High school training in the 70s... was it really this insane?!?

My uncle used to tell crazy stories about how they used to run rim to rim to rim at the Grand Canyon with his HS team a few times a year. That's like 40 miles with 11k elevation change. It seems like training was pretty disorganized and turned into a schlong measuring contest for some teams of that era.

One of my running buddies figured how spread out the white lines were on the roads and counted them to get his mileage estimate. Most of us drove the routes best we could or had bikes with mileage counters to gauge mileage. I remember my mom saying “you just ran for 2 hrs, why do you need to take my car”:-)

What time we did 30 quarters in 1.5 hours.

And they did run fast. In my state growing up a lot of the all-time 3200 (2 mile conversions) were from the 70's to early 80's. Then nothing fast seemed to be run in the 90's and early 2000's. Then around 2010-2015 things really started heating up again (before 'super shoes'). Over half the all-time top 20 was run from 2011-2015

Huh? Don’t need a gps around a 440y/400m track, which is where he did the overwhelming majority of his running (even the 3 and 4 milers). Handheld stopwatches worked then just as well as those today.

It is myth the Nelson ran 140 miles a week all summer. He did run a 140 week during summer, but that was one week. His mileage has been exaggerated through the years. He trained with his team mate Lin Whatcott (they both went out for cross country in the 10th grade). They would do LSD runs (6 to 10 miles), and speedwork days being a run mixed with Fartlek

What's funny is I've read just about every word on Jeff Nelson from these boards and I do remember a poster claiming to be his coach set the record straight saying that 140 miles was peak and it was at the end of summer where they were increasing their mileage 10% a week starting at 50. Still, this is crazy to me to keep pushing the mileage that far! I feel like most coaches/programs would cap that off around 70-80. But, as it's been stated, the era was a special one for running and running mileage especially. Jeff and Lin must have covered every inch of trail in Griffith Park that summer of 78!

I think Serna's workouts would have been unusual. That was a lot of hard to moderate workouts day after day with no longer runs. But, really, it's difficult to generalize. Most coaches had not background in running. There was no internet. You learned how to train by word of mouth, the few books with existed, and Runner's World (which was more targeted to runners than joggers in the 70's.

There were lot of runners, in my area, doing 100 mile weeks. If not all the time, then at least pretty regular. However, most were probably in the 50's or 60's.

It was typical at my school to do workouts M and W, steady 8-10 mile run on T, 4-6 miles easy on TH. Race on Friday. For both XC and Track. Weekends were on your own.

Off season was on your own. There was lots of talk about the 1000 mile summer. I was never sure if that was 12 weeks or 10 weeks. No one on our team ever did one. I tried once (the 12 week version) and completely fell apart. I was not ready, and I had a really bad season (but great track season).

As for how you measured - again word of mouth, guesstimation, bikes, cars, maps with string or a ruler measuring short segments. In the end, it did not really matter as long as you were close enough.

I got to college right as GPS watches were becoming common. There was a route they’d been doing for years as 10 miles with out and back for a section. Route was only 9.6 miles. Close enough for government purposes, but we did extend the turnaround to make it a full 10.

I ran back in the late 1970's in MA. Salazar was a couple years older than me. Our team won a couple all-state championships and other high finishes. We never competed beyond the state meet. Our season started in August and finished late November.

the formula was pretty simple. Summer shoot for 500 miles of easy running in 10 weeks.

Show up in decent shape in August to start training a couple weeks before school started.

Warmups included basic core and upper body strength work. Workout were not overly hard and were about 5-7 miles long, we training 6 days a week and took Sundays off. If we raced Saturday we did 30 mins easy on our own.

Many workouts we did up-tempo / threshold. We did not do much anaerobic work at all other than some hill repeats. If we did any track work like 440's or 880's they were always done in control. I was a decent HS runner and my 440's were done in the 67-70 range and 880's and the same pace plus a few seconds.

We often would do something like 2.5 mile warmup, 2 x 880, 2.5 mile warmdown.

Never more than 4 or 5 x 440's on track. We raced 2-3 times per week in some periods to the training was more recovery often. Our coach was a sub 4:20 miler who would have competed in the 1950's. He knew what he was doing and we always peaked at State without fail.

Good example was one year we finished runner up DIV III (Divisions I to V with top two teams going to state plus individuals. At state we beat the DIV III champ and came in third overall. Not bad for a medium sized school.

Starting at 50 and increasing 10% per week would get one to 140 at week 12. So perhaps that’s what they did? Crazy.

70-80 mpw is probably the right amount for a high school upperclassmen who wants to be really good and run in college but still leave a lot of room to improve. The 1000-mile summer is roughly 80 mpw.

I drove all my routes and measured with the car odometer

Back in the 60s a common idea was that distance races were painful so your training needed to prepare you to deal with that pain, to push through it. You'd hear that your training should hurt more than your races so the races wouldn't hurt as much in comparison.There was a constant emphasis on being tough and making your runs hard pretty much daily was supposed to help you do that. There were ideas coming along that a better way of dealing with pain in races was to get fit enough that races were less painful but like any other idea it took a wile to spread.

Yes lots of "junk" miles and lots of guys who peaked in HS.

Craig Virgin's high school coach's first year of coaching was also Craig's first year of running. They didn't know what they were doing as he recalls, but he ran 8:44?

I believe Virgin was around 80 mpw, if memory serves. Ran 8:40.9 on a 94 degree day as a senior (he had run 8:57 as a sophomore). Super talented guy. He didn’t peak in high school as he won the world cross country championships twice and made three Olympic teams I believe, including 1980, which was his best shot at a medal in the 10,000 but for the boycott.

My high school had 42 car driven/measured routes that were later measured with the original Jones Counter developed by Alan Jones in the late 1970's.

I had many courses from my house that my parents and later I measured.

Back then, before GPS, I got pretty good at estimating how far I ran based on time and "feel".

When GPS started I was within 0.02 on most of my courses.

And I DO think we trained with a higher volume than average.

I also knew a lot of guys out of high school who ran 100 mpw- never me, lol.

And marathons (in 1980's shoes) sub 2:40 were common just in my area.

Now, when I tell people that I ran 2:49 on about 50 mpw they think I'm some kind of local God.

Expectations and standards have dropped.

The 70s believed in running long but slow. This was enabled because shoe technology actually took a great leap forward with the development of EVA midsoles. You could run longer if you weren't running on a wooden plank. My Great Uncle was a national level runner in the 1930s. I have a photo of him running a road race, in what today would be classified as dress shoes. Eventually people got injured and then the low mileage 90s (where you didn't run much but you ran fast when you did run) happened. Now we're back to high mileage thanks to another advance in shoe technology but sacral stress fracture increases may bring back the low mileage 90s soon. It's all a cycle.

It depends on where you lived. In many states, roads were in grids, so every mile had a crossroads. Run one road, turn, go one road, turn, run one road, turn, run one road, turn, and you get four miles. If you wanted to do more, just go an extra road before turning. Easy to know how far you ran that way.

Also, I mapped out a winding six mile course in town during college that I could run after dark. I only had to modify it to avoid loose dogs. It was my go-to when I wanted to do six. I am sure they did this in the 70s, as well as when I did it in the early 90s.