Sara Hall advocates high mileage and intensity in HS- holds up Big 3 as examples

Is aggressive mileage the key that today’s weaklings lack? Discus.

No

I believe that it is okay to run high mileage in high school - 75mpw for boys and 60mpw for girls - if the intensity is low for a large majority. This means plenty of recovery and ensuring that the kids aren't going over the top in workouts.

trackislife12 wrote:

I believe that it is okay to run high mileage in high school - 75mpw for boys and 60mpw for girls - if the intensity is low for a large majority. This means plenty of recovery and ensuring that the kids aren't going over the top in workouts.

I disagree with the sexist poster quoted and 'Ohio' above. I agree with Sara. The US was a leading distance running nation back when I was in high school. I got up to about 80 but that wasn't considered very much at the time. My peers and I ran actual long-distance events the first year of high school or earlier. By the end of Sophomore year all the distance guys I was aware of had done marathons. Teenage distance running was deep enough that going under 3 hours didn't get you on the age-group podium. 4 of us from school would go to a couple marathons with my dad driving and we wouldn't wait around for the awards ceremony. And these were just small-time regional races with no one T&FN had ever heard of.

Although I was no superstar and not responsible for any Boston or Fukuoka wins or international medals, there was a large pool of athletes that had been training hard and putting in decent mileage for a decade when they entered their prime years. Contrast with today. There is now much talk of 'moving up' to common road racing distances after running out of NCAA eligibility. Decades ago, the desire to run well - and ideally, win on the biggest stages - at events including the marathon existed even among American kids.

Now, most turned out like me, which is to say you've never heard of us and deservedly not. (Actually, I was ahead of quite a few and I think I had the school 10k record back when a lot of kids cared about it. That just doesn't exist today.) But put thousands of teenagers like us around the country and one might end up being like Shorter. Or Ryan Hall.

The problem: kids aren't going to run without school affiliation until they're well into their 20s, and certainly not prior to getting out of high school. Today's motto is, if you run, you must do so for your school's team. And that means sprints and mid distance events. Accord to the Message Board, today's high schoolers have 400 PRs. Great if you're fast-twitch enough to be competitive at such, but if you're slow-twitch enough that your future lies from 10k up, you're wasting your time. I didn't own a spiked shoe in high school. More significantly, and this is true of everyone I hung out with and ran with back then, never did a race involving starting blocks. My suspicion is, neither did Rodgers, Shorter, or Salazar. Or for that matter, Haile, Kenenisa, or Kipchoge. Or Ryan Hall.

Again, my own running never changed anything on the international stage, but like I pointed out, get enough of the population trying to be great distance runners on board and you are likely to end up with a few who succeed. To those who think lack of mileage and avoidance of smart, hard training is not the problem with American running: yeah, it is!

If by legendary she means legendary question marks on their top performances. Tell me again how high mileage worked out for Ryan Hall: loe testosterone (probably due to synthetic testo use), burned out fairly early in terms of length of pro career, also linked to the dirty doctor that Rupp and many other top athletes have been linked too including Dathan Ritz.

Ritz definitely violated wada rules a few times while training under arguably the dirtiest coach in our sport.

These guys shouldn't be praised. They send the wrong message to HS runners.

Didn't Hall and Webb both burn out and while both ran one insanely fast time never truly did anything on the national stage like Shorter or Ryun who would be their comparisons on from the previous generation?

Now why would they follow this obviously correct information when you can just have every kid start as a HS freshman and train as a miler running no more than 30-50 miles per week at the most and doing tons of goal paced work? This way you can complain about how Western nations are garbage at distance running. Meanwhile Jakob is puzzling everyone training like a pro at age 12 and the east africans are running 100 miles a week before they are 18. Has anyone ever asked an elite east african athlete what they think of this western idea that running a lot of miles young will ruin an athletes development? I doubt they'd even get the rationale.

ditch the coach wrote:

The problem: kids aren't going to run without school affiliation until they're well into their 20s, and certainly not prior to getting out of high school. Today's motto is, if you run, you must do so for your school's team. And that means sprints and mid distance events. Accord to the Message Board, today's high schoolers have 400 PRs. Great if you're fast-twitch enough to be competitive at such, but if you're slow-twitch enough that your future lies from 10k up, you're wasting your time.

This is so BS. If your future is in the 10k and up, you are running a sub 9:20 2mile in HS. That is plenty fast enough to be competitive just about anywhere.

People always talk in either or. Running 100mpw in HS is getting excessive. 60-80? That seems pretty reasonable. Same thing with intensity. Running 4 workouts/week on the track is pretty excessive. But if you are worried about a 4x1600 workout ruining you for life, you don't understand what training is about.

I agree thats kids need mileage but remember they are all still growing. I think caping a boy out at 60-70mpw and girls at 50-60mpw at the high school level makes sense based on years running etc. But training has to be right and have good periodization as well.

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

Now why would they follow this obviously correct information when you can just have every kid start as a HS freshman and train as a miler running no more than 30-50 miles per week at the most and doing tons of goal paced work? This way you can complain about how Western nations are garbage at distance running. Meanwhile Jakob is puzzling everyone training like a pro at age 12 and the east africans are running 100 miles a week before they are 18. Has anyone ever asked an elite east african athlete what they think of this western idea that running a lot of miles young will ruin an athletes development? I doubt they'd even get the rationale.

Here's the flaw in your argument. For every 1 Jakob and elite East African out there, there are 1000s of runners that have trained like this and gotten hurt or burnt out. Mostly because their body either couldn't handle the mileage and/or broke down way early because of putting in massive mileage young.

OhioBuff wrote:

Is aggressive mileage the key that today’s weaklings lack? Discus.

No

Honestly this mentality is why America will never be good in the marathon. Other countries aren’t lazy or calling high mileage child abuse. Our country is too stupid to understand that you have to put in the work early to become an Olympian later.

Yes. I know talented high schoolers scared to go above 40 and ruin their “college potential”. Can’t wait to top out around 70-80 come senior year

Yes, HS athletes ran marathons and 10ks much more back in the day without a significant impact on their future running. Jesuit CA HS still keeps records of their road race times all the way up to marathon. It does not mean it was good or bad, just the way it was.

I disagree that we have a "problem" with distance running in America. We have had many, many medallists in the Olympics and WC since 2000. I don't think any country (besides Kenya) would consider our record in this Century a disappointment.

The Big 3 is a sham of a name.

They never WON anything.

They are the equivalent "Big 3" to Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh if they never won a NBA title.

I see what you’re saying if anything they should be called “The USA Big 3.” They won a lot of national races but yes they didn’t win internationally.

Maybe, don’t DNF two marathons in a row and I would respect what Sara says. She is one one of the highest horses I’ve ever seen.

I think she's halfway there.

The key to a long career is high mileage, low intensity.

Webb’s flame burned out quick

Ritz was injury prone and only ran world class times under shady sal

Hall moved to thon training very quickly and responded to less intense workouts with more tempos. However he became very inconsistent late in his career that ended earlier then it really should of.

The problem with high school is not the training but the racing schedule. 2-3 races every week? It’s just stupidity and if you’re trying to run higher mileage or add hard workouts you will burn out quick.

Why not train like the Ingebrigtsen? That way you can have high milage and good number of workouts withouth fearing the burnout. Baffles me that americans dosent do this more.

indoorszn wrote:

Yes. I know talented high schoolers scared to go above 40 and ruin their “college potential”. Can’t wait to top out around 70-80 come senior year

Get it homie!!!