What is the average mileage/training of most college female runners?

I'm a female d-1 runner and I've never approached the type of mileage your daughter runs. The highest I've ever been is 50, and most of the season I stay around 35 to 40. That being said, I'm not a fantastic runner, my P.R. is 22:30 for the 6k. Perhaps your daughter is much better.

oh I think you're fantastic femalerunner2006

I saw miles & miles of Texas,

all the stars up in the sky...

we'll need a picture to be able to give any insight.

I ran for a D1 School but was a freshman 10 years ago... My freshman year I probably only got to 60mpw plus lots of aqua jogging. By my senior year I was consistently running high 70s-low 80s in cross and probably 60-70 in track.

Now I am a marathoner and run 75-100 mpw depending on the part of the cycle...

femalerunner2006 wrote:

I'm a female d-1 runner and I've never approached the type of mileage your daughter runs. The highest I've ever been is 50, and most of the season I stay around 35 to 40. That being said, I'm not a fantastic runner, my P.R. is 22:30 for the 6k. Perhaps your daughter is much better.

That is a good PR. She is close to your fitness, about 21:30 shape. But your training seemed to work fairly well for you considering it's almost half the mileage-give or take 10 miles. I am wondering what everyone's opinion is on the following, basically:

lower mileage with more quality workouts

or

higher mileage with longer tempo based workouts

I feel like you are running strong times for the work that you put in. Do you think it would hurt your race times if you were running more miles? Or do you feel like you would get stronger? I just worry about her energy levels she seems fatigued.

She needs to realize that the key to success is learning how to read your body. Understanding when to take an easy day or when to take a day off is essential. Also, if she is fatigued all of the time, I think it is likely that she is 1)running too much right now with the combination of school and 2)possibly not eating enough to support the miles. I am not saying she has an eating disorder or that she needs to gain weight but I just think many women don't understand how necessary it is to fuel your body properly. I know my college coaches never taught me about that. It wasn't until after college, when I had a coach who understood how important that was not just for race performance but for longevity, that I understood how important that was...especially for a woman in her late teens or early 20s.

I think it is extremely hard to generalize what mileage works best for women runners. Everyone is so unique in their ability to handle mileage and the different training. Her season is almost over and this summer she can experiment a little with mileage and fueling with little consequence.

50 miles per week

I have tried putting in more miles before. It has led time and time again to the same result---I first become very fatigued, followed by a few poor performances, and then get injured. This has happened to me three times so far, so I've pretty much given up trying to raise my mileage. It may be that I'm just not very durable (I'm 5'7" 110 pounds, so fairly slightly built), but low mileage has been the only thing to keep me healthy so far.