Sophomore running 100 MPW

Proof? Call me an idiot when you have a legitimate reason.

At least, if not more important than running miles, is being able to recover from them. It' can be a lot of stress on the body especially if there is stress in your life and you don't know how to handle it well and relax. It is super important to be STRONG to run. Many people forget this part. It's one thing if you are biomechanically perfect or close to it as you will strength muscles as you run. If there are any muscular imbalances in your body, running a lot will make it worse in time. As a strong runner, you will spring off the ground, if not, you will slam into the ground causing a lot of force to be absorbed into the joints. Additionally, runners that young have a hard time controlling their limbs in general so if you're form is good and there are no glaring issues, you're less likely to do damage. Be aware though, that prolonged excessive stress and overtraining can damage mitochondria, cause low grade inflammation and can lead to adrenal fatigue either relatively soon or down the line. Listen to your body. If you feel tired and run down, back off and rest. There is no such thing as overtraining, just under recovery.

This is a very well thought out and detailed post. If I adopt this full time, I will have cutback weeks and take Sunday off on occasion.

Here are some very specific pieces of advice from a guy who ran in a couple of Olympics...

1) Think time and not miles. Until you are out of high school, aim for volume that is measured in hours and minutes. For instance, build your weeks to hit a time target (e.g., think 11 hours instead of 100 miles).

2) Run off road! If you are counting minutes, then you don`t need measured courses. Hit the trails.

3) Get 20% of your volume in pool running

4) Don`t use mileage as an excuse to avoid strength work. Hit the gym and get help putting together a good core and leg program. Choose safe exercises...no leg extensions or stupid stuff. Get help with this!!

5) Don`t use mileage as an excuse to avoid learning how to sprint. Get to know a sprint coach who will work with you once a week.

6) Structure your program so that you have two to three week cycles. I like the plan the guy set out for you alternating 100%, 75%, 100%, 65%, but I would drop the easy week to 50%.

7) Spend time daily on injury prevention. Self massage and rollers are the trick. DO NOT overstretch or you will get injured.

8) Alter your year. Variety! Do some biking, change your weight work, do a 4 hour hike in the hills instead of a long run, etc.

9) Don`t get into the game of racing your easy days or recording personal bests for training routes. Slippery slope that leads to overtraining.

10) Have fun...life is more than running. Don`t let your running define you. When you get injured (we all do), you don`t want to lose all of your identity. People remember you for being a nice guy...not just for your 10k time.

11) Think big...30 minutes is not an overly ambitious goal over 7 years.

12) Find people to train with for at least one hard session a week. Even if it is a local running club and you are running with adults. Group running is SO much more enjoyable and effective than pounding out quality sessions on your own.

You are the Olympian, or an Olympian recommends that? Either way, thank you, and good post. I'll take more time to reply tomorrow. I've got to get to bed. Keep them coming! If you really are an Olympian, thank you for taking the time to help some kid.

R10Kstar, have you read Gerry Lindgren's book, or at least know his story?

Rising10Kstar wrote:

M- 10/5

T- 10/5

W- 12-16 medium run

T- 10/5

F- 10/5

S- 15-20 long run

S- 8/5

YAWN.

Anyone can write up their biggest week of the year and act like that's their "mileage."

Tell us you highest six-week total this year and I'll be interested if it's over 600.

I ran in two Olympic Games...I also believe that you aren't going burn out or be in a wheelchair if you do volume based training. Just do it smart!

Put as much focus on staying healthy as on training. Eat well, train on soft surfaces, don't get obsessed by miles, and vary your training. Don't be afraid to run your training slowly on the easy days. Avoid orthotics and have two pairs of trainers going all the time.

Train for 10 years like this and you'll be surprised at how slow 30 minutes feels like for a 10k.

are you perchance a member of the high point cross country team in NJ?

I was thinking about this thread and have some more thoughts to share:

If you want to know why people are saying don't run 100 mile weeks and limit mileage, read "Training for Young Distance Runners" by Laurence Green and Russel Pate. It has a lot of good information written in a way that a normal person can make sense of.

Psychologically, right now you're really pumped about running. There is a lot to learn, and you just can't seem to get enough. From following collegiates and pros to learning the intricacies of aerobic metabolism, you feel like you will always be learning and loving running.

But that will change.

You WILL get injured. Every single serious runner has gotten injured before. You WILL get lonely. Training without a team and running high mileage will wear on you. Your love for running will change. There will come a time, whether it be a month, year, 3 years, or 5 years from now where you will question everything you have done up to that point. One day when you get up at 6 am to cram a track session in on the local high school track when it's 35 degrees and pouring rain you will wonder why you do what you do. You will see other people having fun, dating, going to social events, and enjoying life while you run 1600m repeats. Where will your motivation be then?

Listen to what the posters on this board have said. Some things that will help:

1. Run less: I'm echoing what many others have said. It's difficult for you to imagine burnout because you're too young to have experienced it. It sucks, and it drains the life and joy out of what you use to love. If you run too much, this WILL happen, and the probability that you give up on your goal is much larger.

2. Get a coach: You have no clue what you are doing. If you really love running, invest in a personal coach. Find the best one possible, and follow exactly what he/she tells you to do.

3. Run with others: Running is so much more fun with others around you. It doesn't have to be every day. But connecting with others will open your eyes to different thoughts and experiences that you would not have seen on your own.

4. Set realistic, incremental goals: If your main goal is a sub 30:00 10k when you're a senior in college, set goals each year that will build you up to the level you want to be at. Here's an example:

2013: sub 17:00 5k

2014: sub 16:30 5k; sub 4:40 mile: sub 10:00 3200

2015: sub 16:00 5k; sub 4:30 mile; sub 9:40 3200

2016: (Entering college I assume?) sub 4:20 mile; sub 9:20 3200; sub 26:00 8k

2017: sub 15:20 5k; sub 32:30 10k

2018: sub 15 5k; sub 32:00 10k

2019: sub 14:40 5k; sub 31:00 10k

2020: sub 30:00 10k

5. Don't fall in love with training, fall in love with running: Some people train just for the sake of training. Ian Edwards was brought up. It's cool that he ran 2 miles every hour for 24 hours. But he's never run a respectable race/time. He ran 100+ mile weeks for the sake of 100+ mile weeks. If you have goals that stretch beyond writing useless numbers in an old torn up notebook, then take the advice of others and myself: Back it off, increase slowly and incrementally, and with hard work and a bit of luck, you'll reach your goal.

Sorry for the rant. I'm done now.

I ran in college at the DI Level. I will agree that 100mpw is pretty high for a sophomore in HS. Most high school guys that got up to 100mpw did it in there senior years; however, I believe that everyone is different. Many coaches think they are all knowing as well as a lot of noobs on LR, but applying a cookie cutter approach to every runner is a great sign of ignorance and inexperience. My suggestion is to listen to your body and gauge your historical trends of increases in mileage. If you were running 30 mpw last year it may not be a good idea increasing to 100 mpw this year. That's a 300%+ increase which will most likely increase the probability of injury. The focus should be on building yourself aerobically (GRADUALLY) while training smart so you avoid injury. Training hard and training smart don't necessarily always have a direct correlation. You should focus on tempo runs 3 mile, 4 mile, 5 mile, etc and segregated tempos like 2 x 15 min @ xyz pace with 2 min jog. In college you will have to do a lot of 5-10 mile tempo runs depending upon the program. Also, try to incorporate 2k repeats, Mile repeats, 1k repeats, and 800 repeats with minimal rest into your training and extend the rest time closer to the middle/end of the season to focus more on speed. You also want to make sure you're doing strides and drills; these are super important for your biomechanics and increasing the efficiency of your form. Lastly, weight training and core. Running is a full body sport.

You really are getting some good and thought-provoking advice on this thread. The thing to bear in mind is that you are pointing to a November 23 5k. You should be thinking in terms of how each week's training is preparing you as you move toward that peak performance. Certainly there are HS boys who run 100 mile weeks, but I expect that they did it over the summer as a base for fall XC. They aren't doing it now, in the context of school, fall XC training, etc. Think like a coach. You have to decide. You're nine weeks from NXN South. Is logging big miles the best way to prepare during this particular period of your training?

It is easy to put a plan on paper and post it on a forum. Get back to us when you actually do it until then your a just lil biaach

Ok dude let me give you some advice just based on my own personal experiences. i will preface everything i'm going to say by laying out my PR's for you (currently 24 years old) - 8:32 for 3k, 14:47 for 5k, 30:48 for 10k, 50:28 for 10 miles, 1:08 for half marathon, and 2:22 for the full marathon. i run almost all my runs at a high intensity (let's just say 6:30 is an easy day and its not uncommon for me to go an entire week without averaging in the 6's for my training runs) i'll lay out how i got to those marks and then let you decide if running 100 mpw in high school is really a good idea.

started running xc in high school my freshman year and here is my xc progression for 5k:

Frosh - 18:59

Soph - 17:59

Junior - 17:15

Senior - 16:18

All through high school the mileage was gradually built up. I was lucky to have what i consider the best coach in my area. I couldnt honestly tell you the mileage i ran as a frosh/soph since i really wasnt that in to it those years. Couldnt have been more than 40 as i hardly ran more than 6 days a week. junior year started adding in the sunday long runs up to 10 miles and then also began running over the winter for the first time. mileage was in the low 50's that year. intervals once a week on the track but those topped out at 3:00s. no real tempo runs but used dual meets as tempos. by senior year the mileage was pushing the mid 60's but never over 70. we did sunday long runs in 3 week cycles (13, 14, 15) and added a second interval session so it was race pace intervals on tuesday and speed intervals on friday. dual meets were not really a concern since our conference was pretty week so those were always tempo efforts. we did not run a lot of mileage, but focused on running at a decent pace almost every day.

I picked up track my junior year because i got frustrated sitting on the bench at baseball. Basically what I would do was run 4-5 miles as hard as I could when i got home from baseball practice and ended up running 10:02 by the end of the season. Senior year track season i got down to 9:36 for two mile doing less mileage than xc season and focusing more on intensity since you dont need a ton of mileage to race a good 2 mile. I still say that senior year high school me would beat current me in an 800 since i ran 1:59 that year.

went onto a small D-1 college from there. ran my first 70+ mile weeks as a freshman, went completely flat by the end of that first xc season (this happens to most kids who are not all-american caliber talent) and then got hurt after indoor track. first year racing all three seasons was a big eye opener. the rest of college my mileage peaked in the 90-100 range for a few weeks at the start of each season, but then once the seasons were really under way it was basically the same - mid 70's - my enitre career. What did change was the intensity of all my runs and workouts and my PR's gradually dropped.

First year post collegiate I decided to train for the marathon and really upped the mileage and hit consistent 100's for the first time ever. two speed sessions a week, four double days, 20-22 mile long runs with specific pace work mixed into the run. ended up in the best shape of my life and ran 2:22 and if you really want to set up 100 mile weeks i would be happy to lay out how to do them for you. after 4 months training that way (race was in May) I am finally feeling like my body is ready to get back to training. it just took so much out of me mentally and physically.

Personally, i think what you need to do is learn to run faster first in the 50-60 mile range. Most high schoolers run way to slow on their training runs - 7:30 or 8:00 pace is doing nothing for you whatsoever. when i got to college i was blown away at how slow everyone wanted to run. they were all scared to run with me or bashed me for not running 7:30 pace with them on easy days, but at the end of the day you want to guess who has the faster PRs? Our coach trained us to run in the low 6 minutes on a daily basis first and worked on our raw speed. You need to be fast to do anything in this sport and that starts by working on your foot speed and running faster on a daily basis (Salazar uses 5k pace + 1:30 for maintenance runs so for me this would be about 6:10 which believe it or not does feel easy for me since I have trained for it and built up gradually to it). You get much more training to run a fast 5k at your age by running 7 or 8 miles at 6:30 instead of 12 miles at 7:30. You need to leave yourself room to develop. its like cam levins - what is he going to do to get better now? run 200 mpw? no. as a high schooler i was able to run 50 mpw with low 6's for my training runs. its taken me 7 years to build to the point where i can run 100 mpw like that but the payoff is very good. i cant stress this enough - rome wasnt built in a day and your 30 minute 10k in 7 years wont be built this year alone.

Additionally, i dont think you can really recover right running 100 mpw on a high school schedule. The pros and elite collegiates who run that much spend most of their time between runs off their feet relaxing and prepping for the next run/w.o.

the last point i really want to stress is that running 100 mpw really forces you to make running everything. it is almost impossible to do anything else when you have to run 15 miles a day. personally i cant handle that. i love running, but id rather hang out with my fiance on friday night than crank out 3 x 3 mile. that's just me though and if thats what separates me from the next tier of elite runner i'm ok with that because there really is more to life than running, but youre young and you only get so many years to dedicate yourself totally to sport.

@My 2 Cents,

I'm 18, recent HS graduate, going to community college this year(they don't have a team). My 5k pr is 1653. I'm currently running 60 mpw on 6 runs with Sundays off. I agree that you have a point about running faster on a daily basis, but I know from personal experience that my body simply can't handle it. So I take my easy days easy. For me this means 720 pace give or take 5-15 seconds depending on the day. From what I've gathered the most important thing in training is to stay healthy and to not get burnt out and when I push my easy days I get burnt out, so instead I keep them easy.

I plan on keeping 60 mpw for at least a few months. What would be a good mileage progression? (I want to start doing marathons around age 24-25 after at least first breaking 16 minutes in the 5k)

How would I go about structuring a 90-100 mile week for marathon training?(preferably with Sundays off, I like a rest day as it keeps me from burning out)And how would I structure the periodization?

Thanks for your time.

Irk why people say you have to run faster on easy days. During my summer mileage I ran 80 miles a week and averaged sub 7 pace for all runs. Now during xc my hard days are in the 5s and my easy days are rarely faster than 7:30 usually around 7:45 and my morning runs are not much faster than 8:20 pace. Its for recovery its not supposed to be fast

Its very hard to get 90-100 mpw with a day off. A 100 mile week is roughly 15 a day. If you cut it down to 6 days that gives you roughly 17 per day. i like a day off every 3 weeks. If youre currently running 60 mpw, you can very easily build that to 90-100 in a few months, but i must stress that i dont necessarily think its a great idea to make a jump like that. success in the longer distances like the marathon is built by excelling first at the shorter distances and really just by running a lot for a bunch of years. you definitely have some talent if youve run 16:53 for 5k. what have you run on the track and what was your high school training like?

you will do much better at the marathon if you focus on the track for a few years. it doesnt only take endurance to run a good marathon. theres no two ways about it. take my 2:22 for example - thats 5:24 pace for 26.2 miles. i seriously doubt i could have run that fast if i hadnt run track in college and pushed close to sub 9 for 2 miles first. and all those kenyans and ethiopians who run 2:05-06 are all certainly capable of running 13:20 at the slowest and probably faster. theres a lot of east africans who run blazing marathons in their early 20's (although their birth certificates are sketchy at best) and then disappear forever.

you can certainly run 90-100 mpw training for a 5k or 10k, but your workouts would be different and your long runs wouldnt be as taxing. marathon workouts are a whole other beast. this is a sample week of mine:

Monday - 4/10 and strides

Tuesday - 4/13 - 3 wup, 8 x 1000 @ 2:55 w/1:30 jog, 3 cd

Wednesday - 16 easy

Thursday - 12

Friday - 17 - 3 wup, 3 x 3 mile at MP (roughly 5:15 per mile) w/recovery mile @ 6:15, 3 cd (you build to 3 x 4 mile at the max)

Saturday - 5/9 or 10-11 easy

Sunday - 20 mile long run (10 easy followed by alternating 5:15 and 6:15 last 10 miles or a progression type run where last 5 miles are run at MP)

repeat weekly with slight variation. tuesday is a quicker interval day (10k to half marathon paced intervals - 1k repeats at 10k pace or 1 mile repeats at half pace). friday is a tempo day. i like to mix it up between tempo intervals and continuous tempos. sunday is long run day almost always ending with several miles at marathon pace. towards the end of your cycle your tuesday workouts become faster pushing 5k pace for mile repeats (4:35 for me).

personally i think your best bet is to train for the 5k this season and potentially next season, do the 10k for a year or two and eventually transition to the half marathon after that and maybe by the time youre 21 or 22 the marathon could enter the picture. any human being can run a marathon, but to really train to run it the right way is an entirely different beast that an 18 year old male really isnt ready for. i dropped 4" on my waist size between freshman year in college and senior year yet didnt drop a single pound.

if you dont have a coach i would be happy to train you. ive always wanted to get into coaching but dont really have the patience to coach a team of mostly slow high school kids and im not willing to start out as a volunteer assistant in college somewhere.

Time to answer a few more things...

@Try this, very good post.

To the guy who asked if I've heard about Lindgren, he was the one who ran 200 mile weeks in high school, went on to run 13:12? on the track.

I wish I ran for the team you speak of, but I live in Arkansas. I will answer more in the next post when I can read the responses. If anyone is interested in helping me specifically, coaching me if you will, I will post my email. If not, these replies are very good. I've been thinking about all of it in my free time. i.e. P.E., study hall etc

Rojo, if a guy came to you running 9:00-9:20 in the 3200m off of 100 MPW, would you have any interest? To the people telling me to run easy at 6 flat pace, it would be moronic to do that (I can, but don't have a reason). The body needs time to recover. Go ahead if you want to be a workout warrior. I come to the starting line hungry on race day.