High School Training for untalented slow-twitch-work-horse

Lower his mileage to 30-40 in season and have him drop his easy pace to around 7:00. It really works. His "threshold" should drastically improve. Also have him do some fast sprints occasionally like 200s or 400s.

Sham 69 wrote:

Lower his mileage to 30-40 in season and have him drop his easy pace to around 7:00. It really works. His "threshold" should drastically improve. Also have him do some fast sprints occasionally like 200s or 400s.

No.

Sham 69 wrote:

Lower his mileage to 30-40 in season and have him drop his easy pace to around 7:00. It really works. His "threshold" should drastically improve. Also have him do some fast sprints occasionally like 200s or 400s.

I guess I should preface we kind of tried the much lower mileage and more speed work thing spring of last year. He went from running 70-80mpw with some tempos and occasional hills or track work down to 40-50 mostly with much more specific track work and occasional tempos and he didn't seem to improve much. He ran 10:30 early in that season when his mileage was still high and only got down to 10:20 mid despite the mileage drop. He's definitely a little older and mature and probably a little faster over 200m now then he was, but at best he's probably 27 flat in a 200m race right now. He's also one of those kids who definitely works out better than he races, so I'm trying to work on that end as well.

Don't change much. Play to his strength, keep his mileage high. Just add some strides and form work 3 days a week.

Sham 69 wrote:

Lower his mileage to 30-40 in season and have him drop his easy pace to around 7:00. It really works. His "threshold" should drastically improve. Also have him do some fast sprints occasionally like 200s or 400s.

Never listen to Sham69, only spews garbage

I'm not a coach, so feel free to throw out my opinion and wait for actual coaches to respond. But maybe keep doing what you're doing with him and allow him to continue the higher mileage, since it seems to be working for him? Maybe high mileage is what's going to benefit him the most.

don't change much wrote:

Don't change much. Play to his strength, keep his mileage high. Just add some strides and form work 3 days a week.

dropping in season a bit is ok but we are talking 80 to 60, not 40. you need to be careful around races to manage the stress.

workout wise, do quality aerobic work in the 10k-mp range and be selective about doing lots of 3k/5k work. Races tend to give all you need. Do a half dozen strides/short hill sprints/300s at 1500m pace at the end of a workout to work on faster turnover. what you want to avoid is the high lactic acid workouts(8x400 @ 1500m pace woth 90s rest). Most ST just dont get much out of them.

But dont expect miracles. Dropping a min is huge. expecting another is a bit unrealistic. One thing to be careful of is the desire to just keep cranking the mileage up. 70-80mpw is getting up there and you want to give the body time to adapt. Deciding 100 will get you sub 16 is likely to lead to injuries. Long term it is the answer but most people need to work up to that over years versus a month or two...

And it should be pointed out that 27 flat is decent speed for a distance. You can run a 58s 400 and a low 430 mile off that. Thats plenty for a 9:30/1545 type runner. Keep working that aerobic system.

Can you give a day by day sample of what a typical week looks like for him right now? That would make it easier to give feedback.

Thanks for the responses. I do plan to mostly keep it aerobic , just wanted to know if anyone had any experiences of these types responding well to lots of vo2 or mile pace work. I lay out some typical weeks for him recently:

Most days he throws in a 2-4 mile double on his own to get to around 70 miles on top of what we do at practice.

Sunday: 14 @ 6:50 pace. First 8-9 mid to low 7 pace, last 5 or so mid 6 to 6:15 pace.

Monday: 8ish easy at practice @ low 7 pace plus 4x100m strides

Tuesday: 8x1200m @ 5:45 pace with 90s rest on a road loop

Wednesday: 8ish easy at practice. Usually keep it around 7:20, end up going a little quicker by the end.

Thursday: Another easy 8-10 plus 4x100m hill strides with another 50m of flat striding at the top.

Friday: 8 mile progression run splits of 7:40, 6:55, 6:35, 6:05, 5:45, 5:40, 5:35, 5:25. First mile uphill and last mile downhill.

Saturday: Easy double.

Sunday: 15 miles @ 7:00 pace

Monday: Easy 8ish plus 4 easy strides

Tuesday: 15x200m hills (~3-4%) at mile effort

Wednesday: 7-8 miles @ 7:30-7:40 pace

Thursday: 5x1200m net uphill grass CV repeats on our xc course + 6x300m @ 51 in the parking lot.

Friday: 5 miles @ 7:45 pace plus strides

Saturday: Race

Around 70 miles a week, give or take a few, currently.

If he's an aerobic monster I think the best route is just doing straight Daniel's. That's who his training is built for. Don't overcomplicate things; Daniel's is the best bet to accurately train someone with his skillset. Daniel's is definitely not for every athlete and a lot of people criticize him because his training theorem didn't work for them. But it does work very well for some athletes, especially aerobic workhorses like your athlete.

If you post your email, I can scan you the 70 mpw 5k plan from the book that I have at home, if you don't have the book already

Kid from somewhere wrote:

If he's an aerobic monster I think the best route is just doing straight Daniel's. That's who his training is built for. Don't overcomplicate things; Daniel's is the best bet to accurately train someone with his skillset. Daniel's is definitely not for every athlete and a lot of people criticize him because his training theorem didn't work for them. But it does work very well for some athletes, especially aerobic workhorses like your athlete.

Agree.

I am similar to this kid and the best I ever ran was on Daniels.

I agree, keep it at 70-80, no need to go any higher. My only reccomendation would maybe be to drop the pace on easy days and improve the quality days. Easy days at 7 lows are too quick, and the workouts a touch too slow for a 16:45 guy.

His doubles aren't really long enough to see much benefit. A 2 mile run in the morning doesn't gain him any fitness and just makes him lose sleep. That's doing more harm than good. If he really wants to double, just do it 1-2 times a week but get in 30-40 minutes on the easy run.

At least one day a week, shorten up his strides and have them be close to all out (4-6x 30-50m with 3ish minutes rest). He's never going to be a sprinter but you can improve his top end speed a bit.

hs girls coach wrote:

His doubles aren't really long enough to see much benefit. A 2 mile run in the morning doesn't gain him any fitness and just makes him lose sleep. That's doing more harm than good. If he really wants to double, just do it 1-2 times a week but get in 30-40 minutes on the easy run.

I disagree. I have done doubles quite a bit over the years. I have noticed that 20-30 min slow and easy is just as beneficial as 30-40 min. The only benefit to longer doubles is more mileage. 20-30 min is plenty and is most certainly NOT a waste of time. It will benefit you. Get out there and put in the time. Don't listen to anyone that tells you otherwise.

hs girls coach wrote:

His doubles aren't really long enough to see much benefit. A 2 mile run in the morning doesn't gain him any fitness and just makes him lose sleep. That's doing more harm than good. If he really wants to double, just do it 1-2 times a week but get in 30-40 minutes on the easy run.

At least one day a week, shorten up his strides and have them be close to all out (4-6x 30-50m with 3ish minutes rest). He's never going to be a sprinter but you can improve his top end speed a bit.

The only posters who think that short morning runs help are jspivey, malmo, and Craig Virgin.

Thanks for all of the responses. There's been some disagreement but I'll plan to not change too much, but lean more on a Daniel's type workout plan going forwards a bit. I also think I'll talk to him about cutting out the doubles in a few weeks as we get more into the thick of season, but I think he's okay doing a 4 miler a few times a week on top of practice.

We have been discussing his easy run pace. We've gotten better at slowing him down, but as you know he's a high school boy who assumes he needs to keep pushing every day to get better. I'll try to go with more aggressive or at least as specific of paces as possible to get some of the benefits from the Daniel's workouts.

We do toss in some pretty quick hills here and there, and his speed has definitely gotten better over the last year, but he still strikes me as a long distance runner.

I will have to do a little more reading on Daniel's as I've never actually strictly followed one of his plans.

Thanks all!

John Kimball wrote:

I disagree. I have done doubles quite a bit over the years. I have noticed that 20-30 min slow and easy is just as beneficial as 30-40 min. The only benefit to longer doubles is more mileage. 20-30 min is plenty and is most certainly NOT a waste of time. It will benefit you. Get out there and put in the time. Don't listen to anyone that tells you otherwise.

FYI - I don't fully disagree with you but he's only doing 2 miles some days. Training at the HS level is all about balance and managing ideal training with the demands of a HS student's life (where schedule demands are somewhat out of their control). I've seen way too many HS kids get 6-7 hours of sleep, get up at 5:30 for a 2 mile run before school because they hear doubles are good, and then end up hurt a month later because they don't get enough recovery.

A 2 mile run isn't long enough to get his HR in the right zone for more than a few minutes. At that point, getting more sleep would have a bigger impact than the run. OP mentioned that he has a tendency to run too fast on easy runs which is also a red flag for a lack of recovery. If you have a HS kid disciplined enough to get 8-9 hours of sleep and keep their easy runs truly easy, then doubles can be a great option. I think an athlete like this gets a lot more out of 2 days of a 30-40 minute double where he can make sure he's getting extra sleep on those nights than 4-5 days of a 13 - 30 min double.

I am somewhat in agreeance but I don't think this kid is losing sleep over any of his doubles. I do plan to phase them out as we progress through the season, as I've always felt fresher doing singles than doubles anyways and we we taper mileage a little it'll make sense to just remove the double anyways. But I'll let him get in 3-4 milers for a few more weeks. I did say 2-4 miles but he usually doesn't ever do less than 20min.