HS State 800 champ runs 10-20 miles per week!?!?!?!

she'll either sink or swim. She might be running 10-20 miles per week because she is very lazy, or she doesn't have a very good coach. Brian Berryhill was a high school 400-800 star in Oregon. He was the quarterback on the football team(didn't run xc) and only fan like 3 miles a day including fast speed workouts. He obviously flourished when he started to hit the miles.

Two things: First, she says that she runs more during cross season. She may get all of the base training she needs during that time, then drop off the mileage big time for track. Second, as far as the workouts go, it depends on how fast she is doing these. I did a workout once where I only did 3 x 300 with 13 minutes rest in between. I thought it would be easy. However, I ran 39-40 for each one and was the last guy in the group. I got my butt kicked and was feeling it the next day. Had I only had to run 45 for each one, it would have been incredibly easy.

There are definitely many good HS 800m runners who run very fast doing virtually all anearobic work.

She might just have great natural aerobic capacity and doesn't need that many miles, especially for an 800. My senior year of track when I was focusing on the 3200m, I did about 25 miles per week with 3 really intense speed workouts per week. I have great natural aerobic capacity, so I focused more on speed. I would do 12 x 400m at mile pace with a minute rest, 4 x 800m very very close to mile PR pace and one of my favorites: 17 x 200m with 100m jog in between. Lots of intensity with low mileage tends to work pretty well in high school track.

thoughts: first, it doesn't take much to be a h.s. state champion for girls particularly in the middle distance events, so it's good that her coach is having her do the bare minimum to run an 800 at a decent intensity. and as for college, 50 miles a week isn't going to hurt any talented runner and because college scholarships are given out to girls like candy, her coach probably won't demand much of her anyways.

I have tipped a few this afternoon and so I am not all that quick on the uptake, but I am going to guess you chose the weird number of 17 for 200 meter repeats because the whole workout would then be 5K including jogs...did you time the whole thing as a unit and compare it to your 5K race pace?

What the hell are you smoking?

"it doesn't take much to be a h.s. state champion for girls particularly in the middle distance events"

Have you ever seen the results from the California state meet? In the girls 1600m it took a sub 5:00 just to make it to the finals. In the 800m it took sub 2:14 to make the finals. Then the girls come back the very next day and compete for the state championships! In the finals for the 800m there were 3 girls under 2:10 and 6 under 2:14, just one day after having to run under 2:14 just to make it there! In the 1600m there were 5 girls under 5:00!

There were only 14 girls under 2:10 in the entire country last year and 3 of them were in the CA Finals!

But maybe you are right, it doesn't take much to be a girls h.s. state champion! Get real!

Alberto Juantorena, although he is certainly NOT the norm, ran very very little mileage and was the 800m world record holder. He once joked he only ran a total of 1000km a year, which would be on average 12 miles a week. As someone stated above, with enough talent and anaerobic training one can "muscle" an 800, which is exactly what Juantorena used to do.

I'd take a girl who ran 2:11 on 50+ mpw in high school over a girl who ran 2:08 on 15 mpw any day of the week.

why!?

Less chance of injury, a stronger athlete, a much better chance of coninuting in the sport on a long term basis. Someone who hasn't trained at the expense of their aerobic system. They will run much better in the long term.

8x200 can be a very hard 800m workout. One coach called this his 30-30 workout: sets of 4x200m in 30 seconds with 30 seconds rest between each interval. Then a few minutes rest btwn sets (2 or 3 sets total). Not much mileage there (especially if you don't count warmup and cool down), but it'll help make a woman fit to run 800m.