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

shsusj wrote:

haha yes, Donavan brazier the former NOP runner who’s entire organization was shut down for doping violations.

Also, DB did 40MPW in hs.

OK.

The same NOP led by Coach Salazar??

The same Mr Salazar that coached Alan Webb from 2008 to 2011??

And Ritz from 2011 to 2017??

And by comparison, Brazier joined NOP in 2018 and is coached by Pete Julian,

So, for the argument of comparing low mileage and high mileage for developing the best results your diatribe against Donovan must also apply to Webb and Ritz, who were actually much more influenced by AlSal than Brazier is.

That issue being neutralized, Donovan's low mileage has yeilded a world championship by 22 years old on less than 40 mpw.

The real problem is the change in coaches. If you’re good in high school, that means your high school coach’s training worked well for you. Then you go off to college and the college coach didn’t speak to your high school coach about what works for you. The college coach just trains you whatever his style is and it could be the exact opposite of your high school training; which, recall, worked well for you. So, then you do not develop in college because you are no longer training the way your body responds well. We call this lack of development, burnout.

The same logic applies for post collegiate running.

The Norway kid and Africans do well because they just stick with the same coach and training. So, if they do well at a young age they will continue developing.

So, if you’re a college coach and you are not speaking to the high school coaches, take some time to email them for your incoming athletes. Ask the coaches for a log of workouts so that you know what type of runner the kid is and what workouts the kid’s body needs to develop. If they are the opposite style than your workouts are for, then you might need to alter some workouts for the kid.

The mileage only matters for the type of runner you are. For instance, Lagat and German Fernandez are two well known runners that did very little mileage. That worked for them. Give them a high mileage coach, and they both would have been nothing (relatively speaking). There’s also high mileage runners that if you gave them low mileage they would fail; which is more intuitive.

Pretty simple. The better the athlete, or the more athletic someone is, the less mileage fhey need to do.

Spot on.

The armchair coaches of Letsrun love citing the exception and pretending it's the rule.

hansen9952 wrote:

Never ran more than 40 miles a week in highschool; sub-9 2 miler

https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20782463/hs-profile-evan-jager/

So, my point here, which the majority here seem to agree is, as a blanket statement , Sara Hall is simply incorrect. Every runner has their unique physiology and psychological makeup and as the saying goes, is an experiment of 1.

crete runner wrote:

https://mobile.twitter.com/SaraHall3/status/1263147909534507008

““The Big 3” all ran high mileage and aggressive workouts in high school and all went on to have long, legendary pro careers.

You can’t have the Big 3 if you put an ambiguous low mileage cap on motivated, capable high school runners that want to train more.“

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

A good example that refutes this hypothesis is Brad Hudson. As a super-talented pre-high school athlete, he regularly disregarded coach Wetmore's instruction by running 100+ mile weeks with excessive intense workouts/runs. Mark could not control Brad due to Brad's exuberance. Brad would be the first one to admit he screwed up. There is no knowing for sure, but it would be really hard to believe that had he played his cards differently, Brad would have had a much more impressive professional career.

Brazier runs low mileage. But isn't that pretty normal for most 400/800m guys? The sample training I have seen for Rudisha for example has him doing 50-55mpw during the base and less in competition.

Don't most 400/800m runners only run 40-60mpw? Is Daniel Brazier training really that abnormal for his event? Now if he was running a 12:50 off 40mpw, he would be an outlier.

Uncle Rico's Mum wrote:

Uncle Rico wrote:

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.

Spot on.

The armchair coaches of Letsrun love citing the exception and pretending it's the rule.

And of the kids that don't train hard in high school (see guys like Pat Porter or Brian Sell), how many of them drop out of the sport because they don't think they are good enough? How many guys just train moderately hard in college, run a 13:55 and decide they don't have enough to make it at the next level?

Seriously think about the complaints about high schools training. Run high mileage and people complain. Run low mileage and people complain. Run fast workouts and people complain. Don't run workouts and people complain. Run a bunch of races and people complain. Don't run races and people complain

Basement Weights,

Yes, high mileage is not necessary for future success but...

I think many kids (and parents) would strongly disagree with you that a scholarship is not worth the "risk" associated with high mileage. Getting a full-ride scholarship (event to a small school) is like getting close to $100k free. Not to mention the likelihood that you'll gain employment following graduation. 99.9% of high school kids are not going to compete past college anyway. High mileage is actually probably a better investment overall.

crete runner wrote:

https://mobile.twitter.com/SaraHall3/status/1263147909534507008

““The Big 3” all ran high mileage and aggressive workouts in high school and all went on to have long, legendary pro careers.

You can’t have the Big 3 if you put an ambiguous low mileage cap on motivated, capable high school runners that want to train more.“

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

You guys can nitpick all you want, but most runners don't have the careers that the Big 3 had. Even if you look at Ryan Hall, he had a pretty full career despite his health issues.

As always, running mileage is about doing the maximum that you can handle. The key word is handle. These guys were capable of doing a lot of work and that was part of the reason they were great.

I bet 50% of American Professionals today would take the career of any of these three athletes.

my HS was pretty good and produced a lot of fast runners. Like really fast runners. few guys broke 9 for the 3200m, some 4:10 guys and similar if not better performances on the girls side. probably had 2-4 runners run for a strong D1 program between both guys and girls team each year for a bit

we never did high mileage. maybe around 50 for a few weeks in the summer but were consistently just in the 35-40 range for most weeks with 2 or 3 high intensity days a week usually being intervals

it worked for a lot of people at my school but I really wish we had higher mileage. granted a lot of those runners were super talented for sure. also did the eas runs way too fast like most high school kids. probably around 6:50 pace which wasnt a problem for the top 2-3 guys but the other 7-8 people running in that top group including myself were just not recovering on those runs

Winnythebish has been WIDELY discredited on this board. Many have questioned if winny has ever even run in high school.

JamesTheAmateur wrote:

I assume you were being facetious, but Willis absolutely does not have better PRs than the "any of the Big 3."

Webb was faster over 800m, mile, two mile, and 5000m outdoors.

Ritz and Hall were faster over two miles and 5000m outdoors.

But I do agree with your general point that low mileage in high school may have saved Webb, Hall, and Ritz from early burnout

This is part of the issue with HS and Collegiate running in America; the idea that range is equivalent to better talent and success. Specialty is what matters and it is what wins medals and creates incredibly fast times.

Nick Willis has pretty terrible range and might be the only sub-3:30 guy that isn't elite in any other Olympic distance, but only 6 other people in history can claim to have two Olympic medals in the 1500m. Who gives a sh*t about his 800m or 5000m time. Yes Webb could run Olympic standard in all events from 800m to 10000m. Where did it get him? None of Webb's times are as good as Willis's 3:29 when equated using IAAF/Mercier tables. Willis was always focused on being a miler, and had the sense of mind to not waste too much effort on other distances. It paid off with immense success. Webb couldn't even dedicate himself to showing up to class and staying with a coach for more than 2 seasons.

One of the takeaways from this thread for someone like you could be (I certainly intended to put this idea out there) that you don't have to obey your high school coach. At my school the coaches only really 'existed' from the view of a student during the season for that sport. So track season started on some date (I don't know when that would be, but most of you here would; I'm guessing some time in March) and went until the end (May something?) Other than that, you didn't see him or have any contact at all.

Then some time in September cross practice would start on some day and that was the first time you'd see the coach for that. Different guy, completely unrelated. After the last race, that guy disappeared from your view. I suppose he was alive but he didn't have your phone number and may or may not resurface for cross next year.

Doesn't that leave 9 months a year to train on your own? And that's if you run both seasons. Now, as I posted earlier, it was extremely socially acceptable to run road races in the '70s and '80s. Parents didn't seem to have any disapproval to marathoning and actually drove us. Four 15-year-olds in the same car from the same school going to a marathon, probably during track season, must not have seemed weird at the time and no one tried to discourage it.

I don't think the track coach would have minded, either. I never met nor talked to him but one of my main training partners approached him Senior year and he was turned down. Looking back it's hard to say if I would have been welcome but since they didn't offer any distance events I never looked into it. During a later era, Brad Hudson apparently ran on his own; he was mentioned earlier. Verzbikas also did, but was actually coached, just by his mom and stepdad as opposed to whoever the school district hired.

So it sounds like you (poster I cited) had a reasonable situation but you're likely one of those who could have benefited from more volume. I'm guessing enough younger than I am that running unattached to the school was not acceptable according to peers, parents, and the school itself. I acknowledge that such is the state of affairs today and am lucky that it WAS considered cool 40 years ago.

I just wonder (being so removed from teenage culture I must ask) if school programs are year-round now. I suspect that wasn't allowed once upon a time. Either that or no coach was going put in a minute of work without getting paid, and they're only getting paid for 7 weeks. So is there practice through the summer? What about between cross and track? Isn't that 4-1/2 months? Is the coach for both generally the same at schools today?

I believe my high school track coach was one of the football coaches who needed a Spring semester gig and wanted to keep track of his football guys and make them stay in shape. (Not that unusual once upon time. OJ had to run track at USC.) Anyway, just trying to encourage those hoping to train differently than their school teams do. Get out on the road, all of you!

Totally agree with what you've stated here. My highschool XC and Track coach is a really nice guy and all, nothing against his personality, but he has the "kill yourself in every practice or you won't be good" mindset. None of the runners do much mileage outside of practice because they're already so fatigued all the time. The best on our team, a low 15min 5k runner, couldn't even keep up 70 miles with doubles because of all the speed work. Dropped back to around 50 again. Both the coach and our school sports therapist labelled it over training because they couldn't understand that it wasn't his mileage but the school prescribed program that was the problem. The first time I approached him with the topic of overuse injury and burnout, he dismissed me completely, saying that HIS program alone was responsible for the school's running success and all the XC titles (which...actually weren't very numerous) and basically that if I didn't want to train with them EVERYDAY or that if I wanted to do a recovery every other day (every session was speedwork), I would not be on the team. Another time I approached my coach about doing high mileage, he said that he agrees everyone is different physiologically but that he has set out a training program that once onboard, someone must follow through with, and if not, that individual will get injured (Contradictory?). Quite confused because no training program is so pristine that doing some work besides speedwork would kill the rhythm or result in injury. Mind you, he also encourages us to run through pain and nagging injury if a big race is near. Because of this, one of my teammates fractured his metatarsal in the middle of a race, and still finished it, maybe a COUPLE WEEKS after returning from a previous tibial stress fracture that he had to rest all summer for. It is quite sad because he was talented and would've likely been an extremely promising runner if these injuries hadn't happened. Goes to show how the high school system works nowadays.

I do think looking ahead with a more long term approach in high school would benefit those whom stick to the sport. It would amazing if more American athletes could get into say a 10 Year Progression Plan. Where mileage is slowly increased, there's an emphasis on tempo, recovery between session, short speed development, and injury prevention strength work. Instead of obsessing over high school like the Big 3 did. Which obviously caused issues for them down the road.

The thing is a club system or coaching system outside of high school and college would need to occur. So something like this...

Age Mileage

14 - 30s (high school)

15 - 40s (hs)

16 - 50s (hs)

17 - 60s (hs)

18 - 70s (College)

19 - 80s (C)

20 - 90s (C)

21 - 100s (C)

22 - 110s (Post Collegiate)

23 - 120s (PC)

24 - 120s (PC)

TWO Intensity workouts/races a week (mostly tempos)

Two days a week core, glute, and upper body strength work

Strides/Hills Sprints 3-4 days a week

Keep the rest of the miles at a conversational effort

Maruder44 wrote:

Basement Weights,

Yes, high mileage is not necessary for future success but...

I think many kids (and parents) would strongly disagree with you that a scholarship is not worth the "risk" associated with high mileage. Getting a full-ride scholarship (event to a small school) is like getting close to $100k free. Not to mention the likelihood that you'll gain employment following graduation. 99.9% of high school kids are not going to compete past college anyway. High mileage is actually probably a better investment overall.

I think there is a lot to be said for peaking in HS. If I run a 15:30 5k I get to run in the state meet and be part of a winning team. Only run 16:00 in HS and I will be lucky to make the team. Even if I run a 14:15 as a senior (i.e. a really nice progression), what have I gained?

But there is a line between training hard and being excessive. Run 60-80mpw after 3 years of training? Sure. Run 100+? Probably overdoing it. And obviously the same stuff applies to workouts (1-2/week, sure. 3-4? Probably not).

Sara Hall also advocates worshipping an invisible wizard in the sky who murdered his own child.

So there's that.