High school mileage seems high to me, advice?

I believe in consistency and with consistency comes volume, but you don't chase either for the sake of injury. This is not a good build up and the runner would be better off with 1-2 days a week off and a steady build up.

The mileage stated here is about average for most programs. We use to call 62 miles an easy week.

mcguck wrote:

I believe in consistency and with consistency comes volume, but you don't chase either for the sake of injury. This is not a good build up and the runner would be better off with 1-2 days a week off and a steady build up.

That's what I thought. I agree with the other poster and as I stated: I believe in mileage and volume. I'm not opposed to 50-60 mile weeks but thought that was asking a lot without a day off. Even a 13 out of 14 schedule made more sense to me. Thanks.

I think that sounds like a fine plan. Days off aren’t really necessary if you are just doing easy miles. Consistency is underrated and balance is a big factor too.

http://www.coacheseducation.com/xc/jack_farrell_july_00.php

High school football players use too do two a day practices. And all the other sports practice for at least a hour a day. So, running a hour a day shouldn't hurt you.

Why do you think you need a day off? If you are training at the right intensities planned days off are unnecessary. You are doing something wrong if you can't run an easy 20 minutes on an easy day.

Besides high school kids will likely take an unplanned day off or two over the summer anyway.

You didn't include the most important factor - what is his training history? A PR doesn't tell his background. I don't think the plan is perfect but it doesn't look unreasonable either if he's someone that has regularly trained 50+ mpw.

Right now my athletes are expected to run 4-6 days a week based on their individual training history and they will add a day to that when July hits. Younger kids will add another run per week in August, so by August everyone is running 6-7 days a week (and we will maintain that through XC season). I don't schedule down weeks, but when kids have summer trips and other big life commitments, we back their running off and use that time as a down week.

Most of our athletes will run from Aug-Nov without a planned day off. It's fine as long as a few things are considered:

-Don't increase volume and intensity at the same time. If kids are adding a day of running or increasing a long run, drop or shorten a workout that week.

-Build in recovery days. Recovery days in our program don't mean a day off, but a 3-4 mile run (we let our varsity kids slow down and run with a JV friend on these days). For someone that is used to 5-7 mile days, this keeps them in a routine while still giving their body time to recover.

- When workout intensity is high or our races start, our easy runs are SLOW. My sub 18 5k girls rarely run sub 8 on easy runs.

-Take care of the little things. Get enough sleep, eat right, and do injury prevention work.

-Don't be a slave to the plan. We don't take days off just to take days off, but we don't track running streaks either. I have no problem sending a kid home or telling them to skip a weekend run if fatigue is catching up to them.

Assuming you are doing your easy mileage at around a 8 minute pace. That equals out to about one hour a day of running. Do you really think running a hour a day is a lot? Kids back in the day (before parents became overprotective helicopter parents and kids spent all day inside playing video games and looking at the internet) would naturally cover that distances aerobically walking to their friends house, playing ball and biking everywhere.