100mpw in high school

JimL,

The periodization will have some weeks of 80 (during base training) and some of 40 (during competition) and an annual average of 60. In all my HS career i had a handful of weeks that were 80something (all during my senior year) and one that was above 90 (a running camp week).

Just got in on this post, and I have a few thoughts:

1. There is no set mileage or plan that is THE plan. People need to determine their goals and do what works for them.

2. Humans are not made to run/race long distances. To become an efficient racer, an individual needs to "evolve" or slowly change their body to do so. This includes changing your heart, capalaries, mitochondria, muscle fibers, joints, mind, and all the other crap you hear the people talk about who know a lot more than me.

3. To go through this change (in my opinion) the key is continuous, consistent progression up in mileage(as trackhead has alluded to). Not quickly jumping in to 90 mile weeks, and not staying under 50 and then going up in college. Your body doesn't know when it is in college or high school. It just develops at it's own rate.

4. Therefore, to give a blanket statement that HS runners should or should not do 100 MPW is silly on both accounts. What is their running/active background? How injury prone are they?

Should some HSers be running 100 miles a week at points during the year? Sure! Should some be doing 40 MPW? Yes!

Improvement does not come from miles; it comes from aerobic training, anaerobic training, speed training, strength training, and so on.

I have always felt that as long as you focus on what is important, it does not matter how mileage you do in the end of week, whether it is 50 or 150 miles. Like someone said before; you could do 100 miles slow or 100 miles fast, both have the same mileage but they obviously would provide different results.

It is not how much miles you do, but what you do with the miles.

Hi Trackhead,

With my athletes their progression went(I talking km's cause I can't be bothered converting it to miles): at 17 about 60-70km (still had 2 good long efforts each week -one up to 18 km), at early 18 (meaning just passed 18th birthday)they went about 75-85km per week to about 90-105km (inc an effort up to 25km) late 18-about 110-120km at 19 and we got to about 120-30km early 20 with the plan of going to 140-150km by late 20, early 21 but he took a job elsewhere and this stopped. Back going again for a while (24 now) and heading for 130-140km in the short term, building to about 150-160km later on. Going well and closing in on what would have been an Olympic qualifier (although in this country it's too late-a bike accident leading to our trials didn't help him as he couldn't compete-that's life and we just move on). Between 18-21 you can really build some kms but the key is to get the structure right.

Have a good day

JimL

Arturo wrote:

Improvement does not come from miles; it comes from aerobic training, anaerobic training, speed training, strength training, and so on.

I have always felt that as long as you focus on what is important, it does not matter how mileage you do in the end of week, whether it is 50 or 150 miles. Like someone said before; you could do 100 miles slow or 100 miles fast, both have the same mileage but they obviously would provide different results.

It is not how much miles you do, but what you do with the miles.

This is true, but isn't it true that the more you run the more you will work whatever system, so thus the better you will be. So then high mileage like 100 mile weeks are applicable.

You make some very good points good progression is the key and some will handle more than others. You make alot of other excellent points as well. I draw the line though at HS runners at late 17, early 18 being physically ready to run 100 miles pw at any time without doing alot of damage.

>....."not staying under 50 and then going up in college".

I going to have a big "spit" at the system there. Why do you need to have such big km's behind you just to be ready for college, possibly at the expense of a real career. Why is being ready for college so important, you guys put so much emphasis on it-like it's the be all and end all. Probably because the college coach is going train you into the dirt-so best be prepared. College's don't care about the athlete, only themselves. They don't care about what they do the the athlete as long as they get what they want. No such thing as actually developing the athlete. If they did it would be different. Once you're gone they don't care, but your career may well be down the tube. One thing about track & field is that it is an individual sport, and you, and only you, are answerable, to the performances you put out. That means working towards YOUR goals, not that of some stupid college. You can't do both. How many good athletes have gone to college, got smashed and come out no good. Too much obsession with college over there (suppose the scholarship pays for the education). The system shows itself up by the lack of US endurance athletes on the international scene. For all the thousands and thousands of kids they have running at HS and college, endurance-wise they have produced stuff all internationally. You have to ask why. It's probably the worst system imaginable. The culture's all wrong. Problem is you have a very poor club system which leaves you with poor choices.

JimL, what long careers? Name me more then 10 over 27 yo world class swimmers. Jim, what is the average age in swimming & running of most Gold winners in the OGames? Please think about it before you post.

JimL wrote:

> If kids and college men can't tolerate something close to 100mpw, then what mileage do you espouse? 50 mpw?

Yep good quality 40-50 miles MAXIMUM at 18 if that. Alot less less for younger ones. You'd still get a couple of really good long runs in in a week and some decent quality without having to over do it. It's all about getting the right structure-more important than volume. You get the structure right (speciicity-something they know nothing about in the US) and you'd be surprised how fast you run. And you'll probably run faster and have a longer career.Thats what it's all about. The world's full of kiddie champions that never make it. Work out why?!!!! Must be dumb HS coaches that make athletes go 100 miles per week (hopefully not too many).

40-50 miles per week at most? Are you kidding me? I am seventeen, and I reached 60 miles per week this winter. I'm no great athlete, granted -- the best time I ran was a 4:54 in the slow heat of the conference championship 1600m. Nor am I running anything near too much mileage -- I personally know two runners from a nearby school who ran 60 mpw during much of the track season and 80 mpw last summer. I'm encouraging the sophomores and freshmen on the team now to build up to that level by the time they are seniors. It's not that big of a deal if you increase your mileage gradually and manage the rest of your life anywhere near efficently. Plus, it's the only way the less talented, myself included, can hope to compete with the genetically lucky.

Also, it seems to me that a lot of the "kiddie champions who never make it" were from the less-is-more 1990s. Reconcile that with your assertions.

This is either a very silly post or I'm not getting you're point. Maybe you can be more expansive. I'll try to reply the best way I can

Swimming's different-it's low impact thus careers start and possibly finish earlier. Swimming's a huge commitment give the time factor involved. So we'll get away from that.

I think in this day and age you'll find numerous amounts of outstanding athletes competing well into their 30's-take a look-even the sprinters. Merlene Ottey still makes finals at 40. Then there's Linforn Christie etc... Geb must be a pretty fair age by now (32 I think-someone can correct me if I'm wrong) and still running 26.40 for 10km. Even though he's not always winning, that's outstanding. You're best years should be between 22 and 32 (give or take), unless of course they've been "killed of" beforehand. No-one remembers the HS or college champion who goes no-where but they do remember the outstanding internationals.

Yeah, nobody remembers the 21 year old that just broke the 5k and 10k records.

Jim L. writes: 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.

Jzs: Swimming does not produce longer careers, most are way out of the sport before the age of 30.

No, i'm not kidding. The US are absolute failures internationally given the thousands of runners at HS or college-have a look and work it out. Somewhere you guys are getting somethinng very wrong.

You reached those miles at that age-what a silly man you were!!! Suppose if running really well at HS and college was all you wanted, well fair enough, I understand. But if you wanted a career later on it wasn't the smartest way to go about it.

Who's to say he won't be faster at 25.

>Jzs: Swimming does not produce longer careers, most are way out of the sport before the age of 30.

I'll take that back too-should read my posts properly. Swimmers are out by well before 30 but due to the lack of impact on the body, they can begin heavy training much earlier and out much earleir due to time required in the pool following a black line.

The east Africans (and really the Ethiopians) have the best model for future success in distance running: do a lot of low intense aerobic work in your youth and you're ready to roll at approx. 18-20yrs of age.

I don't think Westerners are expected to go from 0 to 80 or 100mi/wk but just be progressive knowing that you want to buildup lifetime volume and put in 3000-6000mi/yr depending on your event (800m to marathon). Moving up in volume to quickly and w/o proper planning will certainly hurt kids, but they are much mroe likely to go down from too much intensity rather than comfortable aerobic work on soft surfaces.

AGE VOLUME

14 1200 mi

15 1700 mi

16 2300 mi

17 2800 mi

18 3200 mi

19 3700 mi

20 3700 mi

21 4100 mi

22 4500 mi

============

Progressing like this gives the athlete 27,000 miles by the time they are 22 and the ability to comfortably average 90mi/wk (meaning lots of 120mi weeks in base, 50-60 during competition). this puts them on par with their African counterparts. Of course, some may need to move up more slowly so you adjust as needed to the individual athlete.

Jim L,

You and I are agreeing here. I was trying to point out how the lack of continuity of coaching means that a lot of runners will do 40-50 MPW in HS and then do a huge jump (up to 100 MPW) once they hit college. I agree that this is a silly system. I think it is why we see a lot of college athletes either get injured frequently, or make a big improvement during their freshman year, and then level out. There is WAY too much emphasis on college running in our country.

Dennis,

Thanks. Such emphasis on college running sems to take away the focus from "the big picture".

Jim

Trackhead,

I'll agree there, the correct progression is the most important thing in adapting to greater workloads even to the point of the ballpark mileage figures we put up-up to a point of course . Moving up too fast is the greatest cause of problems.

Jim

is to no one in particular. Before either my freshman or sophomore year in high school, I was runnning 70 miles per week in the base season. My coaches thought this was too much, but Kevin Hanson told me that it was fine, he is of the opinion that distance runners can't be afraid of the mileage. As long as you're training smart, 100 mpw shouldn't be a problem for any conditioned runner.