We have these kids 5 days a week for 1-2 hrs after a 7.5 hour school day. Most of my kids are involved in academic clubs, church, jobs, and they have family demands (remember they are not in charge of their schedules).
Getting them to 35-40M per week is an accomplishment. Then once the season is started you are either getting ready to race, racing, or recovering from a race.
But the main reason we cant hit 60M per week is that they are kids and Id rather have 20 functional athletes than 3-4 that make it through the mileage gauntlet.
Remember the goal is to race, not have the prettiest training log.
We have these kids 5 days a week for 1-2 hrs after a 7.5 hour school day. Most of my kids are involved in academic clubs, church, jobs, and they have family demands (remember they are not in charge of their schedules).
Getting them to 35-40M per week is an accomplishment. Then once the season is started you are either getting ready to race, racing, or recovering from a race.
But the main reason we cant hit 60M per week is that they are kids and Id rather have 20 functional athletes than 3-4 that make it through the mileage gauntlet.
Remember the goal is to race, not have the prettiest training log.
I don’t know about academic clubs, but what would church have to with participating in practice. Most kids among the good demographics for running, do not have part-time jobs and the only weekday family demand I had was showing up for dinner.
Swimming and all the ball sports required a bigger time commitment than running. Im pretty sure the coaches in those sports want both good game results and full commitment to improve.
You make it sound like HS distance runners have no passion for the sport and need to be babied through the season.
In the late 90's I had a nice run with guys running 65 miles a week in the summer. These were usually guys that ran all three seasons. They were highly motivated future Ivy league guys.
In the late 90's I had a nice run with guys running 65 miles a week in the summer. These were usually guys that ran all three seasons. They were highly motivated future Ivy league guys.
Miles determined by background and ability
Freshmen 25-35 MPW
Sophomore 35- 45
Junior 45-55
Senior 55-65
My daughter was like this. She did about 30/35 freshman year, 35 to 40 Sophomore and now she is slowly getting to about 48 a week as a junior
So many coaches are very unwilling to look outside their own experiences to try to find better ways to do things. Their ego is your answer.
I definitely know some coaches who refuse to learn because of their ego. But most of the time it's not ego, it's that the coach just doesn't care that much. They coach as a hobby. They aren't trying to develop national high school champions and future Olympians. As long as the team does reasonably well at the county or conference meet, that's good enough for many coaches.
These are pretty much both the right answers. I do think that some coaches are so uneducated that they think doing easy mileage most of the time isn’t what improves their team.
Why do I see so many HS runners running 30-35 MPW with super high intensity? Surely there are many who would perform better especially at 3k and up with more volume?
Because high schools generally hire teachers not coaches for the role
We have these kids 5 days a week for 1-2 hrs after a 7.5 hour school day. Most of my kids are involved in academic clubs, church, jobs, and they have family demands (remember they are not in charge of their schedules).
Getting them to 35-40M per week is an accomplishment. Then once the season is started you are either getting ready to race, racing, or recovering from a race.
But the main reason we cant hit 60M per week is that they are kids and Id rather have 20 functional athletes than 3-4 that make it through the mileage gauntlet.
Remember the goal is to race, not have the prettiest training log.
I don’t know about academic clubs, but what would church have to with participating in practice. Most kids among the good demographics for running, do not have part-time jobs and the only weekday family demand I had was showing up for dinner.
Swimming and all the ball sports required a bigger time commitment than running. Im pretty sure the coaches in those sports want both good game results and full commitment to improve.
You make it sound like HS distance runners have no passion for the sport and need to be babied through the season.
-what would church have to with participating in practice? LOL you arent from the South are you?
-"kids among the good demographics for running, do not have part-time jobs" Lucky for them, that's not the reality of my school.
-"You make it sound like HS distance runners have no passion for the sport and need to be babied through the season." Far from it, I think it was the exact opposite. These kids are involved in a variety of things AND still run and race. They are not just doing one thing.
I'm just tell you the reality of many of us. I WISH I was at a rich private school where the kids didn't work, where I had huge numbers of participants, where we could travel, do XC camps, all "the stuff", but that's not reality.
Because everyone wants the quick and easy shortcut to success. They see one kid with ridiculous talent make it work and think it's good for the masses.
95% of high school runners are extremely aerobically underdeveloped. Until you're running 50-60 miles/week you don't need threshold, tempo, etc type workouts. Build the mileage, do strides & drills daily, a hill workout and a basic interval workout over the course of a 7-10 day repeatable training block is more beneficial over the long term.
.........
I'm sure the counter argument is going to be "But Cole Hocker ran 30/miles per week in high school".
He's the outlier, not the average high school kid. He ran 4:04(?) and won Footlocker off that training. But a year later with increased training he ran 3:50, eventually leading to world and Olympic championships.
Most decent sized high school track/xc teams will never have a Cole Hocker. They do have a lot of Jimmies and Janies stuck in the 20-25 minute 5k area. These are the kids that can have their potential unlocked with some decent aerobic development. They probably won't be top end great but they're your grinders and add depth and consistency to your program.
A few alternative thoughts:
- How in touch with the work tolerances of their runners the average coach is I don’t know, but I think it quite safe to say that 30-35 mile weeks are much more in line with the tolerances of your average HS runner than are 50-60 mile weeks. In your average school where you’re going to have a small XC/distance team (~dozen-plus) no matter the demands, do you want to reduce that to 4 kids because you demand 60 mile weeks?
- And tolerance of volume is (in addition to the higher time and effort commitment) also related to the often relatively inflexible team environment, where volume will built at paces more suited to the faster runners. IF your average Jimmies and Janies were running dozens of more miles per week at THEIR ideal easy pace, it would be one thing. But often, they’re running it faster than they should, because they’re with a group, and disciplined easy running is often hard in that situation. So, at 50-60 MPW in the fall, average Jimmie is going to go from 19 minutes in September to a thoroughly worn out 20 minutes in November.
You make a good point.
I'm a retired teacher who is subbing at the school I taught and coached at and I went to and ran track and XC.
I was talking to a kid this morning who's a decent runner and I'm telling him about the team when I went here.
He asked- What did you do different? He said that a lot of the kids are just "soft" and don't want to work so the coaches cater the workouts for everyone to them.
I just said that there were no distractions when I was in high school.
I don’t know about academic clubs, but what would church have to with participating in practice. Most kids among the good demographics for running, do not have part-time jobs and the only weekday family demand I had was showing up for dinner.
Swimming and all the ball sports required a bigger time commitment than running. Im pretty sure the coaches in those sports want both good game results and full commitment to improve.
You make it sound like HS distance runners have no passion for the sport and need to be babied through the season.
-what would church have to with participating in practice? LOL you arent from the South are you?
-"kids among the good demographics for running, do not have part-time jobs" Lucky for them, that's not the reality of my school.
-"You make it sound like HS distance runners have no passion for the sport and need to be babied through the season." Far from it, I think it was the exact opposite. These kids are involved in a variety of things AND still run and race. They are not just doing one thing.
I'm just tell you the reality of many of us. I WISH I was at a rich private school where the kids didn't work, where I had huge numbers of participants, where we could travel, do XC camps, all "the stuff", but that's not reality.
Travel, XC camps and other stuff makes no difference. In the Sacramento area, Walt Lange is the only coach at a rich private school. We had few athletes that had a part-time job and rather than helping out the family budget, they used their money for personal stuff including maybe saving up to buy a car. I remember a coach saying that you have just a few years to play a HS sport and about 40 years to work
If you’re in the South, I can’t imagine a football coach taking any crap from his players. If a player doesn’t want to put in the effort, he’ll find someone else that will. At your school, is XC/track the only sport where a kid doesn’t do his best?
Again, being good in a sport is exciting and the kids with talent are likely to do more than 35 mpw. At the annual sports banquet, my coach complimented me for doing more than he asked me to do.
Why do I see so many HS runners running 30-35 MPW with super high intensity? Surely there are many who would perform better especially at 3k and up with more volume?
Because everyone wants the quick and easy shortcut to success. They see one kid with ridiculous talent make it work and think it's good for the masses.
95% of high school runners are extremely aerobically underdeveloped. Until you're running 50-60 miles/week you don't need threshold, tempo, etc type workouts. Build the mileage, do strides & drills daily, a hill workout and a basic interval workout over the course of a 7-10 day repeatable training block is more beneficial over the long term.
.........
I'm sure the counter argument is going to be "But Cole Hocker ran 30/miles per week in high school".
He's the outlier, not the average high school kid. He ran 4:04(?) and won Footlocker off that training. But a year later with increased training he ran 3:50, eventually leading to world and Olympic championships.
Most decent sized high school track/xc teams will never have a Cole Hocker. They do have a lot of Jimmies and Janies stuck in the 20-25 minute 5k area. These are the kids that can have their potential unlocked with some decent aerobic development. They probably won't be top end great but they're your grinders and add depth and consistency to your program.
This I agree with this approach. You should spiral workouts on a regular basis, but variety is important in any sport! Plus kids do have different needs depending on their skill set.
Why do I see so many HS runners running 30-35 MPW with super high intensity? Surely there are many who would perform better especially at 3k and up with more volume?
Why do I see so many HS runners running 30-35 MPW with super high intensity? Surely there are many who would perform better especially at 3k and up with more volume?
In an ideal world you do want them to do a wide variety of training, but still hit important workouts regularly almost from the start of any season. If they do not run much in the summer or winter, this is even more true and good luck getting them above 40 mpw anyway. Most coaches believe in 4 X 1000 and 12 X 400 and you do have to do that stuff!