What percent of D1 male runners will ever hit 100 mpw?

I was at an average D1 P5 school about a decade ago. I peaked at 110mpw with some other weeks at 100 and was an All-American but the only one on my team qualifying for nationals, my entire time there I think I only had two other teammates hit 100 and they were the next best guys on the team. One of them was a year older, and one of them was a couple years younger but didn't do it until I graduated. So that would make three of us out of near 30 guys that I knew their training, making 10%. I would bet it's a higher percentage on a team like NAU, mileage matters and it matters a lot. Everyone does the same type of workouts and lifts weights, it's doing those extra core workouts and extra easy runs that make you a step ahead. Most of my teammates were running in the 80-90 range, and got the results that they deserved. If you're 'only' doing volume in the 80's in college you shouldn't expect to run sub 29 10ks, and if you do then you are really talented and could probably eventually run sub 28 if you ran 100 mile weeks for a couple years. At that level roughly 100 mile weeks seems pretty optimal, I know Joe Klecker runs about that much, Jakob might even do more at times and he's a 1500/5k guy.

You don’t need 90+ mpw to run sub 29. I ran my first sub 29 off 70 mpw. But I also was in ~13:50 shape and naturally had very good efficiency as I’d always done better at longer events since I was a freshman in HS.

Across the entirety of D1 in summer training/cross country season in 2022, 5k/10 specialists training for cross country season, I will say 25% ran at least one week at 100 or more miles.

Note this is a completely unscientific educated guess.

If AVG D1 P5 school above is 10% then overall D1 is probably closer to 1%. There are A LOT of smaller D1 schools. There are over 300 D1 XC programs. There are 33 Conferences. There is a lot of mediocrity.

Alan

I ran at a DI P5 school just under a decade ago. In my five years not a single one of us ran over 100 mpw. I was mid to low 90s my 5th year and the highest on the team. Most guys were 70s and 80s. We had several All-Americans on the track from 800 to 5,000m and half a dozen in cross country during my five years alone. I wish I ran less. I was often tired and banged-up. Maybe running 10 miles per week less would have helped me. I don’t think many DI guys are running 100+. DI will get the most talent. The talented guys don’t run as much. It seems like most of the top DI guys now are in the 80s or 90s. I remember reading that Alex Maier of Ok state was 120. Charles Hicks is on Strava and he is 110. Connor Mantz was 110. A lot of other top collegiates are on Strava and are lower. Drew Bosley and Ky Robinson were around 90. I also think it depends on the type of athlete. My school had multiple sub four minute milers and sub-1:50 800 guys. We were a mid D school. Speed guys. I don’t think speed guys tolerate higher mileage as well.

Then you were ridiculously talented. Most guys breaking 29 need more than 70 mpw. All of the guys I ran against who were top six in the 3200 in high school eventually broke 13:50 or 28:40, and not a single one of them was under 90 mpw when they did it. Most were over 100. In college. At pretty big time schools or big time NAIA.

Now, again, in today’s day and age, the super shoes have changed the equation a bit.