Low Mileage

It seems to me from my experience that girls rely a lot more on natural ability. I'm not saying they don't train hard, but the girls at the top, especially in high school, could probably not run at all in the offseason and still be good. That is just my opinion though.

The question to ask is what else does she do?

We had a state class swimmer, who liked to claim she barely ran in the summer, come out and finish 4th in our division at the state meet as a freshman.

It turns out that she was swimming 15 miles a week and her barely running was two, properly spaced for her swimming workouts, 3 milers at tempo pace for a total of 10 mpw. She had been doing this since she was 10.

In our area, we had another freshman who ran top 10 in a large state XC division but had been playing travel soccer since she was 8. Each year she got a little worse all through HS because she wasn't playing soccer, like she did fall of her freshman year, just doing the same workouts as the other girls.

Yes, that's believable. Especially for a Freshman.

Smart coach.

The girl is less likely to burn out, less likely to get injured, and more likely to be recruited.

If she doesn't need to run the miles to compete, then why have her run them? Unless she has NXN or FL aspirations, there is no reason.

I'd expect a regression through HS though if the mileage is not increased each year.

(%&*&YGtegh)*UHIUYT%* wrote:

The question to ask is what else does she do?

We had a state class swimmer, who liked to claim she barely ran in the summer, come out and finish 4th in our division at the state meet as a freshman.

It turns out that she was swimming 15 miles a week and her barely running was two, properly spaced for her swimming workouts, 3 milers at tempo pace for a total of 10 mpw. She had been doing this since she was 10.

In our area, we had another freshman who ran top 10 in a large state XC division but had been playing travel soccer since she was 8. Each year she got a little worse all through HS because she wasn't playing soccer, like she did fall of her freshman year, just doing the same workouts as the other girls.

This^

In HS I was swimming 30,000-40,000 meters per week in 5-7 hard two-hour workouts per week, plus dryland training with weights and bodyweight exercises. Some days we'd warm up for that with a five-minute jog. I also played soccer as a younger kid.

In junior year I raced an 800 with "no training" - no running training, that is. 2:10. Did three workouts with the team, and raced a 2:07, not making it to the next meet. That was the end of my HS track career.

As a halfway athletic kid with an aerobic base I ran decently enough (although not fast), but it would be dishonest to say I did that only training 10mpw or whatever it was.

Except that the Letsrun community has conclusively established that cross-training doesn't work. Strangely, it only seems to work as a way to explain fast times on low mileage .... hmmmm

This is true. There's a girl on my team who does no (or very little) training over the summer and she ended up top 10 at state, which was quite competitive. I'm 99% sure that scenario could not happen for any boys in my state.

Not impossible- but this girl is the exception, not the rule.

Most female HS runners can't run 19:30 on 30 miles a week.

19:30 is top 5 freshman in the STATE? Yeesh. Talk about watered down competition. You know there are individual TEAMS that have more freshman girls faster than that, right?

Which teams have 6 freshman under 19:30 on a legitimate course??

adsfadsfsfddf wrote:

19:30 is top 5 freshman in the STATE? Yeesh. Talk about watered down competition. You know there are individual TEAMS that have more freshman girls faster than that, right?