Highschool Base Question

I think that most letsrunners would agree that a high schooler could run 80-90 miles per week.

Sorry, I that statement was in a general.

I'm not on these boards often and the times that I am, I'm constantly seeing thoughts on how high mileage hinders college performances.

I also never said that "we" (highschool athletes) weren't capable of being able to hit 80-90, I was quoting it in the (what seem's like universal belief around here) that high mileage hinders future college + performances.

The title of this thread is "High School Base Question", right? Why so many workouts during base training? I'm not going to do anything close to a tempo till early July. Your example looks like what your training should be in October. Just what I took from Jack Daniels and Lydiard's training philosophies.

I think most successful runners would say 50-70mpw max is more than enough.

10x800 at 2:40?

5m tempo at 5:20-5:50 pace?

when i was in 16:15 5k shape, i doubt that i could have done either of those workouts. does anyone else think that he should have had no problem breaking 16:00?

I would drop anything that speaks of workout. Base work is just that run miles, build endurance. What have you done in the past? If you have never run CONSISTENT weeks of over 50 mpw, then building i to 80-90 for even one week is probably more than you want to do. I worked with Anguel Tolev, (2nd Footlocker MW, 2006 and Bradley Harkrader, 4th Footlocker MW 2003). They both were 80-85 mpw the summer before thier senior years in HS. Bradley won state XC (14:49 5 km) and 3200 (9:15), Anguel finished 2nd state xc, 2nd 1600 (4:17) and 3rd 3200 (9:21) all at altitude. Run the miles, don't worry about the speed. It all comes back when you start doing pace work in September.

Glenn

Shine the workouts. The biggest mistake that you can make is running too much intensity while also increasing mileage. As other posters have stated, if you are truly committed to building a base, stick to tempo runs, fartleks, and strides. Stay away from the track, run according to time and effort, and build sensibly. Talk of "pounding" the workout days makes you sound like a hammerhead. Do they hand out titles at the end of the summer in your state?

Glenn McCarthy wrote:

I would drop anything that speaks of workout. Base work is just that run miles, build endurance. What have you done in the past? If you have never run CONSISTENT weeks of over 50 mpw, then building i to 80-90 for even one week is probably more than you want to do. I worked with Anguel Tolev, (2nd Footlocker MW, 2006 and Bradley Harkrader, 4th Footlocker MW 2003). They both were 80-85 mpw the summer before thier senior years in HS. Bradley won state XC (14:49 5 km) and 3200 (9:15), Anguel finished 2nd state xc, 2nd 1600 (4:17) and 3rd 3200 (9:21) all at altitude. Run the miles, don't worry about the speed. It all comes back when you start doing pace work in September.

Glenn

what did their basework look like? no workouts whatsover? no tempo runs either? just easy/medium mileage?

Before I give you my advice let me give you my PR's:

13:56 - 5000m

8:06 - 3000m

3:47 - 1500m

1:54 - 800m

HS:

9:12 - 2 mile

3:51 - 1500m

1:54 - 800m

Your mileage is good, but I do believe it is important to almost always have 1 tempo run per week (2 early in the season) of 5 to 8 miles, 1 long run (10-15 miles), 1 interval workout on grass, dirt, and track that encompasses short speed, long speed, and endurance. (2 interval workouts mid to late season).

Good Luck. RUN FAST!

Unless you have run 80's and 90's before, I wouldn't increase mileage so quickly. Especially with your workouts you intend to do, you will be out of commission by August. Definitely listen to your body and maybe throw in a few mileage plateaus and a down week or two... otherwise going 50, 60, 70, 80 in the first month will without question set you up for injury.

Increasing mileage is great -- just don't compromise your season by being a slave to the numbers.

Yes, no speed, no tempo runs, simple, moderately paced relaxed runs. A typical week would be long run of 90, 105 or 120 minutes in altenation, the other weekend day 80 to 90 minutes comfortably,Monday through Friday 60 minutes most days and one day of 75 minutes. No magic, just solid running. Anguel, who will attend Penn in the fall, reminded me that each summer he has increased distance 60 ish as a soph, 70 ish as a junior and 80-85 as a senior and that he wants to get up to 90 or more this summer.

Glenn

well for starters, you should maybe bump your mileage up by 10 miles per month, cause if you go from 50 miles to, 4 weeks later, 90 miles, you will get injured.

Your intervals should be longer than 800m if you are running a 5k. 800m intervals are good for 3k pace, so you should be doing 1200-1 mile repeats.

Your tempo runs need to be faster than 5:20-5:50 pace to develop some speed endurance. When I could jog 16 minutes for a road 5k, I was doing my 3 mile tempo runs in close about 15:10.

Your monday PM and thursday PM workouts are stupid, you will never be running that fast in a 5k if you are only trying to break 16.

Your Sunday workout should be done at about 6:15 mile pace to develop some aerobic endurance, and it should be closer to 13-14 miles. 10 miles is not far enough for a long run while training for a 5k.

Glenn McCarthy wrote:

Yes, no speed, no tempo runs, simple, moderately paced relaxed runs. A typical week would be long run of 90, 105 or 120 minutes in altenation, the other weekend day 80 to 90 minutes comfortably,Monday through Friday 60 minutes most days and one day of 75 minutes. No magic, just solid running. Anguel, who will attend Penn in the fall, reminded me that each summer he has increased distance 60 ish as a soph, 70 ish as a junior and 80-85 as a senior and that he wants to get up to 90 or more this summer.

Glenn

What's the point of that? Building up this mythical aerobic fitness without any fast running whatsoever? That is not smart training, that is wasting time and talent. All distance running is aerobic. Lydiard's dogma is overstated.

overstated? it gets the results. Year-in-year-out. Your body needs time to adapt. No talent wasted, if it is never developed.

Glenn

realize that 10x800@ 2:40 is only about a 16:50 5k pace. You were obviously an endurance based runner as opposed to a speed based runner.

I would say a good workout to determine 16:00 5ks would be these:

1. 5x1 mile @ 5:00, which is about a 15:40 5k

2. 8x800 @ 2:30

these are the kind of workouts that will determine 5k fitness, along with the pace of your tempo runs. Any intervals shorter than 600 are not teaching your muscles the pace required to run a 16:00 5k

Alright thanks I got some good input here, and yeah after thinking about it and hearing your advice you guys are defiantly right about the increase in mileage.

I'll probably step it down to maybe 5m increase, depending on how I'm feeling.

Workout wise though I have gotten some mixed feelings. I've seem some of you completly opposed to interval's and strictly fartlek and tempo, and I've seen some of you for it. I think the best decision since it's not as majority would be to ask my coaches, to be honest I wanted to set a fairly regimen schedule and then approach my coaches (reason why I posted on here before asking them) but they're probably the one's to approach w/ the workout idea's during the summer.

Thanks for the input though, been a great help.

waaaaaaaaaay to much speed and track workouts. I do not even go near the track once during my summer. running even 2 mile pace is out of the question for me. You WILL burn out if you do that. The only thing I can somewhat understand is like 3x2miles at a decent pace. But really, gtfo off the track. I am doing 70-80 mpw probably and I will do some tempos and fartleks and hill repeats but no way am I doing a track workout.

Get Jack Daniels Running Formula, he has you doing track workout for 18 weeks leading up to you goal race.

The first 6 weeks is just easy mileage. From the 7th week to 12 is focused on repetitions (structured strides basically).

Week 13 to 18 is focused on Intervals (VO2max focused work).

Week 19 to 24 is sharpening and tapering using Threshold and Economy work for championship races.

http://www.amazon.com/Daniels-Running-Formula-Jack/dp/0736054928/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-0928345-2223259?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179882354&sr=8-1

Just buy the book and make it your bible, anyone and everyone that says you should do no speedwork and all easy mileage over the summer will have a tough time saying Daniels' system doesn't work.

A few years back it took me from an 11+ minute 3200m runner as a 10th grader to a 9:25 3200m runner as a Senior.

daniels doesn't recommend speed work over the summer.

He recommends glorified strides/speed maintenance work.

There are no hard workouts like described above in his work.

My suggestion is this

lots of mileage, throw in some threshold work that is controlled by feel, add in strides, some short hill sprints, and you have a great summer. None of the "workouts" are hard, only medium effort is required.