100mpw in high school

I ran 100 miles per week in high school, and I ended up being incredibly slow because I got hurt all the time. It just didn't work for me when I was growing at such a fast rate. I once grew 3/4" in 3 weeks. I had run some hundred mile weeks in junior high before I started growing a whole bunch and it allowed me to break 5 min. at 12 years of age. Here was a typical 100 mile week when I wasn't hurt and/or recovering from an injury:

MON-7

TUE-7/13

WED-7/7

THU-7/13-15

FRI-7/7

SAT-8-10

SUN-20-22

TOTAL:100-110

Having said this, now that I'm done growing, I am a huge fan of high mileage. I say give it a shot.

I started running high miles to improve. Plain and simple.

I sucked my freshman year in high school (11:30 2 mile).

My coach had mentioned in passing a 1000 mile summer would be a great start. I took him seriously and put in 1100 miles for the summer. The first time-trail my soph season I ran a 10:40 2 mile. I kept it up and really became the norm for my training. Rarely injured. Most of my training was overdistance/LSD. My high school coach was an Igloi Disciple which translated into heavy intervals. I enjoyed road races and did a few maratrhons. This was from 1970-74 back when mileage was common.

Uhhhhh.....my math puts all that at about 115 a week. Try again

Bucky Dent wrote:

Uhhhhh.....my math puts all that at about 115 a week. Try again

If you are adding up Sure's totals, then YOUR math sucks. You try again. It must be a problem when you run out of fingers and toes to count on. 103-109. What difference does it make anyway?

I've posted beofre about the York High School high mileage program under Joe Newton, where my twins ran in high school. Newton stresses a high mielage approach and every summer has kids running over 100mpw, to the point that each summer he has 15-20 kids who earn 1000 mile t-shirts- my kids earned 3000 mile shirts in high school. At their peak in the summer, the kids are running near 120mpw, and of the crew who ran with my kids in high school, many are still doing well in college, chief among them Don Sage at Stanford. But Jim Akita has a top 10k ime in d3 right now, at 30.37, and my kids developed well in college, to the point that when my son ran his first marathon last year, he won, at age 21.

Hover, other top runners did not do that distance- not Webb, not Ritzenhein, whose distances were more modest. I do think that a motivated runner can do 100mpw in hs and come out well.

I am an expert on this subject and will tell you youngsters from years of experience that 100 mile weeks in H.S. is NOT advisable. Have some done it and been successful? Sure, but only a handful.....and they probably would have been even better had they backed it off to the 70-85 range. For about every 10 100-mile per week h.s. kids you show me, I will show you 9 that stay injured, cause some serious lifetime damage, or motivate themselves right out of running due to overwork.

I firmly believe in 100 mile weeks, but a little later in life.

Dr. Phil- serious question. What makes you an expert on this subject? And on what basis can you say that had a 100 mile runner do less he would have done better? My own involvement comes after watching York HS for the last 9 years. I can provide names of kids who ran high miles and continued to run well after high school and who were rarely injured. All of them ran 100+ miles, from Marius Bakken (now the Norwegian record holder in the 5k at 13.09 and an Olympian), to Sage (D1 defending national champ in the 1500 and a 28.40 10k runner), to lesser runners such as Mike Lucchesi at U IL, Pete Cioni at Princeton, Jim Akita at Elmhurst College, Adam Palumbo at I IL, Adam Roche at U Iowa, Tim Hobbs at U IL, Noah Lawrence at Grinnell and Collin Lawrence at Carleton, and on and on, too many to list (Dave Walter, Phil Olson, Mike Marotta...). Akita is a d3 qualifier this year in the 10k, N Lawrence won the Mad City marathon last year, Lucchesi once won the 5k and 10k Brian Piccolo run on the same day and consistently finishes in the top 10 at the Chicago Distance Classic 20k. York sophomore Sean McNamara just ran a 9.21/4.23 double as a soph, moving him into 4th place on the all-time York 3200 list behind Sage, and former All-Americans Jim White and Ron Craker. Yep, another 1000 mile runner.

I admit that 100mpw is not for everyone, but a highly motivated runner can certainly handle it in high school. With a good coach, and Joe Newton is the very best, running this can be carefully done.

Bucky Dent,

HOW'S IT FEEL!

Thank you, Math?.

I'm definitely not going to claim to be an expert as I only ran 30-35 mpw during high school. In college, I bumped it up and ran a lot faster. If I had known then what I know now, I would have definitely run more in high school.

Anyway, my question is this: If you're a high school runner and running 100 mpw, do college coaches view this as a good thing or a bad thing? Greenliner, what do the college coaches say about the York runners with their mileage?

My gut feeling is that they would rather have a fast runner who did it on 60-65/week than a super-fast runner who did it on 100mpw because of the potential improvement. If I'm wrong, that's cool. I'm just trying to learn something here as I'll be coaching my son over the next four years and want to figure out what sort of load for him to undertake each year.

I didn't and don't.

Doug: first, a correction. Sean McNamara is a sophomore who ran the 9.21/4.23 double and is 4th on the soph list.

Okay, I can answer this with only some certainty. My own kids were highly wanted by the coaches that got them- Will Freeman at Grinnell and Bill Terriquez at Carleton. Will, in particular, had wanted a York runner for some time, knew Coach Newton pretty well and "recruited" Noah- and Noah went on to be all conference 4 straight years, become 2nd on the all time Grinnell list for 10k, 1st for the outdoor 3k (okay, so they don't run it any more), and on the list for top times at 5k as well as in the top 12 all time 8k times for xc (25.12 for 8k). Much the same for Terriquez at Carleton- they just were happy to have kids who could immediately handle the training and and act as leaders for the team. Once in college, 100 mile weeks were not common, so for my kids college training was in many ways easier for them. But they ran d3. Word I have from the few coaches I have spoken to is that they appreicate the high mileage York has its kids run. But I have only spoken to maybe 5 top coaches in my life. Iowa has had several York runners and they have done well- Mike Marotta was one a few years ago. Univ IL gets a lot of York runners as well. We know the Elmhurst College coach quite well as he was a former York runner and he wants every York runner he can get. Look at how well Jim Akita is doing. In HS he could not come near my kids, and now has a better 10k time than either of them. Anyway, my feeling is that with kids who continue to run but are not truly elite, coaches really like them. A Sage, though, is a phenom- so all bets are off since every coach would want him.

I went to a high-mileage HS (not 100 mpw, but some 90-mile weeks during the summer). We ran high mileage at a relatively low intensity. Overall I enjoyed the experience, for a couple of reasons: for one thing, it gave us a sense of identity as "kids from that school where they run tons of miles". We were pretty proud of that. I also think it helped prepare any of us who planned to continue running in college or whatever. Most obviously, it helped us be in better shape than we would have been in most programs.

Having said all that, I don't think running high mileage in HS is that important as far as developing a runner's potential. I think given a sensible program, a runner will develop his/her potential one way or the other, and they won't turn out to be better in the long run just because they got a head start in HS. I believe a runner's potential is based mostly on inborn physical and mental traits. Like I said, I ran fairly high mileage in HS, enjoyed the experience, and continue to do so 15 years later. However, I think if I'd started out more slowly, I'd still be at the same level I'm at now. Running high miles early might help someone reach their peak a little earlier in life, but there is an inherent risk with such programs that, if not done carefully, the runner can become prematurely burned out/injured. I don't think such a program is for everyone. For one thing, most high-schoolers who decide to run track are just looking for a fun hobby, not something to consume almost all their spare time. They might not care that it's good for their long-term development as a runner, because they're not planning to have a long running career, or even necessarily to run beyond the end of track season.

In summary, in my opinion high mileage in HS can be fine if handled properly, but I do not believe it is a prerequisite for future success. If I were coaching a HS team, I probably would encourage experienced runners to build up to maybe 70 mpw during the offseasons--a level that I think would incur a little less risk, but still provide them with a high endurance level for HS distances, and would be sufficient to help them to adjust to post-HS running if they chose to continue.

From what I have seen when you are still growing the max mileage in hs should stay <90 for the most part with an average of no more than about 80 in the base phase. The reasoning is based on what I have heard from some kenyans I know and also from examples in our country such as Jim Ryun and Gerry Lindgren. They accomplished a lot in the sport in their earlier years late teens-early 20's but they could have done better with a slightly more gradual approach.

A progression I would have for a hs runner:

Frosh. year: 30-55mpw (on the lower end for less experienced runners and on the higher end for more experineced runners.)

Go for it man! I'm a High Mileage guy and a senior in HS, and it's helped tremendously. I say if you can handle it, go for it. I've gone from 1:55.85, 4:15.96, 9:28 to 1:52.70, 4:01.58, 9:06.76 so far this year with one year of consistantly high mileage training. It helps a ton. You'd be surprised how much stronger, better recovery, etc. you have.

There are no black and white lines. While I contend that a higher mileage program yields the best results, one has to temper that with an appropriate build-up to get to that point. Pushing the distance envelope so much that you do not listen at all to your body's indicator of potential injuries is not ideal, regardless of age.

Can it be done in HS? Certainly, but it is (and should be) done less so than in college simply because runners are not quite as far along towards reaching physical maturity (not to mention other factors).

So, I guess I am trying to say that although it's rare, I think it can be done sensibly (yielding great results). The key is the "sensible" part.

Bingham HS in Utah is well-known for its successful program. The following is a link to their CC page.

http://www.binghamxcountry-track.com/

Click on "Articles" along the left margin. In several of these articles, Coach Arbogast lays out his entire program. Particulatly interesting:

New York Road Runner's Club

"How High School Teams Train ... A Chat with Jeff Arbogast"

The Inside Track - Thomas Woodrow's Interview with Coach Arb (especially Part 2)

DyeStat Track and Field, The Year-Round High School Distance Runner

"The Four Macrocycles of Training"

These articles lay the foundation of how a highly successful program trains. Of course, training philosophies vary greatly and this is not the only way to train, but this program has proven successful year after year for Bingham.

Glad to see you've been lurking Mr. Magness.

Yeah, but how many times have you been injured Magness? Why not explain your stress fracture, so we know that high mileage can be a risky proposition?

100 MPW is just a number. Every HS freshman thinks there's some magic formula to being a good runner. There isn't a magic formula.

They don't give awards to the dumbasses who rack up huge miles in practice--it's the guys who train consistantly and intelligently who end up on the awards stand.

Okay We'll count the bumber of times I've been injured seriously....2 in 4 years. A stress fracture and an achilles injury.

Since you asked about the stress fracture I'll tell you. I got a stress fracture freshman year in CC. Off how many miles a week? about 30! OH GOOD GOD I must have been running way too much high mileage then!

Ya you coulda used a better example there buddy.

Now the achilles injury was caused by my horrible running form and foot strike. With a couple inserts, and then later orthotics...problem solved in no time.

I haven't once had an injury that was directly caused by my amount of mileage, and obviously it's working.