the top female collegiate 3000 meter steeplechase runners this past year was running only 70 miles per week.

Has Amanda ever run in any race longer than 3200 meters? There are a few top runners who have dropped off their high school cross country teams and have or will be running at Foot Locker or Nike regionals. These have been successful at the regionals and national. I hope the regional will not be Amanda's first 5K cross country race. If so, I hope she has realistic expectations of a first time performance at a regional.

asdfasfasdf wrote:

There is an easier answer to this. She isn't doing 120 miles a week.

^this

Runners lie about their mileage all the time. Girls are the worst, because no one dares to call them out as they fear to be labeled negative or chauvinists (if male). Smack a Garmin on these runners and demand that they log every workout. Then you'll see that they run a lot less than they claim.

She seems like a very nice young woman, and she ran raced a 5k yesterday for the first time. Hope she continues on her upward climb!

‏@PennsaukenTFXC Sep 7

18:30 for Amanda Bakley in her 1st ever 5k. 2nd overall female. @HaddonRunCo @lambo2126 @NJMileSplit @ZachBatesSJSD

This is a funny post. Lot's of opinions. She's fine, everybody, she's fine.

some of you guys are lunatics. What I wonder though is if she is doing 100-120 on top of soccer or counting soccer as part of it, using a gps device or something. Anyways, 100-120 is not too much for a high schooler who can handle it and she can continue to improve in college whether she runs 70, 100-120, or 120-180 mpw. The notion that a runner doing high mileage in high school will reach her potential early is bunk.