Can a highschool coach really “burn out” their athletes to the point where they are worse in collegr

I would assume the numbers are very but have no specifics either. What I can say that is unique about running, and what can be particularly tough, is that it is a pure fitness test that is directly comparable to previous results. Swimming is pretty similar but you can improve your technique or work on different strokes whereas running is just running. I think this can be a source of real "motivation souring" as runners can be faced with direct evidence that they are no longer improving or are at least falling behind their competition.

For those runners used to high achieving and being competitive beyond just with themselves, I can easily see this being more frustrating than it would in other sports. I think most people who have been running a while, regardless of their competitive level, can relate to a moment where they've looked at a current result vs a past result and thought "what's happened to me?" I can only imagine how this would feel if you are someone who had been at the very peak of competitive running at a young age and have scholarship or team obligations to consider as well. I think in other sports it may be a little easier to hide among teammates or a base level of developed skills to ease this kind of realization but running it is all laid bare on the results page.

Wow! Good to hear this from the man himself! Isaac was a great runner and his turn of speed in both of those 2016 races was truly impressive! While disappointing he did not continue to improve at Stanford, I'm sure he looks back on his running journey as a major success and a fun chapter in life. I think most of "burnout" can be broken down as some for of "switched focus to real life."

“Well they aren’t going to improve in college” Is a lame excuse perpetuated by mediocre/poor coaches that don’t/hardly ever send athletes to colleges and the phrase is then parroted by their athletes.

Who is going to do better at a 70-80 mpw program? The kid who ran a 16:30 5k off of 25-30 miles per week or the kid who ran 14:50 off of 50-60 miles per week? Both likely have similar potential but 1 isn’t being recruited to good programs first off, and isn’t going to be able to handle a collegiate training work load at all. A 50 mpw kid can usually be a 70 mpw kid in the span of a year, a 25-30 mpw kid who doesn’t train seriously in the off-season will have an extremely hard time being successful at any point in their college career.

The highschool I went to has sent 3 distance boys to college athletics in recent memory, I do not count myself because I was not recruited and only became collegiate caliber after training myself for a year. 2 of them did not improve in college and burnt out, and the other 1 went pro. The one who went pro was running 50 mile weeks his senior year unbeknownst to the coach. This is a program that has 30-40 distance boys year to year, and runs roughly 15-20 mpw during track and 25-30 mpw during XC. Our coach would say the same thing whenever we would ask about why we didn’t run 50+ miles per week like the top programs in our state.

If an athletes genetic potential is a 3:58 mile, you are not failing them by training them to a 4:0x in highschool. If an athlete runs 4:25 in highschool and improves to 3:58 in college, you didn’t conserve their potential, you actually just screwed them out of running at an elite miler program and I doubt your coaching ability.

Yes, people will ask about some successful HS or collegiate runner and ask "Whatever happened to THAT guy??" and then you find out he decided to get his MD, or actually go to work, get married and raise a family.

Yeah, a real loser not worrying about shaving .02 seconds off his 5k!

there are a million different reasons for what happens from HS to college. Some of it is real life happens. Some of it is kids getting lost in the shuffle becoming just another guy, when they were given every minute of attention in high school. Some kids get less attention and worse training in college. some may lose interest (burn out) because what they're doing in college doesn't feel as important as it did in high school (running culture, community, life long bonds, etc.)

Most high school coaches don’t understand development and progression. Including Doug Soles. He gets the high school job done, but truly doesn’t understand training. He gets a A for effort though.
This term burnout is mental not physical. The athletes that don’t improve usually find other things in life to focus on away from the track.

Haha, feel free to drop me an email to discuss. I'd love to learn from the great mustard seed!

Coach Soles

No, the 14:50 and 16:30 do not even remotely have the same potential. I also don’t believe a coach could possibly train someone with 3:58 talent to run only 4:25 in HS, even if he wanted to.

It's not really burn out like people say. Mileage and proper training can be disguised as talent especially at a young age. Lots of kids that do not get much better in college that come from really good programs aren't necessary burned out, they probably were just running more than their competitors, so it seemed like they were more talented. I'm not saying burn out doesn't exist, but I feel like more often it's just reaching your ceiling faster than other kids. When I was in high school, I barely ran over the summer and would come back in terrible shape. I never broke 2 or 4:30 as a high schooler and would get destroyed by the 1:55 and 4:20 guys. When I started doing proper training in college, I ended up better than most of the guys that would destroy be in high school, in fact by the time I was a senior I could literally run my 800 pr in high school as my mile pace. Point is training matters. Running is one of those sports where if you do not put in the work, you can't really fake it. No matter how talented you are if you aren't really training you won't physically be able to see what you are capable of.

I think there is something valuable in having a young athlete doing some form of rigorous training through their significant phases of development. The body is great at adapting and if it is being required to run at a challenging level, it will dedicate more of its development towards those systems in the body which enable running. I've heard your VO2 Max potential has a lot to do with what it was around the time of the end of puberty which corroborates this type of thinking.

What prevented you from training well in HS?

Yeah the 16:30 kid is a ton more talented…. We are looking at ~10% performance difference while most people get a 15-20% boost from that much volume…

Seriously the difference in HS between elite programs and the rest is running 60mpw versus 30. it turns your 17:30 kids into 16 min kids. getting the elite kids requires luck. But in a school of 400 boys, you have a dozen 16:00 runners. It is a matter of getting them out and keeping them healthy. And then it is just hoping your kids run 54s 400s instead of 58s so they can keep developing into low 15 kids.

really easy to write down. Takes a really good coach to execute..

As far a coach not getting a sub 4 dude a below 4:25 in HS, go google Pat Porter who was running 4:30 in HS and ran at least a 4:02 at 7000ft. Turns out running 25mpw like 6 months of the year doesn’t get you to your potential. You don’t hear many stories about those kids cause they almost all drop out of the sport after HS…

I was extremely immature and felt like the summer would last forever so I would never really train. I hated getting up early and just wasn’t motivated. I’m really glad I turned it around in college, and I’m still pring in my late 20s and happy with how things turned out. I do really regret not getting to my ceiling earlier though as it would have been fun to compete well in college for longer. I wasn’t making Conference finals, Ic4as or meets like Mount Sac until I was a junior in college. Even though it’s rewarding taking 30 seconds off your high school mile pr and 14 seconds off your 800 it would’ve have been more fun to enter college at the level I should’ve been out and marginally improve so you can have more chances at the bigger meets sooner.

Very interesting perspective! What I find most interesting is you say you were a 2 minute 800 and 4:30 miler coming out of high school who did not train very seriously and yet you chose to (and were able to) continue college running. If I may ask, how did you do it (walk on a program or just pick a D2/D3 program) and also what was the training adjustment like? Again, I knew a good number of people in college who were running similar time ranges and trying to walk on but most either stopped trying to walk on after freshman year or just accepted that they would have to chase personal time goals at open meets rather than chasing the coveted athlete backpacks and status.

I think my biggest problem with the idea of "burnout" that I see perpetuated on the boards is that it is brandished as a way to criticize successful high school programs and also limit high school runner training. Again, it would have been easy in 2019 to say that Nico Young was training at a high level already and he would not improve in college or that his younger brothers were training that way as freshman and they would be injured because they trained in Brosnan's varsity system so young. But they were just the most visible team and the one we had the most insight into at the time and even then the outside view is only into a very narrow slice of these kids' running as they transition into college. I love the message boards but it becomes so easy to criticize these visible programs at all levels that I've seen just about every notable coach in running had some criticism thrown at them. Jerry Schumacher, Dave Smith, Vin Lananna, Joe Newton, Jim Ryun, etc.

Finally, I really don't like the way "burnout" is used to put a limit on high schooler training. I remember when I first heard about the training of Jim Ryun or Jerry Lindgren as a high schooler, it was purely inspiring. I would never dream of trying to replicate their training but just knowing that high school runners were capable of doing that kind of mileage or intensity (or both at the same time) totally reframed what I saw as possible. Again, this is always balanced by reality but I think it is good to let a high school runner dream that there is this endless world of running possibility and to glimpse the fuzzy edge of what's possible. Saying that training too hard or running too much will inevitably lead to burnout just feels like a wet blanket on this kind of idea and I think there is a much better way to temper any kind of over eager young runner.

I understand what you're saying here and agree that you're handcuffing a HS kid by running too little.. But the GO teams were running well beyond 50-60mpw, and with a lot of intensity mixed in. Running at a top HS program doesn't mean that you can't run well in college. Look at NP alum vs GO alum. There are quite a few NP alum who are or have had solid college careers. Now point me toward a similar number of GO alum... And you might think there would be even more alum from GO who ran well in college given the number of years they were on top, vs NP. Just an observation.

I ran at an FCS D1 school. I was not on athletic scholarship till after my sophomore year. There were a lot of lower tier D1 schools that I was able to get on the team with out of high school, this was in 2014 so obviously a bit dated now. I never cared about Divison though, I just liked the school. The training adjustment was brutal at first, but I got used to it, since it was a lower tier D1 I was able to have guys to train with and was even on our top 7 for XC my freshman year. Honeslty what I really think saved me was going to a lower tier D1 school. Lots of guys that burn out or struggle in college often walk on to big programs where they get no attention. When you barely make a team they arent taking you to a lot of races so you slowly burn out or lose interest really quickly. I think if I ran like 1:55 and 4:20 in high school I wouldve ended up slower then I am now because I wouldve been tempted to try and run at a big school and either be cut or be one of those guys that run a few meets every year and get a backpack and can say they are a Power 5 athelte. Because I was at a low D1 I got to go to all the meets, confernces etc, I only was missing out on Ic4as and meets of that nature which I ended up getting to go once I really improved. I graduated college with a few school records (I broke 0 school records in high school) and a couple all confernce performances in the 800. I am thankful for how things turned out and it was very rewarding. I remeber when I was in high school I went on cool runnings pace calculator to see what pace I would need to run a 4:29 mile and I literally thought it was impossible. A few years later I was running close to 4:10. Its crazy for me to think that if I went to a big school and gave up I wouldve died a high 4:30 guy.

How many hours does it take in a week to run 70 miles? Now how many hours do high school athletes put in for any other sport?

Walt Lange at Jesuit of Sacramento, has never had a dozen 16:00 runners even out of 1100 boys. Is your high school in Nairobi?

Your 1st paragraph is just numbers you’re making up. 14:50 takes serious talent and your 11 16:30 guys, don’t have it. If the 16:30 kid has a “ton” more talent, he must be capable of 14:30 if he became serious.