Very questionable high school training??

80 mpw in HS for a girl is way too high. Her times do not reflect that of someone training this hard this young. Your instincts are correct. This is totally inappropriate. BTW, this looks to be fake as no way a random HS girl can sustain this level of training without getting hurt.

Not fake I promise. She does her easy stuff super duper slowly and sleeps a ton which is what she says keeps her healthy.

She hasnt done 60-80 forever tho which also explains it. Last track season only 40-50 (but had some experience in the 60s) then started doing 60+ this xc season… but her xc times still don’t reflect that. So the times listed are off of 40-50 which is reasonable but some such intense workouts it makes me nauseous looking at them.

Improvement in college will come from continued physical maturation so the issue is whether she’s overtraining and risking injury. I do think her pace is too slow, but it should reduce her chance of injury.

Everyone needs to be re-thinking high school training. Instead of leaving room for improvements in college, you need to get to college first and that game has changed drastically. A lot of kids being "held back" by their prep coaches are in for a rude awakening.

no its not...Slow twitch fibers take years to build. She isn't doing any anaerobic work which is not good at a young age. Maybe add sprint drills instead of hills once the track season stats

this feels like a troll post, but just for starters, when someone gives a mileage figure, that's usually a mix of on and off campus, and they control whether they actually do supplemental work, how much, what type of training. most HS aren't having kids do more than about 40 at school under coach supervision.

example, a big chunk (20 miles) of the mileage being presented is weekends and probably off books. so it's not even a coaching beef. this isn't college, they aren't telling you what to do for long runs, supervising, handing out a plan that includes weekends.

i agree the mileage feels exaggerated.

"for a friend" with this much detail is also suss. "i am worried her easy runs are too slow." no friend on the planet has this concern.

also, there is a contradiction between complaining about mileage and then beefing easy runs are too easy. it feels like AI gathered some LR cliches, which, when collected into a single coaching concept, contradict each other.

I’m basically just trying to prove to her that her training is bad and needs to be fixed, especially because shes having bad overtraining health issues. Just telling her myself and she doesnt believe me. I asked for training details and shes telling me her workouts so i can post on here to get insight.

She’d do full out 200s and 300s after tempos but not much else below 5k this xc season I guess.

But track last year shed have workouts like a couple 800s at mile pace with 400 jog recovery after under 2 miles tempo. 500s at 30s/mi faster than mile pace with 400 jog recovery. After xc she immediately started doing 600s at mile pace. All of this would kill me

And 400s at faster than 68 secs, like 800 pace?!! Which built into the 500s

As listed here, that adds up to about 60 mpw. That’s probably the very top end for what a high school girl should be doing mileage wise, but it’s still fine.

She would be better off dropping a tempo day and lifting one of the days rather than doing hill sprints twice. If she wants three hard workouts per week, then she should do the third one INSTEAD of the long run or incorporate it somehow, followed by an extremely easy day Monday.

I’m sure a lot of elite girls train similarly though. I remember reading about Sydney Thorvaldson as a sophomore in high school doing 55 mpw and most of it hard. She was an absolute stud who struggled a bit in college, but she’s been running well as of late.

Not including Wu/cd on Monday, Wednesday, friday

It’s not bad training. The truth is, proper training isn’t easy and is dangerously close to causing injury at all times. It’s punishing.

Those that can endure without injury become champions.

I think OP thinks that there’s no point to doing high mileage when it’s at slow paces (high impact, small gain). I would disagree, though, because it could be primarily for recovery purposes

I’ve definitely seen worse. Large volume of threshold work that maybe a little fast depending on her current fitness.

Old boy in a Ridgeline

If she’s been having overtraining issues, as you mention, then clearly she realizes that her training isn’t working for her

Why does somebody always feel like they know more about training than someone else? Is this girl improving and staying uninjured? Then what is the problem?

The "save it for college" mentality has got to go. College is tough. Better to be prepared for college than to go in undertrained and instantly get overtrained. It's not the end of the world if you run elite times in high school and then never improve. Better than running mediocre times in high school and then running mediocre times in college.

Lastly, maybe this girl is made to be a marathoner. She's already on her way. Maybe she runs a national class marathon in 3-4 years. Or is she supposed to follow these arbitrary rules you think exist and maybe she can get good at the marathon in her late 30s?