how much mileage should a high schooler trying to break 16 in the 5k run?

within a few weeks might not be enough time for mileage to be of much benefit IMO

I couldn't break 16 until I was around 100 mpw. I have friends who broke 16 under 40 miles a week, there is no set answer. It just depends on what training you respond best to.

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After the freshman year the first thing a serious high school distance runner should to is gradually move up to 70 miles a week. Very few do. It should be over a a year and a half to 2 years. It took me a year of 50-60 miles a week to do that. Actually after 4 months of 50 miles a week I did run 16:00. Then I bumped it up to 80 miles a week and after that for a year I only got down to 15:30. But another year of consistent injury free running I broke 15:00 8 times and 14:50 twice.

I would say for the average talent 60 miles a week is what you should be at.

Depends a whole lot on talent (and the course! Lots of IL runners seem to have no problem breaking 16...go figure). Some do it on less than 40 miles a week. Some need a whole lot more. Here was the mileage I averaged for the last 8 weeks of the summer before several years of high school/college and what I ran for 5k/8k that year:

Soph: 0-30 mpw in summer, 18:40

Junior: 40-50 mpw, 17:10

Senior: 55-75 mpw, 16:25

Frosh: 90-105 mpw, 27:00

Soph: 100-120 mpw, 25:30

I think McMillan's conversions are crap, but his numbers say 27:00 = 16:23 and 25:30 = 15:28. Had injury/illness problems later in college (a lot due to non-running injures actually) and didn't end up beating my soph time for 8k xc, but still PRd in track junior and senior year.

What do you do in the winter? My school didn't have indoor track so I just ran all winter (16 weeks of pretty much all base training) which was a HUGE help and allowed me to make the mileage jumps I did. So winter of sophomore year I ran 40ish mpw, winter of Jr. I ran 55ish, winter of Sr. year I ran 60-80, etc.

i ran 15:50 as a senior in HS only doing about 40 miles a week, all around 7:30 pace, with one good tempo and one good workout a week.

40-60mi a week of mostly threshold worked wonders for me (15:50 in one season)

I used to be one of those lydiard idiots doing 80-90mi wkly for base and guess what my time was? 18:30.

Justsayno wrote:

40-60mi a week of mostly threshold worked wonders for me (15:50 in one season)

I used to be one of those lydiard idiots doing 80-90mi wkly for base and guess what my time was? 18:30.

In another thread it was 19,08 to 16,12. Bad memory?

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