Went though my old running log and found that I only did 30 MPW in junior and senior year of HS. Is that typical?

I didn’t do any distance running in high school.

I averaged 46 mpw my last year of college and that got me a 3:42 1500. (I did win one small college XC race in the fall)

Mileage was mostly in n the 60s in the fall and in the 30s at the end of track season.

74 is my all time highest week but it’s could never sustain back to back 70 mile weeks.

So, from my view, 30 in high school is a good start.

it's been a while wOrote:

I graduated toward the end of the low mileage era (2005) and found that my team's mileage was pretty low. 30 MPW was pretty typical for base phase, and our long runs topped out at 7.5 miles. The weird thing is that some of the other schools we raced against actually ran less than us.

Is/was this pretty typical? FWIW, we only had 3 guys under 5:00 for the 1600, and this was a school of 2000+ kids.

Low mileage would seem typical for a HS runner.

My 2 cents...

Running lower mileage entails slower development and under-performing.

Those running higher mileage in HS may not doing so as part of school training program.

I expect most JD coaches would not prescribe high mileage, even if it's the best route to high performance, for fear or burnout/injury - and blame that goes with it.

The Predictor wrote:

Did high mileage (50-70) from early sophomore to early junior year. Didn't really improve. Started ditching the mileage during track season and dropped 20+ seconds in the 1600. Now, I almost broke 16 in the 5k, and my season is just beginning.

Interesting. How much did you drop your mileage by?

My high school had 7 guys under 5 for 1600 based off 1500 equivalents, the fastest being 3:58, the slowest around 4:30.

School population was about 1200, mind you this was a school known for good track athletes.

Grad year 2002. Similar milage. Sometimes more but often less.

i graduated in 2007 and i'm pretty sure i was one of the few guys in my whole conference that trained 6+ days a week in the offseason. it served me well as i cleaned up my junior and senior years with pretty modest PRs by letsrun standards. this was small town wisconsin. in the winter before track my senior year i think i had one 50 mile week that included a 12 or 13 mile long run. most weeks were low 40s. looking back i think i trained just about the perfect amount for me as i always enjoyed it and never even sniffed "burnout." i was not very online then and had no frame of reference for how much kids at bigger schools or better programs were running.

my college coach emphasized killer workouts over consistent mileage and our program sucked accordingly.

fast twitcher wrote:

Interesting. How much did you drop your mileage by?

40 is a high week. Mostly in the 30s and occasionally in the 20s.

In the 90s typically my team did 3-4 miles a day as hard as we could. I was very mediocre my first few years.

Later in high school I experimented with daily hour runs (7-8 miles). I magically went from middle of the pack to qualifying as an individual for the XC state meet.

Mileage matters. Don’t go back to the 90s “quality over quantity” bologna. I beg you all.

I think it's pretty standard. I think our normal runs were like 40-60 minutes during the week, so if you're running easy you're only running about 6 miles average per day = 30mpw if you didn't run on the weekends. I think some of us probably ran on the weekends a bit, but I would bet 25-40 was the range.

Back then during cross country season it seemed like I would get a little better in the first half of the season and then plateau and start to get worse by the races that mattered. I always sort of wondered why -- was I a headcase, did I overtrain, etc. I don't think so -- I think I just was running like 20mpw less during the seasons than I was in the offseason when I ran 40-60mpw and it catches up to you in XC moreso than track.

Lot of programs could be a lot better with a little more dedication to getting to 40+ for all their kids.

I think coaches try to get too cute.

I think you could have a really successful xc team and do nothing but mileage, hill reps, and tempo runs.

roger bannister ran 30 miles a week.

it's been a while wrote:

I graduated toward the end of the low mileage era (2005) and found that my team's mileage was pretty low. 30 MPW was pretty typical for base phase, and our long runs topped out at 7.5 miles. The weird thing is that some of the other schools we raced against actually ran less than us.

Is/was this pretty typical? FWIW, we only had 3 guys under 5:00 for the 1600, and this was a school of 2000+ kids.

30 is the norm if you just want to have fun but also enjoy some success. If kids want to be “good,” then they need to be doing 50-60 mpw. I’m surprised how many potential talents I see who could be so much better if they just committed to 50+ mpw for a summer or winter. I had a lot of success off 55 mpw in a deep state. All state xc & 2nd in the 3200. The year before, I was good but not great because I was running roughly 25 mpw and not until the season began. By then, it’s too late.