Sorry rode warrior. The intensity is the biggest problem, everything in moderation. We try to keep everything at threshold effort or below, easy days are easy, one day off per week, gradual increases in long runs, hills are a staple with the most long term benefits coming from them.
The high intensity kids have the shortest life span. (running life)
Not running higher mileage in high school is one of my biggest regrets as a (female) runner.
Not just because I think it would have made me a better runner sooner, but because I had a terrible transition to running in college. Almost all my female teammates who had successful college careers ran considerably more mileage than I did in high school (not necessarily high mileage but at least 40-50 mpw), and had considerably less difficulty adjusting to college level training.
I wasn't unmotivated, I trusted my coach and his training plan. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but he had the stupid idea that more than 25 mpw was too much for girls and he actually told us not to run more than that over the summer. I'm sure that going from 25 to 40 miles over 4 years would have been better than trying to do that over the summer before college.
When I say intensity it did not mean that we didn't have recovery days. Everyone is different but my kid is still running well and the higher mileage girls she competed with
have fissed out.
It's all the extra hormones and steroids in the birth control that allows them to do this.
My girls peak at slightly over 40 in xc season and hold that for a number of weeks. More than that and we tend to risk too many injuries. Less than that and we tend not to be very good. It's a pretty happy medium.
I agree with yetanotherchick. There is nothing wrong with girls running 50 or so their senior year. Cross country is a 6k course and running an average of 25 miles per week is brutal when you talk about jumping up so high.
I ran 10-15 miles a week and only during the season in high school, no long runs, didn't have a track,no coaching, ran 10:50 for 3200m. Went on to run 40-50 miles a week in college and run under 33:00 for 10k. Kept mileage low as a professional as well and did great. Probably could have run faster on more mileage, but my body held up and I'm still racing as a master, still on low mileage. I think run low mileage young to decrease the risk of injury and then if running is your gig' in college and professionally turn it up a notch or two and see what your made of.
Just my 2 cents
Obviously the amount of mileage a female runner can handle is going to be different for each individual. I'd be interested to hear if there are many high school girls who continue training with 40-50 miles over the winter and run indoor track. And, how do they hold up injury-wise come track season? I know a girl who used to train all year in high school and was very successful. She is now a sophomore in college (DII program) and hasn't been able to get through a single season due to injuries.
Many of the responses sound very similar to what I have been saying.
My girls all train year round. My top few athletes run 40-50 miles a week. The rest of the runners average 30-40 but I am working on bringing that up. Like I said, there is a very slow progression here as at least with the girls I have coached many have injury problems if you suddenly jump up in mileage or intensity.
As for training year round, I attribute their success to the fact we train year round. We take 2-3 weeks off after XC and track (no indoor) and build a big base. Then slowly transition into workouts and it seems to help. In California we have a very long season (Feb-June) so there is no rush.
lucky runner wrote:
I ran 10-15 miles a week and only during the season in high school, no long runs, didn't have a track,no coaching, ran 10:50 for 3200m. Went on to run 40-50 miles a week in college and run under 33:00 for 10k. Kept mileage low as a professional as well and did great. Probably could have run faster on more mileage, but my body held up and I'm still racing as a master, still on low mileage. I think run low mileage young to decrease the risk of injury and then if running is your gig' in college and professionally turn it up a notch or two and see what your made of.
Just my 2 cents
You are lucky. Lots of talent involved there. I agree with a couple of people have said above everyone is different and you can't generaize what every girl should do.
40 mpw is not very high for an experienced upperclassman. Now that it's winter, my runners are back to building their base and will be over this amount of mileage in the off season.
MC wrote:
I had more success with about 38 miles a week. My CC PR was 18:52. Not great, but it was competitive at States.
Uhuh, and in which states were you competitive?
you were injured running anything over 38 miles a week as an unpperclassman? It almost sounds like a coaching error. what kind of training were you doing? I had newbie freshman running that amount, or more, by the end of the season. We peaked at the state finals and had 7 healthy runners.
.............................. wrote:
Look at that thread about the girl who is wanting to go over 60 mpw on doubles etc. That's work ethic. There are plenty of girls teams in California that are running 100 mpw or over. The Fountain Valley girls were running 135 mpw.
This is either one of the best attempts at trolling ever or you are just plain delusional. I'd love to know where you get your information. I doubt very much there are any individual high school girls running 100mpw in California let alone "Plenty of teams"
Actually there are. As an alumni of a very good HS team from California, I can tell you that there were at least 5-10 women on my team who hit that type of mileage. Also, Sarah Sumpter (now at UC Davis)... HUGE improvement from 10th to 12th grade, largely in part to the 100 mpw she put in. See this thread:
http://www.talk.dyestat.com/showthread.php?t=75770
Look at the posts by people like Remylive.
um...where was he? wrote:
you were injured running anything over 38 miles a week as an unpperclassman? It almost sounds like a coaching error. what kind of training were you doing? I had newbie freshman running that amount, or more, by the end of the season. We peaked at the state finals and had 7 healthy runners.
Congratulations on your fantastic season a-hole. You are the best a-hole. You will never have an injured runner a-hole. You are better than every other coach in america because you are an .........a-hole.
hs coach.. wrote:
Wow, I agree completely with "more anecdotal". I also coach a team of girls that was at NXN this year and we kept the mileage around 40ish for the seniors with the one frosh on the team at around 30 and she has a strong background of xc skiing and could probably handle more but thinking long term and will continue to increase it.
I have also coached a hs girl who made it to footlocker off of 35 mpw who also ran a 10:11 2 mile in a dual meet. Another who made it to fl as a soph at 33 mpw and a jr at 38 mpw, this yr she made it again running low 40's although I no longer coach her.
They would have run more if I asked and probably could have handled it, but if it was too much we would have found out the hard way, by injury. Instead these girls were always healthy and improving yr to yr and more importantly were loving it.
thats awesome.. name of the girl?
40 MPW(w/good balance of trining intensities) is the benchmark for a decently talented (non-blue-chip) girl running 4:50's and 10:30's. For boys it's 4:20's/9:30's for the same mileage. All other numbers emerge from this.
I have taken an adult woman from 7:00 to sub-5:00 in 17 months w/out injury at this level of talent and mileage, but that is with very personalized training. In a team setting at least two-three years would be more typical.
At my high school the boys and girls programs were combined. Did the same runs, same workouts. We had two-a-day practices the first two weeks of the season, and we easily hit 55mpw those two weeks, and probably 50 for the next two weeks. This was both genders. Boys' mileage would be a bit higher, as we tended to go running on our "off" days (Sundays). However, it was only the top few girls who would always elect to go on the furthest runs (typically 7-9mi on easy runs; workouts usually totaled 6-8mi), and so only 4-7 girls on the team out of ~60 girls total hit that mileage any given year. Many more boys were inclined to do so; I imagine it's a cultural thing. The girls tended to get hurt more often than the guys, but that happens everywhere. I'm from a good midwestern running state. In the past several years, both teams have qualified for NXN, and they have had several state champions in track and XC and a few state team titles. Many of the girls went on to run in college, with varying degrees of success--I think a lot of them found out that great coaches who can keep women healthy and fit are a rare find!
I have a 15 year old daughter who runs 30 to 35 miles a week with weekends off, but only for cross training. She plays soccer and competes in karate. We have talked about cross country and she may try it next year as long as she can still play soccer. I'm sure if running was her only sport, she would run as much mileage as she could.