Building up to 85-100 mpw over the summer, suggestions?

..fdsfae wrote:

Learn to be humble.

I think this is a good comment. There is a healthy balance between ambition and humility. Learn to listen to your body when increasing mileage.

Also I like the comment of the above poster. For most runners, you can see large jumps just by simply working on the "little things" such as foot strike. I highly recommend incorporating drills and plyos into your plan at least twice a week.

Good luck,

The Rocket

I would only do one workout a week during the summer and stay away from the 1200s. A nice tempo run once a week and a then a moderate long run is all the workouts you need. Adding extra workouts and starting faster stuff like 1200s 5, 4, or even 3 months before state meet is a recipe for early season success and late season failure. The key to running is consistency over time and there are no magic mileage numbers or workouts.

Just run. Forget workouts, at first. Run 4 days in a row at 100 mpw daily average. Then take it easy the last 3 days of the week.

When that gets manageable, run 5 days in a row at 100mpw daily average. Get the picture?

If 4 days is to much, start with 3 days.

Don't worry about numbers. Just run for longer than your usual average run. If you feel fine, skip the easy days and hold it longer.

Do some big things this fall.

the 1200s are fine, if you read som you will see that he wants you to do them at threshold pace, so make sure you doing these relax and should always feel like you could have done more and gone faster...

one other side note- get your team together to do one or two of your runs with you- even if it is your easy runs it will go a long way to helping your team get better

Summer of Malmo. Use the search function.

However much you increase your mileage, OP, do use doubles as you've planned. They worked wonders for me: substantially higher mileage (and better performances), no illness/injury.

What are the different emphasises on each part of the season?

Summer: build mileage with hills (hilly courses or hill repeats?), wat pace/speed are these 200/300's?, tempos of 15-60 minutes, occasional easy VO2 max workout (maybe 2-400's at 5k pace with equal recovery?)

Early: Mileage, Long tempos, occasional VO2 max workout (4-800's at 5k pace with equal rest?), hill repeats?,

Mid: Race pace/VO2 max workout i guess? ( 1200-1 miles at 5k pace with equal rest?), Shorter Tempos/LT

End: maintain fitness with shorter intervals (1000-400's at 5k pace with equal rest?), Even shorter tempo/LT

Am I correct on this if so, how would you piece this together over a season with a peak on first week of November.

A high school girl who needs to run a 100 miles-a-week in order to be good is fighting an uphill battle.

No one has given it straight: You will get injured!

Additionally, I believe you are a troll. You haven’t given your PRs or any meaningful information except fragments of your current training and wild speculations on your ability.

IF you are not a troll: quality is important to succeeding in High School. Get two solid workouts (5k-7k in lengthen). No need to do junk mileage. You’re running a 5k! Not a half-marathon.

You are an idiot. I am assuming the OP is from California because it is indeed very difficult to qualify to the state meet from there because of all the competitiveness. If the OP is from the Southern Section in California, it makes sense because it can be very competitive.

I grew up in Southern California and know of plenty of girls teams all running at least 70 mpw, many up to 100 mpw. Just look at the Foothill League, pretty much all the girls teams there are running 70 or more mpw.

I talked to a girl on one of the teams in Southern California and asked her how many mpw she did. She replied that her team did around 70 but it was not as much as many of the other teams in the area and they were hoping to get up to in the 80s the next summer.

You will not get injured if you increase smartly... there is no "barrier" on when you will get injured as long as you don't jump up too suddenly, etc. 80 mpw will not make you injured.

Let us know how they do in college and post-college. Also I assume they have built their mileage gradually, or do they have high school freshmen running 70-100? It's possible. I've seen girls do it and run amazing times...for a short period of time until they got a career-ending injury.

Actually one of them just ran a sub 17 5k 1-2 weeks ago and another ran a 4:2x 1500 (improvement for both).

If you run around 80 mpw in high school, you can build up to around 100-120 mpw in college and then if you continue running post college you can go 120+ mpw (like many Japanese marathoners, etc do).

Building up to that amount over the course of 3+ months is certainly doable.

You can point out all the success stories. You still don't sway my opinion.

I think you underestimate the frailty of teenage girls. Running 100 miles-a-week at the age of 17 is simply foolish. If healthy these girls reap immediate success, but off-set much marginal success in the future.

For the girls running in Southern California: save the intensity for when you are fully developed.

Running 17:00 in the 5k at age 17 is noble. Running 16:00 in the 5k at age 20 is still faster!

No it's not. You can get up to 100 mpw just running mostly easy days, and then the next summer add in a workout a week and the summer after that add in another workout a week.

^ truth.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

Let us know how they do in college and post-college.

More than 90% of girls who run track/cross in high school do not compete in college. They're interested in being part of a winning *team*, *now*. Do we talk about developing HS football players for "college and post-college"?

Pretty sure the OP isn't interested in being part of a "winning team, now" since it sounds like she probably is training alone most of the time...

The work ethic of the teams in Southern California (I'm sure other areas too, but it seems like teams in Southern California especially) is very high... look at this interview with Paragas from Saugus:

http://www.dyestat.com//?pg=usEastbayCoachoftheWeek07XCParagas

"I was in Oregon this weekend for the PAC-10's. When I returned, I asked my captains how things went on Saturday. The report: Fourteen out of the top fifteen girls completed a 2-hour run on Saturday, with half of them returning on Sunday for another 40-minute run on their own. My response: Wow!"

..fdsfae wrote:

Learn to be humble. What's the point of running 85 miles a week (if you even get there) if you have a stress fracture in the fall? Exactly. Don't throw put in jeopardy what may be your last XC season of your life.

Have to agree. There is no need to do 100 mpw to run well. I started out in college running 60-70 miles a week during the summer and the entire cross season and finished AA. Other people attempted the high mileage during the summer and ended up injured, either seriously, or enough to knock them out of Cross. My suggestion, if you're worried run 60 hit maybe 80 on your highest week, but make the intensity of the run higher. Instead of running 9 min miles, run 8 min miles, or faster, but comfortable. You'll race better too. Mileage isn't everything, the one time i attempted high mileage i was out for 2 1/2 months

Just be careful. It's much better to be slightly below top notch mileage than overdoing it, getting burned out, and injured before your season even starts. This has happened to yours truly. not fun, needless to say. I would recommend topping out at 80-85 max. Leave room to grow in college. Coaches will take your current mileage into account when evaluating the possibility of offering scholarships. They may either think: (a) she can handle mileage; (b) she's already maxed out on the mileage; she probably won't improve much (while you might be able to handle more mileage, college classes often make it difficult to make time for said mileage)

Yes, after reading your comments etc. I think I'll top out at around 80 (max). I'll try to maintain around 70 during the summer. Like I said, increase gradually to 70 and then hold it there and add in workouts (such as the 1200s, 200s, etc).

I'll probably do around 70 with 4-5 doubles.

And to people that asked, I have a 20-21 min 5k PR (run off of averaging 40-50 mpw last summer). If I want to make state, I'll need to get it into the 19-20 min range.

From mid-May to the end of August could be base building, so 3.5 months.. the first meet is in early-mid September, and then 2-3 more months till the end of the season (but in September, we are going to be doing stuff like mile repeats, etc). So I have 3.5 months to increase the mileage etc. which I think is enough time to safely increase it.