100mpw in high school

Hi Fixer,

Slightly different in swimming as there isn't the ground impact so there isn't the same stress on the body. Thus their careers are much longer-if you can stand the boredom of going up and down a black line.

Difference in running here is that our population is far smaller, not even 20 million, but Craig Mottram ran well at world XC the last two years and Benita Johnson won world XC this year, they certainly didn't do that volume at HS age. Make no mistake though, coaches get it wrong here too and burn out athletes on volumes far less than 100pw at HS age. Always careful until 18 then the next big steps can be taken. Then eventually 100 miles per week can be achieved-somewhere in your 20's when you're body's ready for it. Years of experience have told me that. You don't have to be the HS champion to be a top-line senior. Make no mistake you get alot of 40-50 miles per week at HS age. If you still have ambitions of competing at age 30+ best you be smart about it. that's what it's all about in the long run. The high mileage may get great results for a year-even two- but eventually it catches up with you and kills you in the end.

Thanks for the debate

See you worked out where I'm from

Also why do you need AM runs at that age. You're not training for the Olympics yet. At 80km per week (50 miles)there is nothing stopping you have a long run of 15-20km (10-12.5 miles)and second long one of 12-15km and still plenty of decent quality sessions (again with respect to age and experience). As I said-it's about strucure and specificity-not volume.

yes! absolutely! I would have to agree with you on that. if ANYONE is questioning high mileage in hs then they should read the Running Formula by Jack Daniels(the guy is a genius.) I mean look at what alan webb is doing right now. He was a 50-60mpw guy in high school. Joe Newton... what kind of maniac is he? How could you do that to high school kids; he ought to be locked up j/k!)

He wasted time in HS -- he's now thousands of miles behind the competition. How do you think GEb is doing now after 70+mi weeks as a child?

AM runs help get in the mileage and are good active recovery in HS when you're hitting 80 mile weeks.

A.) Webb spent many years swimming laying down an aerobic foundation

B.) A monkey could coach Webb and he'd be a good HS runner. He ran 4:06 as a sophomore before Raczko started coaching him.

It's all about lifeitme volumes. That's what's going to get you to the medal stand. Coe and Scott didn't start running world class miles until they were aroound 20,000 miles; that's why the Africans can run so fast so young -- they've got an extra 10 years of training by the time they're 19.

Why do AM runs or run 80 miles a week at HS? Save it until later when you're ready. Who remembers a HS champion? (previous post!)

The Kenyans must have some balance-they've actually producing champion runners. To get to their level you still have to be in the sport, not burned out. There's two races in HS-the race coming up and the race to still be competing when you're 20. You can still build good miles at HS-just don't have to do 80-100 miles-and from there you can easily take the next step into that volume at 20+. No-one can tell me that by the time you're 30 you haven't built a strong background of miles thoughout your 20's no matter how much or little you did at HS, and at a time in life that you're strong enough to cope with it. It doesn't take long at all, you'd be surprised. Makes for longer careers at the top!

>Who remembers a HS champion?

That isn't the only situation. The quote assumes that everyone who will run in college and the difference in training will just determine HS greatness... maybe par for the typical letsrun reader, but in the real world, if you aren't fast enough, you don't get to run in college.

I didn?t run 100 mpw in high school, but I wish I did. Looking back a few of the posts, I see that people are talking about burn out and also comparing equivalent HS performers with different mileage background? the lower mileage person with the same performance obviously has a bigger upside. A point that is missing is that, for a large number of individuals, the difference between training at a moderate level and a higher mileage level can mean the difference between running in college or not. Only a small percentage of high school runners are ?good enough? to run in college. If you are not fast enough with moderate training, what are your alternatives? Basically, train harder and smarter or high school is pretty much the end of your running career, at least the ?serious track? of cross country and track as opposed to fun runs, road and trail races, triathlons, etc. if you are still interested in those kinds of events. How is that end result any better than risking (not even close to guaranteeing) some possible injury or burn out that can often be avoided with smart higher mileage training?

I didn?t get an opportunity to run in college, but I?m pretty sure that I would have if I had known then what I know now about training and how my body reacts to different kinds of training. I didn?t start running until my Jr. year of high school, and I just did what my coach told me to do - pretty much the low mileage stuff popular in the mid-80?s. I ran pretty slowly off of that stuff (30-45 mpw), and I was always tired and had a real BURNED OUT feeling after every mega-lactate producing interval workout. I would not feel well for two weeks after such a workout and my coach ended up sending me out for 10 milers on interval days, only to toast my body again when I felt ok. I ran 4:46/10:00 off of that stuff, never feeling right. Those performances were not good enough to even be allowed to try out for walking on at the college that I chose for academic reasons (4:30/9:30 was min for walkons). With hindsight, I know that I could have run much faster on high mileage and I know that I wouldn?t have burned out. I actually started running the summer before my Jr. year, with some summer running with the prior HS coach. I ran 8 miles the first day and 9 miles a day the rest of the summer, so basically 60+ mpw from my very first week of running and my body handled it well. In fact I felt MUCH better doing that mileage without any killer intervals than I did when school started and my mileage dropped/killer intervals began with the new coach. First year of college, I pretty much gave up running training and went back to my old sport cycling. The next year, my cycling was screwed when my bike frame cracked and the warranty claim took forever and denied me a bike to ride for the summer, so I got back into running. Within just a couple of months I went from maybe 40 mpw to 100mpw, topping out at 145 mpw. It was a little mind blowing at the time ? I felt way better running high mileage without intervals than 40 mpw with hard intervals. I didn?t jump into any races right away, since college races weren?t open to me (except intramurals?), but I did run ridiculously fast off of just single daily long runs and one 6 mile tempo run a week (ran my fastest 6M in 29:28). If I could have read the Hadd training article back in high school, I would have known what was going on with my body and I?m sure I would have been in the sub 9:30 2 mile range that would have let me run in college. As for burnout, I?m still running 2 hrs a day and I?ve never had an overuse running injury and I?m reasonably competitive for a guy who didn?t run in college (15 range 5K, but specialize in middle distance trail races).

I?m not necessarily advocating 100 mpw in high school for everyone? not many are so lucky to have my injury free high mileage record (hint: a lot comes from listening to my body though). But, I do think that the killer lactate producing workouts are much more likely to produce burnout than mileage is for someone with my muscle/body makeup (perhaps I have a high slow twitch percentage).

Jim L is afraid of people being successful. I'm sure Kenenisa Bekele is running 12:37/26:20 off of 50 miles per week over the last few years.

TomM wrote:

This thread is starting to sound a little ridiculous. You can go on and on about how good for a high schooler 100mpw is, but the fact is that that is extremely bizarre behavior for a high schooler.

Here's a guy who must take psychotropic drugs in order to function normally making judgements about what is ridiculous and bizarre? Irony if there ever was.

Hey, don't make fun of me because I take....oh my God!....an antidepressant!....and I promise not to make fun of you for winning all those salad-tossing championships

What are you saving?

I progressed to that kind of volume. My first year in school I ran 1000 miles. The next year I ran 2350. The year after 2850 and then 3200 miles. It's progression. From my second to fourth year I dropped 4min off my 5k. It's the training.

High mileage at a young age comes down to making a big gamble. For the few that it works, they win big. For many others - injuries and mediocracy follow. High mileage also makes a gamble on your longevity. Had a friend at a rival high school go from 17min 5k to mid 15 and a footlocker finalist in one year by going from 30 to 100mpw. Two years later he was the 4th man on a DI top 15 NCAA cross team as a soph - plagued my injuries ever since - runs 27-28 8k at best now.

Ask him now, he'll probably say it was worth it. Depends on what your goals. Remember, its a gamble!

Why such an emphasis on mileage?

If I run those "magical" 100 mile weeks at 12 m/m pace will I become great? What if I run everything at an extremely fast pace? What happens then?

Here's what Geb thinks about mileage:

"I'm a college runner averaging about 110 mpw. I was interested in how much water you drink.

Sometimes my legs are really tight and I think it's from lack of enough water. How much should I be drinking on a daily basis?

First of all, I am surprised that you already run 110 mpw. Please try to do more speed work and use your mileage for recovery. Maybe you are running too fast at your long runs?

Or maybe you are not recovered from speed training before starting your next training session?

I usually try to drink two litres of water, next to the tea and juice that I use daily. In Athens, where it will be very hot, I might even drink three litres a day."

He thinks in terms of quality and recovery, not mileage. Does he do a shit load of mileage? Yes, but I can guarantee you he isn't chasing a magical number like 100.

Progression is the key. That's one thing college coaches are idiots about. Everyone is expected to come out for practice and do exactly the same thing: 70 mi/wk, this pace per mi... blah blah blah. Just progress. If an athlete ran 2500 miles last year, plan for 3000 this year. For 800/1500 runners thye can probably top out at 4000mi/yr. Just plan.

How do we know how he built up. Doesn't take long to take the next step and progress. And even so-how many fall by the wayside in the process! Don't be such a simple thinker.

and what did you run 4 years after HS?

still more PRs -- my HS 5kpace became 10k pace, and so on

My question becomes: why do you treat Americans different from Africans?

Guys like Geb spent their primary years laying down the aerobic foundation which serves them today. People say that Tergat and Wilson K. never ran to school, but they certainly weren't sitting on their asses playing nintendo either. In decades past, kids used to be much more physically active (and we had better ditance runners). I I walked ot school just about everyday growing up -- how many of today's kids do the same?

I don't think anyone is saying immediately run this mileage in HS -- just be progressive about it and you will reap the benefits of it in the long term. An American high schooler would be in good order if they left HS with 10,000 miles run -- that's only about 10,000 short of what thier Ethiopian or Kenyan counterpart has put in at the same age but it's a start.