Cross country coach is anti-mileage need advice

Let me say that your coach keeping you at 30 miles a week isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is good to be

undertrained than overtrained, especially at a young age. You will evolve as a runner, and as you evolve,

so will your mileage.

Also, you should not compare yourself to your teammate. She is 2 years ahead of you, so her body and running

is on an entirely different level than yours, plus she is more experienced.

On your own time, you could tack on 5-10 extra miles, and just keep it to yourself. I don't think that would hurt you.

However, take your time. You have three more years at the high school level to grow as a runner. You will get there.

there is no magic number of miles that works for everyone. it is, as you so rightly call it, a "secret spot," that can only be uncovered through trial and error and which you will most likely only realise you had within your grasp when you let it go.

as a rough idea, 25 - 30 mpw is about fine and fairly normal for a freshman. if you aim to increase your mileage gradually over the next 4 years to around 60 - 70 mpw by your senior year then you will be smack in the middle of the normal range. some will do more than this, some will not need anywhere near this much.

the point of mileage is not the number itself. the point is that as your quality training develops you need more basic mileage to underpin the other training. for example: you've read Daniels, right. well he says that interval training should be around 8% - 10% of weekly mileage. so you start by figuring out what interval work you need to do, and figure out the mileage you need to do to support that. if you are following Daniels, and your intervals total around 3 miles per week (normal amount for a freshman), then you need to be on (3/8) * 100 = 35 - 40 mpw (roughly, ball park figures).

so your 30 mpw is probably a little on the light side, but nothing extreme. and your coach is right to be cautious. as Scorpion_runner said, better to be under-trained than over-trained.

nothing to apologise for. the board would not exist without questions.

cheers.

Will you be able to run in college? Look at what times are needed and what division you would probably run in. We had a girl in HS who seemed to have bad endurance and she only ran track and was maybe the XC manager (only for the girls team) and yet when she left HS she started LSD training and ran distance for Central Michigan University and was quite good.

Then we have had the other end of the spectrum: XC State Champion who goes on to do nothing in college and drop out of running in two years. Both groups ran low mileage for women at my school.

My point is that you won't know for sure how you will run at age 19 until you are 19. Plan to train for the running you are doing in the next 12 months and worry about 4 years from now later.

I would say that the rough plan should be this:

before 10th grade XC: 40-45 mpw (with a safety valve week every 4 weeks -- 3 weeks high; one week at 25-35)

Before 11th grade XC: 50-55 mpw (same -- but at 30-35)

Before 12th grade XC: 60-65mpw (same -- but at 40-45)

Many people can handle more; but many people cannot. A guy in my state won multiple state titles and was 2nd at FL, then he won National titles as a pro, became the 4th fastest American in history at 10k. Never ran over 60mpw in HS. Often less. I am not a low mileage advocate, but everyone has to find their sweet spot and if you have only run 30 mpw so far, I think it is premature to talk about 70 mpw yet. Try 40 mpw and then 50 and then ... you get the picture.

You should think about doing a little more each year. If you did 30 miles per week last year, shoot for 35-40 this summer. Plan for 40-45 the next and you are on track for 50 mpw for your senior year. I wouldn’t recommend what your teammate is doing randomly increasing mileage that significantly.

That’s really dumb to use one of the fastest Americans ever over 10k as an example of low mileage working. They are the 1% of the 1%. In general, higher mileage will take you further for the average runner. Please don’t use highly talented elites who are the exception to the rule.

I agree with this. To those who said 60 mpw is average for a female (or male) HS senior, that's just wrong - plain and simple.

30 mpw freshman year is great - you'll develop continuously and should easily get fitter every month of the year. By junior/senior year you could be doing 45-55 but only if everything is going well. There's no need to run 70 mpw in the summer, it will only lead to breakdown which will set you back before XC even begins. If you want to train more, I'd suggest swimming or cycling as XT. You'll get the aerobic development without the pounding/stress.

If you're still showing improvement at 30mpw there's no reason to increase mileage until you stop improving. You've got a lot of life ahead of you for running.

Stop going by miles. Everyone runs a different pace so it’s not a very good indicator of volume. Instead focus on running an hour a day give or take 20 minutes. Run it at a conversational pace. You will get plenty of “speed” running come fall and spring.