Good High School GIRLS...whats you're summer mileage?

to zzzzz: I do not do all phases for high schoolers for both track and cross country. As an example, I had Allison do hill springing last summer before her senior year. She did 4 weeks of 3 times per week, 3 complete circuits with a 4th uphill, which took her about 70-80 minutes per workout. In Colorado, cross country is 8 weeks, starting the last week of August and ending the last Saturday of October. So, September is both higher mileage and anaerobic work, October is a taper on the mileage and an increase on the speeds and anaerobic target pace. Allison won her region over the eventual state champ, despite a sorry foot, but it may have cost her at state. Hope that addresses your questions, if not let me know.

yikes: 2 hour runs, if done comfortably aerobic are not the issue that burns kids out, it is intense anaerobic work. Allison ran with teammates and adults that I also coach. Her first season the runs were typically over 9 minute per mile pace. This spring she had some runs where she averaged under 8 for 2 hours. Progression is the name of the game. Developing a runner's aerobic capacity is the key. Anguel Tolev, 2nd MW Footlocker last fall, was in the same boat. When we were setting up his training for this summer, he asked me to get him up to 90 mpw. He said, "ever summer I ran more miles and each year I ran better in cross country. I want to continue to improve". Like Allison he would run with other folks I coach putting in weekly highs of 2 hours with some weeks of 90 or 105 minutes for recovery or when the week held a somewhat important race.

Good running,

Glenn

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be the best runner on your team - a little friendly competition with your own teammates can carry the whole team forward.

Glenn, thanks for the response, i wasn't trying to be a critic.

I understand that it is all about progression. But, that is where i was headed. If you are at 2 hrs. at 16 yrs. old where do you progress. The pace will increase as you develop but not the distance.You can still progress without ever going over 90 min. in HS. I coach HS girls and beleive it is all about aerobic development. I just think it is safer to start at a lower mileage and build from there. It is not the burnout i fear, but more in the way of the pounding and depleting the body with too much mileage.

When you enter the college and the races are longer, you up the mileage to reach the next level.

yikes: the benefit of going more than 90 minutes is that the return for the time increases and the return for each minute is much greater over 105 minutes. It plateaus out at about 2 hours. It is in that time range (105 to 120 minutes) that fast-twitch fibers begin getting recruited. This enhances the runners speed while running at more comfortable paces.

If you notice I mention time, not distance. Running for time gives the runner freedom to run slower. It does not matter how fast they run, they will still be out for the same time. Running for "x" miles encourages runners to run harder, as if they do they will finish quicker. I have had many runners tell me that they feel much more relaxed and comfortable running for time than they ever did running for miles. Allison's first 2 hour runs were barely longer than 12 miles, this past winter she was approaching 16 miles for the same amount of time, and effort.

Good running,

Glenn

give her a break. It's good to be competitive on your team because it pushes everyone else to work equally as hard, and that's when there are results-- not when people don't care if their teammates beat them. Running is as much of an individual sport as it is a team sport and can't be compared to basketball in that respect.

Running girl, don't listen to this tool. As long as you are working hard and not trying to set your teammates back (which I doubt you are), you have nothing to worry about. There is no shame in wanting to beat your teammates. I'm on a college team and my coach encourages us to work to beat each other because of how it pushes each other. Some of the fiercest competition comes from friends rather than faces you don't know.

Glenn, I understand the benefits of the mileage. My point is, if you have a 16 yr. old girl running 2 hour runs. Where does she go to continue the development. You say the benefits plateau at about 2 hrs.. she is already at that max as a 16 yr. old, she will cover more distance during the 2 hours over time. But, my point is, why hit 2 hr runs as a 16 yr. old? Why not build up more slowly so that the 2 hr. runs come at about 20 yrs. of age? I would think most anyone is physically capapble of bigger and better things at 20 and beyond than at 16.

I have coached 2 girls to under 5:00 for the mile and under 10:30 for 2 miles in the past 4 years on 6 days of running per week, long run of 65 min., hill training 1 day per week till spring. We incorporate a threshold run of 20 min. into our long run (sometimes 2 x 10 min.). This year the long run will go to 70-75 min., one of those girls will be a junior. We also do no speed at all in the fall, 6 weeks of speed in the spring (mile race pace stuff).

Leaving room to develop in college.

Glenn McCarthy wrote:

the benefit of going more than 90 minutes is that the return for the time increases and the return for each minute is much greater over 105 minutes. It plateaus out at about 2 hours. It is in that time range (105 to 120 minutes) that fast-twitch fibers begin getting recruited. This enhances the runners speed while running at more comfortable paces.

i have never heard this before.. any articles on this?

Yikes: Congratulations on your results. Where you are giving the runners you work with the allowance to improve with more mileage in college, I am giving my runners the allowance to increase the intensity.

Your runners would be running hills once a week for 7 months (if they did none in the summer) or about 28 workouts, at most my runners would do 12 workouts per year of hills. When they run long, they run long, no "work" during long runs. Simple aerobic development. The only "speed" we do is once a week during April, as they are preparing for league, region and state, in addtion to races of course. The runners are usually in so much better shape than the rest of the team that they get recruited to run the 4x400 and 4x800. So these runners can handle the extra work because of their tremendous aerobic base. When they get to college, they are prepared to race 6 km (girls) or 10 km (boys) because of the volume of running they have done. The increase in intensity is what they have to adapt to and improve with. Aerobic fitness continues to improve over years. Lydiard said "No one would have to run anaerobic work if they did not want to improve quickly. Aerobic fitness continues to improve over time." I try to balance on-going aerobic improvement with short (8 weeks in the fall, and 10 weeks in the spring) of some anaerobic, hill and speed work.

Glenn

This is all very interesting. I wonder what coaches mean when they refer to their girls doing hill workouts -- do your regular runs not include hills? On my team we run significant hills within our runs at least 3 days/week.

I've long been a fan of very long runs -- 80+ min, however I just find that most girls under 17 can't handle over 70 on a regular basis. They are too tired and end up doing their other runs tired, leading to injury, etc.

One thing I didn't mention that I think is key to our (small) team's success -- lots of trails. Beyond the softer surfaces that trails provide, I think jumping over roots, little ups and downs and twists train the body for racing and do a lot to prevent injury/increase strength.

In terms of the girl who said she wanted to be #1. Absolutely a great goal, however I've seen being obsessed with being #1 destroy girls (& teams + a huge coaching headache). I try to get my girls to think about setting goals of being in the mix of every race (up front). If you have a couple girls on your team thinking about winning the race, it's pretty likely your team will win as well.

PS - No, I am not from Hilton. A big fan from afar though.

I know that it was openly discussed by David Martin, Peter Snell and Nobby Hashizume at the Lydiard Foundation kick-off. I'll check with Nobby to see if he can steer me to documented articles. I'll get back to you with that.

Glenn

Dustin Diamond wrote:

give her a break. It's good to be competitive on your team because it pushes everyone else to work equally as hard, and that's when there are results-- not when people don't care if their teammates beat them. Running is as much of an individual sport as it is a team sport and can't be compared to basketball in that respect.

Running girl, don't listen to this tool. As long as you are working hard and not trying to set your teammates back (which I doubt you are), you have nothing to worry about. There is no shame in wanting to beat your teammates. I'm on a college team and my coach encourages us to work to beat each other because of how it pushes each other. Some of the fiercest competition comes from friends rather than faces you don't know.

I don't know if any other girls have had a similar experience with their high school team, but a few girls on mine got pissed when I became faster than them. There were two girls who fought over who got to lead the pack on our regular runs (heaven forbid anyone run a different pace). They would actually cut each other off. If someone tried to push the pace, one girl always said, "guys, I think we're speeding up," implying that she couldn't go any faster and therefore neither could we since she was the "leader." Finally I stopped caring, increased my mileage (which they also had a problem with), and ran faster. That was our team's most successful season.

It is good to be a little competitive on a team. A little. It needs to be in fun. If the main goal of someone on the team is beating someone else on the team, the whole team suffers in several ways. It can really introduce some nastiness among teammates (ala, what txrunnergirl wrote). Also, if the main goal is to beat another teammate, what happens in races? I had a teammate who was like this with me. Of course we wanted to beat each other. But if i had a bad race, he had one too. Basically, because he was completely unconcerned with racing other uniforms...only with racing me! Did that help our team? No way, it HURT our team.

Glenn and Yikes,

You guys are comparing apples to apples. Yes, both of you have different training methods and ideologies, but essentially it all comes down to Faith. Both teams are successful because the athletes believe 100% that their coach has their best interests in mind. If you believe in a program results happen. Neither of you guys is right and neither of you are wrong, both of you believe in something and believe your athletes believe it too.

Pariah

I think there would be plenty of room to continue developing in college. Moreover, there is no evidence to suggest that running 2 hrs easy would lead to burn out in later years. On the contrary, there is ample evidence suggests that 16-20 are prime years to develop the aerobic capacity to do additional hard work in the 20s (this is the suggested pattern for developing elite cross country skiers as well).

yikes.. wrote:

Glenn, I understand the benefits of the mileage. My point is, if you have a 16 yr. old girl running 2 hour runs. Where does she go to continue the development. You say the benefits plateau at about 2 hrs.. (mile race pace stuff).

Leaving room to develop in college.

When I was in hs my milege was relatively low. 30-35 mpw during the school year, and the summer before my senior year I peaked at 50 mpw, but most weeks were closer to 35-40.

My PR's in hs were under 10:30 for 2 mile, under 4:55 for 1 mile, and I finished in the top 10 at Footlocker.

My runs were run at a good quality pace, and I always took 1 day off/week. In college I ran more, but my easy days were easier, and my workouts were faster. My times improved a lot in college.

On the hills topic we do not do hill repeats during the base phase because too often I've seen that turn into sprinting up the hill which is not what we're going for at this phase. With the older girls we tend to shoot for hillier courses two days a week midsummer on we'll throw hills into the long run.

As for the competition within the team I definitely agree with you as I watched what I thought was a close group of kids fall apart as the rest of our girls closed the gap to our front runner and we had a little shuffling in the order of our top five. Perhaps I should have diffused things better as a coach so I accept that responsibility, have learned from the experience, and am perhaps wary of the next potential implosion. At the same time competition among teammates can make teams even stronger if there is underlying cooperation involved as well. If you have a few closely matched kids it only makes sense that they will split who's in the top spot based on better days/course more suited to their strengths and so forth. No one can win all the time which I've found to be a tough thing to handle for some kids.

Glenn, the hill workouts are cut out the the 2+ weeks before the state meet in x-c and the three weeks prior to the state meet indoors. As far as 28 hill workouts in a year being alot, i don't agree. It is strength building with low impact. Back in the day i would do 1-2 hill workouts per week 10 months out of the year, had a fear of the track, but i could run sub 30 for 10k any time of the year.

pariahj, i'm not saying Glenn is wrong, i'm a big fan of Lydiard based training, just feel it can progress at a slower rate.

Also, this is for Glenn, the first girl i mentioned above, ran a 2:06 relay split in HS as a senior, 2:08 indoor 800 as a senior, with hills as the main focus. She has gone to a major Div. 1 program and has not run that fast in the 800 despite being on the track as much as 3 times per week. The one ingredient left out of her training since HS is hills, has not progressed at the shorter stuff.

I'm not in highschool anymore but when I was in highschool:

1. 10:20 2 Mile, top 10 at Footlocker National Chp

2. 35-40 miles per week

OK, Ms. was good in hs. You did moderate mileage in hs, how about the intensity?

Did you run in college? Did you progress? Did the training load increase? Did you adjust easily? Was the progression gradual?

Curious to see how people progress from low to moderate mileage and intensity programs in hs. Is it worth it to be patient?