35-40 mpw for high school girls XC team

any comments? there is quite a lot of debate among the coaches and athletes ranging from 35-40 mpw being far too few miles to being outrageously excessively

I think for the average high school girl 35-40 mpw is a good "sweet spot" at which a decision can be made to backoff, maintain, or progress based on the individual runner's response to this load

runs are not terribly high intensity at this point in the summer - a couple of days of moderate pace - tempo/fartlek - a hill day and a long run (running 6 days per week)

appreciate any comments

Sweet spot. It's enough to be competitive but not so much that it's not a good spot in a continuum for those who will keep running. Kids with more advanced training age may run more, of course.

No, I wouldn't say it's too much or too little.

Our top freshmen tend to be 25-30.

Sophomores: 30-40

Juniors: 35- 45

Seniors 40-50+

Big ranges, I know, but that's pretty accurate for the third of girls on our team who actually put work in over the summer (about 30 girls). Probably closer to the lower end of each range for most. Another third of our girls will average somewhere between 5-20 mpw through the summer. Another third won't do anything.

girls xc coach wrote:

No, I wouldn't say it's too much or too little.

Our top freshmen tend to be 25-30.

Sophomores: 30-40

Juniors: 35- 45

Seniors 40-50+

Big ranges, I know, but that's pretty accurate for the third of girls on our team who actually put work in over the summer (about 30 girls). Probably closer to the lower end of each range for most. Another third of our girls will average somewhere between 5-20 mpw through the summer. Another third won't do anything.

This is almost exactly what our team's mileage looks like too. We don't get many incoming freshmen running over the summer, so there aren't mileage goals for them (we just aim for 3-6 days of running each week for new runners over the summer), but those would be our goals to be at by the mid-August. June mileage is quite a bit lower though (especially for girls that had long track seasons).

We probably have half of our team put in 5+ days of summer running a week and another quarter run 3-5 days a week so they can reach the lower end of those mileage goals by mid season. In an ideal world, we hit peak mileage before racing starts but that requires 6-7 days of running by the beginning of July.

That's about what I had my girls do a couple years ago (some were upper 20s/lower 30s, others were lower 40s). Seemed reasonable, and the girls handled it fine. I'd say it is moderate.

I consider it good mileage for every runner not world class!

I think it's a moderate amount of mileage which is a good thing. It's enough that you will see improvement from most runners but it's also little enough that for people who want to go on to run in college they will still have a lot of room to make improvement at the next level. Keep doing what you're doing coach. Long term success > short term gratification.

COACH J.S å ä ö wrote:

I consider it good mileage for every runner not world class!

That's a lot of people. HS boys, college men and women, competitive amateurs, BQ wannabees, and sub-elites would all be putting themselves at a tremendous disadvantage on just 35-40 mpw.

Fr 30

So 40

Jr 50

Sr 60

incr miles wrote:

any comments? there is quite a lot of debate among the coaches and athletes ranging from 35-40 mpw being far too few miles to being outrageously excessively

I think for the average high school girl 35-40 mpw is a good "sweet spot" at which a decision can be made to backoff, maintain, or progress based on the individual runner's response to this load

runs are not terribly high intensity at this point in the summer - a couple of days of moderate pace - tempo/fartlek - a hill day and a long run (running 6 days per week)

appreciate any comments

I think this is a good target range...if you have girls who have some running background. However, many HS runners do not have the opportunity to run before HS and that number would be too high for their first year in HS.