How can HS girls run below 20 miles per week when training for xc?

Some of them run 5 miles a week and even 15

They don't really care and they don't know how to train.

At my school, boys typically missed one practice a season, for a dentist appt or doctor appt or senior pictures or an academic thing. I missed ZERO practices in four years. I think I slept through 2 morning practices by mistake, but we had those EVERY morning some seasons, even a 3 mile run on the morning of track meets. Our coach was a hard-ass who placed 3rd in the mile and 5th in XC in Illinois (when they had an All-classes State Meet) in '55. IF you missed an afternoon practice, without telling him ahead of time, he would really make an example out of you.

For girls, nearly every girl missed practice one of more per week. Different coach. And he was soft. They did it because they claimed they had their period, or they had to babysit, or they had a lot of homework, or they had to go to the doctor. I am sure they DID have all those things, and sometimes they were just tired and needed to go home and nap. But you should power through those. Also, they never ran on the weekend. If they had a race Saturday, they ran 4 miles total that day, and nothing the rest of the weekend.

The boys team would run 3 miles WU, the race, and then usually a WD. I would run 3 WU, 3.1 race, then ask to run home if it was a local race. Which would be 4-6 miles depending. If I could not it was usually 2 miles WD.

Then it was 17, 19, 21, or 23 miles on Sunday. Reducing to 14 miles the last 3 weeks of the season. Making it 80-90 for August and September. Three weeks out from State we would cut a lot out and reduce to 60 then 50 then 40

Running only 5 days a week (or 4) I can see how women run 20 mpw. I don't remember our girls ever running more than 5 miles continuously, and for intervals they usually totaled up less. I am not knocking it, that is just what they did. I don't expect them to be able to train like I did. I was building up to that since 6th grade.

Ugly American, this is very interesting to read because it was the complete opposite for my HS team. The girls worked super hard and qualified for CIF SS prelims in CA whereas the boys would have any excuse and hardly trained because of it. They didn't make the cut at league finals.

They just do.

They obviously aren't very good

W wrote:

Ugly American, this is very interesting to read because it was the complete opposite for my HS team. The girls worked super hard and qualified for CIF SS prelims in CA whereas the boys would have any excuse and hardly trained because of it. They didn't make the cut at league finals.

Maybe it was because of the relative abilities of the two teams? This was a team that graduated in 1985, so we were at the tail end of what I would call the "working era". When people found out I ran XC they would ask me do you still run 15 miles per day? They had run in the late '60s and '70s. Definitely by '83-84 the work ethic that had built up through the '60s and '70s was on the wane. The rest of my teammates ran whatever the coach gave them, and nothing on weekends (except races). I was the one that was gunning for 85 mpw as a junior and 100 mpw as a senior.

Also, this was Michigan. We were bad when I was a freshman, not close to making State Meet. Then good as a soph, we were 2nd at Regional and 12th at State, Junior yr we were ranked as high as 2nd in the State, won a few meets and won Regionals. We were undefeated in our Conference for 3 years. I would guess that in CA it would be MUCH harder to be really good for the boys. Maybe your team could not just get "up for it" because of that?

Because girls running is a joke.

Some coaches don’t expect any more, especially when injury prevention is an institutional priority and stretching is a long inefficient process. They’d rather see girls progress uninjured from year to year than achieve fast but unsustainable times.

Also, given the very real possibility of freshman girls running their fastest times, it’s safe to keep younger girls on VERY light training so they will have room to improve despite the onset of puberty.

Shelly-Ann Conway wrote:

Because girls running is a joke.

Pretty much

My high school coach who had a lot of success with the girls program had the better girls on the team running between 35-45 mpw. The not so great ones were running between 25-30. And, the fatties were running about 15.

I find it almost impossible to have a girl run less than 35 miles a week. That's the bare minimum. I don't see as a coach where else I could cut down. And that includes every girl, even newer ones. More experienced girls should be running 50 a week no problem.

yesstiles wrote:

I find it almost impossible to have a girl run less than 35 miles a week. That's the bare minimum. I don't see as a coach where else I could cut down. And that includes every girl, even newer ones. More experienced girls should be running 50 a week no problem.

This is closer to what I see. 6 days per week averaging a little under 6 per run would get a girl to 35. Manageable. Not even a real challenge.

We double twice weekly (allowed under UIL rules) and the low mileage girls are in the 30s and the upper end runners will get somewhere in the low to mid-50s. It takes a while to build them up to that, though.

My experience has also shown me that girls will run very hard and train with high volume if they feel connected to the team. No connection? They just train with less effort and are less willing to do big miles. This doesn't seem to affect boys quite as much. I still believe connection to the team is important for both genders, but girls seem to be more influenced by it.