Do You Know Any High Schoolers Who Run 100 Miles Per Week?

Yes. My friend Ham does. He is trying to break seven minutes in the mile.

Don’t know any personally, I ran one 100 mile week in my career. But do about 50 avg

I ran one 100 mile week for fun in the summer with some teammates. But I’ve never consistently gone over mid 60s at most.

I know of some guys who are pretty close and sometimes hit 100... they do all that for a 9:30-10:00 3200

Yes, a few in my area. None are really fast though. One has never broken 10 or 16:30.

Me.

9/2 23

9/9 33

9/16 64

9/23 110

9/30 108 3 mile XC 16:34(1)

10/7 104 2.75 XC 13:51(1)

10/14 106 3 mi XC 16:18(1) 3 mi XC 16:25(1)

10/21 86 3 mile 15:54(1) 2.5 mile 12:39(4)

10/28 87 3 miles 15:18(2)

11/4 79 2.7 mile XC 13:56(1)

11/11 72 2.5 mile XC 12:55(3)

11/18 10

2/17 75

2/24 86

3/3 99

3/10 103

3/17 87

3/24 109

3/31 79 1 mile 4:23.5(2)

4/7 95 2 mile 9:25.1(1) 2 mile 9:17.1(2)

4/14 76 2 mile 9:27.1(1) 1 mile 4:21(1)

4/21 85 2 mile 9:18.2(2)

4/28 86 1 mile 4:17.9(1)

5/5 100 1 mile 4:24.0(1)

5/12 91 2 mile 9:30.6(1)

5/19 82 2 mile 9:10.2(1)

5/26 76

6/2 47 2 mile 9:15.0(3)

6/9 41 1 mile 4:16.4(5)

Hindsight being what it is I should have. I should have done a lot of things but is what it is. I obviously had the ability to throw down the miles....

Got up to 80+ a week in the off-season by my sophomore or junior year (I think it was summer after sophomore year). Got up to 90+ after senior year. A number of years later started doing marathons and could get up to 120-140 a week, mostly avg 100ish.

4:28/9:32 HS

2:32 marathon in my late 20s.

Alan

Do y'all think the mileage paid off and made you better runners? I'm doing 30. I tried doing 50 for a couple weeks during cross country, but that made me slower.

It takes several weeks to adapt to a new stimulus. You will feel tired at first and it will be pass and you will be a faster runner for it. Also 30 to 50 is a huge jump that's almost double

My best friend and teammate in HS ran over 100 mpw almost every week his junior and senior years of HS. Had many weeks of 140 miles. Had some talent, and (obviously) all the dedication and commitment in the world, but he just crushed himself via over-training. Was always "flat" in races, and his solution was always "I need to run more mileage". Ran 10:10 for 2 miles as a soph; I think he got down to 10:08 as a senior.

His hard work is admirable.

If I were him, I'd take him by the side and say, "Dude, you don't need to run 100 miles per week to break 10. Take it from me, I run 4:30 miles often and that's equal to a sub 10 2-mile. And I'm not even that talented, because I started off as a 6 minute miler. Your endurance is maxed out and it's time to hit the track and the weights."

If he had hit the track and the weights for a year, I bet he would have been a leg end. Almost nobody runs that much mileage, so his VO2Max must have been otherworldly.

At some point you gotta chill out. Even Prefontaine had some time to party and get jiggy wit the ladies.

One time I saw a 400 meter runner at our track meet break 50. Do you know what he was doing before ? Yeah, that's right. Eating a family size bag of Cheetos.

Did you keep up with him? Did he get faster? Did he stop running? Sounds like a very rad friend. Bad*** work ethic.

Sham 69 wrote:

Do y'all think the mileage paid off and made you better runners? I'm doing 30. I tried doing 50 for a couple weeks during cross country, but that made me slower.

You can't tell anything afternoon two weeks. And during the season isn't not the time to be upping mileage. While I was 70-80+ off season I was 50-60 in season with tons of workouts.

Yes it made me a better runner. I got faster every year in HS.

Alan

Jay Parker is a high school senior from Illnois who has been doing 90+ miles for the past year and a half. You can search him on Strava

He calls 17.5 a "short long run" and 13 at 6:50 pace a "little jog". He tempos 8.5 miles at sub 6 pace. I think he's joking, but he's only at 4:36 and 9:40 so far. Interesting to see what happens if he tapers.

Building up to and then consistently running 55-60 mpw dropped 5 seconds off my mile PR. I was originally running 35 mpw. So I personally don’t think it’s worth it for most people.

Runningart2004 wrote:

Hindsight being what it is I should have. I should have done a lot of things but is what it is. I obviously had the ability to throw down the miles....

Got up to 80+ a week in the off-season by my sophomore or junior year (I think it was summer after sophomore year). Got up to 90+ after senior year. A number of years later started doing marathons and could get up to 120-140 a week, mostly avg 100ish.

4:28/9:32 HS

2:32 marathon in my late 20s.

Alan

I hear you. I once had an “old school” track coach (not the distance coach) tell me to run the 1000-mile summer in the mid-80s. I thought he was joking. In hindsight, I would’ve loved to have done it and seen just how fast I could’ve been as a prep.

On the other hand, I did really well on 50 mpw, and, frankly, was chronically injured when I started running 100+, so it’s not for everybody. You can be all state on 50-60 mpw.

Have you ever actually ran under 4:30 before?

I did 4:27 in a practice time trial, but I think I was just lucky.

Sham 69 wrote:

I did 4:27 in a practice time trial, but I think I was just lucky.

Have you ever been to a Chucky Cheese? 🧀