Whats the highest mileage a high school runner should run?

I could hold around 70 much of the time. 75 was pushing it and 80 ways pushed me over a line. 65-70 I could sustain. I had a very speedwork-light schedule. And much of what I did do was on hills. Went to a track only occasionally. Funny thing is, I can't do quite as much mileage now in middle age.

I suspect I was a little low for optimum development, so I would say my mileage should be a floor for most. Ceiling much higher in my opinion.

Coach LL wrote:

The longest a high schooler races is 5k. So however far you can cover in 90 minutes a day. That can be one or two runs. Over 90 minutes depletes glycogen, which is for marathoners.

The longest races I did at the time were full marathons. Given around 10 or so kids in 17-and-under were under 3 hours (2:54 didn't get me into the top-3 awards) it seems as though it wasn't uncommon. Maybe not happening these days, but in my mind there's no 5k ceiling.

YungFartlek wrote:

for high school training I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity.... hovering in the low to mid 40's typically. I want my runners to get to college and thrive, not be burnt out.

Then why do you emphasize quality?

Phishguy wrote:

Whats the most mpw a high school runner should run? 50 mpw?

Dumb question, but very typical one.

Everyone is different on what they should do and will handle. Ritz ran 90 in HS and other studs ran way less.

CaliforniaHS Coach wrote:

Phishguy wrote:

Whats the most mpw a high school runner should run? 50 mpw?

Dumb question, but very typical one.

Everyone is different on what they should do and will handle. Ritz ran 90 in HS and other studs ran way less.

Bob Kennedy said he never ran more than 40 in HS, and he was pretty good.

It's a very individual thing, and man HS kids have more on their plate than just running. HS kids should be worrying about classroom performance, running performance, and their social life (gasp!). Sacrificing sleep, going to class tired and the going to afternoon practice and shuffling through, not worth that extra 4M morning shuffle at 5am. Also your teen age years are time to develop social skills, you learn how to interact with people, with your peers, your classmates, go on a date (rare on this site), work a job?

I'm just picturing some kid going "all in" and then getting hurt or sick and being very very bitter about all the time and wasted effort and turning something that should have been a huge positive into a negative.

The question was the highest. It is like asking what the fastest HS miler is and everyone responds with a bunch of categories such as by state or sex or age or grade. The highest is probably 120.

The top 3 guys in my senior class for my state were ~1:51-1:52-1:53, ~4:05-4:10-4:15, 9:05-9:10-9:15 and all finished top 20 at the Nike/Footlocker regions. I know from talking to them that all of them did 30-40 miles a week. There's no reason to make scrub high school kids knock out 14 mile long runs and 60-70 mile weeks when you could instead have them doing track repeats 3x a week.

A very good kid who doesn't have much speed could probably work up to 60-70 by their senior year but I would expect them to be

Anyone that gives you a specific number of exactly what all High School runners should do, doesn't know how to coach.

Everyone is different and should be treated as such. One kid's 35 mpw is another ones 90.

High school runners have had success running from 30 - 200 miles per week.

KnewBalance wrote:

Bob Kennedy said he never ran more than 40 in HS, and he was pretty good.

It's a very individual thing, and man HS kids have more on their plate than just running. HS kids should be worrying about classroom performance, running performance, and their social life (gasp!). Sacrificing sleep, going to class tired and the going to afternoon practice and shuffling through, not worth that extra 4M morning shuffle at 5am. Also your teen age years are time to develop social skills, you learn how to interact with people, with your peers, your classmates, go on a date (rare on this site), work a job?

I'm just picturing some kid going "all in" and then getting hurt or sick and being very very bitter about all the time and wasted effort and turning something that should have been a huge positive into a negative.

Agreed! We don't do doubles during the school year because I'm not okay with kids missing out on sleep. 95% of my varsity girls are running 35-45 mpw depending on their running history. I've had a few really disciplined kids get into the low 50s as seniors. I think 50ish for girls and 60ish for boys is a great target for high end varsity kids. They are running enough to build a strong foundation and to be prepared for the college level, but they still have balance in their life and room to grow.

It sounds like 200 is the highest amount that any high schooler should do.

I did 100+ in HS and was not close to strapped for time. In fact I had too much time.

22mi long run, 18 semi-long run. 12.x easy days.

No problem. Practice after school, we did the 12. mile route for normal runs.

22 on Sunday.

workout days, 2-3 mile warmup. maybe 4-7 during the workout, 3-4 mile cooldown.

Home by 4:30, 5 if I grabbed dinner.

2 hours or 3 hours on a weekend day is not much.

What were you doing during HS that made you have no time? An 8hr a day job on top of school?

Sfgkgfdgjh wrote:

There's no reason to make scrub high school kids knock out 14 mile long runs and 60-70 mile weeks when you could instead have them doing track repeats 3x a week.

Coach, is that you? Repeats on the track and low mileage! lol That's a great recipe for successs - NOT!

Best advice on here is the gradual progression from say 30-40 freshman year up to around 60-70 TOPS. Those idiots saying 90-100 in high school are wrong. Sure, you'll have some success in high school but more than likely will burn out.

We have a high school program here in west Michigan (Fremont) that produces phenom runners year after year. Every year, some new freshman or sophomore is running mid-15s. Problem is, none of their runners amount to anything after high school. They aren't recruited by the top programs because they have nowhere to go in their training - they are maxed out. I've seen runners come out of their program as state champs, mid-low 15s in xc 5K, barely breaking 27 in the college 8K. They train them like college kids with high mileage. Great for the coach and his program, bad for the runner.

Slow, steady progression year to year, build up to around 60-70 tops, and you will continue to progress in college. Running is a journey. Don't try to cram your entire career into 4 years.

York was always a high mileage program. I am not sure if Charlie Kern requires mileage like Joe Newton did, but there were times my kids hit 110+ mpw, though to be sure a lot of kids ran less than that, more like 75-90 mpw. This is now unusual, to be sure. I cannot think of a school where they are hitting those kids of miles per week now.

Mileage is a very individual thing. For what it's worth, most top boys high school runners build up to 65-75 miles a week by the time they are seniors.

It’s more about intensity in my opinion, I am comfortable having a high school boy run up to 70 if he is talented and not overdoing it. Females I would stay south of 60, all these mileages are based off of top tier runners. It obviously depends on the person though.

Did you feel like a sucker when you got drilled by some dude running 40mpw? I know I would if I were you.

These are not examples of what high school runners "should" do, but I thought I would share my two cents on some mileage extremes for high school runners that I have heard of. At a coaching clinic, I once heard Chris Solinsky say his peak mileage in high school would occasionally be 100 mpw. In college, I ran with some guys who went to York High School in Illinois, and they claimed that prior to cross country season their peak mileage as a team was 120 mpw. They also had over 200 kids go out for the sport, and only a few could work their way up to that type of mileage. There was a guy I knew in high school a year older than me who was about an 18:00 5k cross country runner during his junior year of high school, began running 100-120 mpw on a consistent basis and worked his way down to a 9:30 3200m by the end of his senior track season. He wasn't particularly talented, just willing to put in the work. I don't believe he ever saw any improvement after high school. I used to be under the assumption that all elite high school runners were running 60+ mpw, but that certainly isn't the case. The level of coaching that kids receive in high school is extremely inconsistent across programs. It is amazing how many really talented runners from large schools receive poor coaching. There was a kid in my area who was a 4:10/9:00 guy in high school whom I thought must have been running huge mileage. Come to find out his coach never really held properly organized practices and this kid basically raced his way into shape. I am not sure what kind of mileage he was running, but I got the impression that he may not have been running over 20 mpw on a consistent basis.

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