I assumed so. A lot of private coaches feel the need to give them “something” every day to justify their existence. You don’t pay someone to tell you to go for an easy run even if that’s what is needed.
private coaches are looking for short term results to keep getting paid and not at long term effects.
As someone else mentioned as stated this is not too much volume it's way too much intensity. If anything it's crazy to run 60-80 mpw and your long run is 11 miles??
The days with hill sprints are essentially just strides so from an intensity perspective that really is fine. It's the everything else being a hard day that's crazy!
As a different post also published why should it matter if it's a guy or a girl. Pro men and women run the same mileage the same workouts. It's pretty backwards to think HS women can't also do the same volume as a HS men. Do we just magically expect pro women to go from way less volume to the same when they graduate college?
Anyways that amount of intensity is insane at that volume. That ratio of easy to medium/high intensity for anything more than a 800 is sub optimal for 95% of runners. 10:40 in HS is very good. 11 min pace for easy days hurts my joints thinking about it. That volume of intensity isn't far off the volume of intensity I do during a marathon build 20-30 miles of intensity per week that is insane to do that much in highschool for 5k and under. Glad she is sleeping a lot hope she is eating enough to also somewhat recover. I bet if she took 2 weeks of easy running she would run fast
My friend’s training seems like a lot for high school. Ive been trying to tell her that, but she thinks it’s completely normal, so I wanted to get more insight on here. I dont want her to overtrain, and I also want to learn more about appropriate high school training too.
She averaged 60-80 miles per week in cross season. She has PBs of 2:16 800, 4:55 1600, and 10:40 3200. She runs 7 days a week. Typical breakdown from this past season:
The easy running is very easy at 9:00-11:00 pace. This seems unproductive because it’s too slow? I have similar times and run 7:30s over 6+ miles which is truly easy at a 140-145 average heart rate.
And also is this not too much mileage and intensity to promote improvement in college? Or am I just unfamiliar with a certain training style?
I will assume you are legit and earnest and I saw your note re. warm ups/cool downs. fwiw, when I was a high school senior boy runner many years ago I ran a few weeks in the early xc season that looked very similar to hers, I had 2 70+ mile weeks in the early season. Once we started racing, the avg was around 60-65mpw. I was a 16:39 guy for a hilly xc 5km course and ran 10:40-ish for 3200 later that school year in spring. She is not a natural 800m runner because she would have crashed and burned by now, she seems to be a true distance runner. If she is underclassman, this seems like too heavy a load. If she is a senior in high school with a couple of years high school running under her belt and she is committed to running and trying to position herself to run in college, then this is not a terribly-unusual training week (maybe a little intense with no days off). The tweak I would make is simply take one day off by getting rid of one of the weekend runs. Hopefully she can stay hungry, stay uninjured, stay focused and she is eating healthy and supplementing too and gets a scholarship to run in college or maybe gets to walk on at a powerhouse school.
So can you guys seriously not fathom the fact that I ASKED my friend for the fill details so I could provide info here
You can't change her training (since a private coach), but some good ideas here amongst the usual negativity.
Since she is your friend, the RED-S is a potential issue, so fueling is essential. It isn't the volume itself that is high (necessarily), but how it is constructed is problematic. As another poster said - too much high intensity Tempo (even the Threshold day is long at 2mile reps). Equally, if volume is high, replacing running with X-Training may be helpful, to reduce the likelihood of stress related injuries (if fueling is an issue). Both girls and boys bodies are still changing in HS, so being aware that growth spurts can affect athletes is important. I happen to believe that a 7day week is not necessary (certainly for HS anyway) and always include a rest day (non-running anyway - so passive rest, not active rest). Anything else is just being obsessive.
I presume this is a base season schedule - as you pointed out she does more race specific sessions at other times (like 68sec pace - her 800m) - is she asking you what might need adjusting between her and her coach? Is she concerned that she is over-training?
Too many coaches, whether HS or Private, see things in terms of weekly micro-cycles, and trying to get all training parameters done in a single week. Spread it out with unloading weeks as well. You can do any number of them (in km) - as 2 week, 3 week or even 4 week cycles. 6 week training macrocycles (see Daniels, McClure, etc.) have been shown to be productive as a guide to development. For an average of 80km (50miles) - she could could go 100/60 (2 week); 80/100/60 (3 week); 75/85/100/60 (4 week)* - each with a max of 100, and unloading of 60. Even allotting these weeks as volume (endurance weeks) and intensity weeks, can differentiate them and guide the kind of specific or general training done in each week. This is rhetorical - more for you than your friend. * I have a HS Junior (distance type) boy trying to do this exact cycle at the moment.
There are many ways to skin a cat - so providing alternative specific sessions is not the point here. That is between her and her coach to figure out. Her parents should be aware of what she is trying to do (since this isn't a HS program), and you should encourage her in that direction.
I have coached any number of girls at that performance level, both with equal or much less volume (but differently constructed, and based on the individual). I would say she is more on the distance side, and that is fine. In past years those at that level had little trouble getting scholarships (although that was a decade and more ago) but not at a P4 school. My recent athletes for the girls have been more on the 800m side (2.10 or faster) and train in a different manner.
So can you guys seriously not fathom the fact that I ASKED my friend for the fill details so I could provide info here
HAHAHA just stop.
You got from your friend that she ran her 2-mile reps at "5:54" (not "5:55", not "just under 6:00") and that her 800m PR is 2:16?
As someone else said, it's the details that make the lie obvious. I was the nerdiest student of the sport imaginable, and there is no way I ever gathered a training dossier with to-the-second workouts from a "typical" week of a "friend" who I am not even on a team with.
You seem more likely to be a parent or coach following some kid's program, and wanting to validate on the message board your opinion that it is "too much" or "not smart."
That's OK.
No need to come where pretending to be a child, a "concerned friend."
Exactly. If someone asks what kind of training you're doing, nobody is going into that granular of detail.
This guy is either:
-a coach considering this regime and looking for validation
-a parent considering this regime and looking for validation
-a HS kid considering this regime and looking for validation
She’s doing four days a week of intensity plus two days of hills sprints. That is certainly too much intensity designed very poorly. At most she should be doing two days a week of intensity, one moderate day, and one hill sprint session. Then the rest should be volume of 8-9 per minute easy miles.
Sat: Easy (4-6 miles) or off (stress fracture prevention day)
Total = 50-60 miles per week
Looks like a D3 or lower level D1 distance program!! I don't recommend this hs program for average runners; it should be reserved for runners on track for mid to high div1 programs.
She’s doing four days a week of intensity plus two days of hills sprints. That is certainly too much intensity designed very poorly. At most she should be doing two days a week of intensity, one moderate day, and one hill sprint session. Then the rest should be volume of 8-9 per minute easy miles.
Sat: Easy (4-6 miles) or off (stress fracture prevention day)
Total = 50-60 miles per week
Looks like a D3 or lower level D1 distance program!! I don't recommend this hs program for average runners; it should be reserved for runners on track for mid to high div1 programs.
At any level of college everything should be double. This is why American distance running as a whole sucks.
So, as long as an athlete is "fueling" she can go bonkers with training? Absurd.
Bonkers isn't 80 MPW. Bonkers is 150 MPW. Lots of evidence on high school age kids running lots of miles safely. So, yes, if a teenager has the time for good fueling and good recovery, then sure. The bigger issue most kids do not have that luxury. I mean, at that point you're close to being a pro in terms of time commitment.
Kids can do it. They also probably will have fewer friends, no other hobbies or things they do, and may even not be in public schools.
And, yeah, welcome to elite sports in ALL OTHER SPORTING CONTEXTS. Tennis, swimming, gymnastics? There is a reason you're top high school tennis players are not your top teenage tennis players in the USA. Same for swimming; you think those teenagers at the Olympics going to public school? No; they swim, get tutored, fuel, recover.
It is amusing to see how stuck in the 1950s so many runners can be when it comes to training and expectations.
People ragged on the Newbury Park program acting like close to a pro team in their methods and were scandalized, but the results are there. (And, frankly, much better than the teams where coaches just have lots of folks they put through a grinder just to see who survives; that's not coaching, that's some Squid Game stuff.)
Training is training. I’ve never understood how coaches can say that girls should train less than men.
Different rates of growth
Women's monthly issues
This stuff called testosterone which makes things a lot easier for males
Read up on female triad. I just had my d1 distance daughter get an order for all blood work to ensure everything is right from iron, cell blood count to estrogen. We all have read about melody Fairchild and allie ostrander (and many more). You don't read as many stories about boys/men training so poorly that they literally break and can NEVER run again!
2
1
not a doctor but I feel like this should be common sense
Ryan Hall. Both are important and I would wager that this is considered more of an issue with females in large part because it's more obvious. Maybe it happens more but we shouldn't dismiss the importance of this to male athletes. When an athlete doesn't fuel properly and/or overtrains sex hormones are suppressed. A female athlete does this, and maybe it's more common I don't know, she loses her period, and when a male athlete does this, his testosterone goes from maybe high or very high to moderate and it looks like nothing happened. However, as someone who has experienced this as a male, you're pretty much tired all the time and feel no emotion outside of running because you're so fatigued, which sucks. Also stress fractures I think? Anyways it's definitely still an issue. If you're underfueling your body so much that it shuts down its basic functions that's a problem and that cannot be healthy. Also estrogen helps with recovery and there are plenty of examples of female runners running higher volume than almost all men.
You got from your friend that she ran her 2-mile reps at "5:54" (not "5:55", not "just under 6:00") and that her 800m PR is 2:16?
As someone else said, it's the details that make the lie obvious. I was the nerdiest student of the sport imaginable, and there is no way I ever gathered a training dossier with to-the-second workouts from a "typical" week of a "friend" who I am not even on a team with.
You seem more likely to be a parent or coach following some kid's program, and wanting to validate on the message board your opinion that it is "too much" or "not smart."
That's OK.
No need to come where pretending to be a child, a "concerned friend."
Exactly. If someone asks what kind of training you're doing, nobody is going into that granular of detail.
This guy is either:
-a coach considering this regime and looking for validation
-a parent considering this regime and looking for validation
-a HS kid considering this regime and looking for validation
If I were a parent or coach WHY would I not just say that😭😭 I don’t know why that would even be a reason to lie and pretend you’re a kid???
Friend said those exact paces, I swear. She is prescribed stuff at those odd number paces. We’re not on a hs team together but we talk every single day and may end up on the same college team together
HAHAHAHA - right.
You are just a high school kid whose friend, from another school, shared with you a "Typical breakdown from this past season" that you thought you'd better bring to LetsRun.
She averaged 60-80 miles per week in cross season. She has PBs of 2:16 800, 4:55 1600, and 10:40 3200. She runs 7 days a week. Typical breakdown from this past season: Monday 6.5 mile tempo @ 6:15 Tuesday 4x60m hill sprints (3 mile warmup, 3 mile cooldown, 4 mile double later) Wednesday 3x2miles @ 5:54 with 4 min rest Thursday same as Tuesday Friday 3 miles @ 5:50 Saturday 8 miles @ 6:30 Sunday 11 miles easy
LOLOLOL. Please, tell us: as a HS runner, did you allegedly synthesize this "typical breakdown" from her training log? Her Strava account? Or is this an actual sample week?
My friend’s training seems like a lot for high school. Ive been trying to tell her that, but she thinks it’s completely normal, so I wanted to get more insight on here. I dont want her to overtrain, and I also want to learn more about appropriate high school training too.
She averaged 60-80 miles per week in cross season. She has PBs of 2:16 800, 4:55 1600, and 10:40 3200. She runs 7 days a week. Typical breakdown from this past season:
The easy running is very easy at 9:00-11:00 pace. This seems unproductive because it’s too slow? I have similar times and run 7:30s over 6+ miles which is truly easy at a 140-145 average heart rate.
And also is this not too much mileage and intensity to promote improvement in college? Or am I just unfamiliar with a certain training style?
Here's some advice on the training plan you're proposing.
You lay out 17.5 miles of tempo-threshold running each week.
In a 60 mpw week, that is ~30% of the week's mileage.