Are there any low mileage college teams these days???

Here's the ncaa team champion list. Name their mileage:

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/index.php/special-article-right-ad-only/445

Haha yo (superSerial) wrote:

Many d2 and d3 teams (not the top ones) only do 50mpw, and maybe less for incoming freshmen who didn't run much over the summer

Yep. The d2 and d3 guys I know who ran 16:00-17:30 in high school xc do around 50 a week the first and second years. then some get up to 70-80 senior or junior year.

XC Season is upon us. Let's revisit this discussion.

Prior to senior year (unless pure 800/1500 guy) the average cross country runner should work their way up to the 80-90 miles a week range. This would be a baseline for all runners to accomplish to make sure nothing is left on the table when their coligate career is over. Obviously body type, performance and historical injuries are a few reasons someone would not strive to get in the 80-90 range. This would allow the athlete to walk away and not question "if they had run more what could have been"?

Dirty Low Down wrote:

Are there any low mileage cross country teams out there? Are they any good? Lets say low is 50 miles per week or less. What's the training like? Any cross training?

The college I went to, and graduated from, was low mileage. They're absolutely terrible. I was the only one who got better and I did 100+ mpw. Probably double the next guy lol.

I really don't understand the delusion college coaches have when they have their athletes do only 50 mpw for an 8k. Their programs suck, but they 100% believe their athletes don't need 80+ mpw. Just baffles me.

Real Lyfe Nobodee wrote:

Dirty Low Down wrote:

Are there any low mileage cross country teams out there? Are they any good? Lets say low is 50 miles per week or less. What's the training like? Any cross training?

The college I went to, and graduated from, was low mileage. They're absolutely terrible. I was the only one who got better and I did 100+ mpw. Probably double the next guy lol.

I really don't understand the delusion college coaches have when they have their athletes do only 50 mpw for an 8k. Their programs suck, but they 100% believe their athletes don't need 80+ mpw. Just baffles me.

The coaches might know that 80mpw just results in half of their team getting injured. That was my HS coaches opinion off 20+ years of coaching. People ran better off 80mpw but only the surviviors. Having 3 15:30 guys dosn't win XC meets. Having 5 16:10 guys did. He found that he could get most kids to 60mpw and have enough good runners to be competitive most years. It undoubtly hurt some of the kids that could have handled 80mpw.

To some extent the debate isn't between low mileage (100). It is between high mileage and moderate (say 70-80mpw). There have been a lot of good teams over the years that have run moderate mileage.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Teams don't do mileage -- individuals do. Have the kids who can handle it do more, and the kids who can't do less. No coach should just make all their athletes do exactly the same mileage. It makes no sense.

adsf -

Read the headline again. It's about COLLEGE teams.

IT-

I completely agree. However, my former dumba$$ of a coach said the same thing, but for some reason believed he has a team 100% full of "special cases" of low mileage people.

Some should do 70. Some need 110. But your pure 10k guy should not max at 55 mpw. No freaking way.

Individualized Training wrote:

Why does it have to be one or the other? Teams don't do mileage -- individuals do. Have the kids who can handle it do more, and the kids who can't do less. No coach should just make all their athletes do exactly the same mileage. It makes no sense.

While I agree wholeheartedly, how can this possibly be determined? College coaches usually just throw freshmen into mileage and see what happens. That's great for puppy mill teams that just take the strong who survive but for smaller teams, coaches don't want to take a risk. Yeah, you can bump people up over the years but that could end up a too little too late situation.

Depends on the team and individual.

If you have 20 moderately talented distance runners the coach most often will throw big weekly miles at them and hope 7 survive. Those 7 will improve and score well for the team. If the coach has 6 or 7 talented runners, it maybe wiser to undertrain them and get them all to the line healthy or at least at a higher percentage then the coach above. Some athletes have the background to handle big miles others do not. Some athletes have ran big miles in the past but recently have struggled to stay healthy so a lower mileage approach with swimming and cross training maybe more beneficial. I think the coach has to be willing to individualize the program for each athlete especially if the coach believes the athlete wants to do what is best to get them to the line healthy. A small percentage of athletes may see the lower mileage approach as getting out of working hard and the coach and that athletes teammates probably will pick up on that quickly. In my opinion, college guys can run their best 8K-10K on 65-85 miles per week and college girls can run their best 5K-6K on 50-65 miles. Beyond that, the disadvantages may outweigh the positives? With that being said, less maybe more.

LOL! Not counting morning runs! There aren't any ACC women's teams running that little.

My favorite is the teams that swim or bike one day a week.

is the OP male or female?

I currently coach in Divison 1 (NCAA bubble team) and my team was initially low mileage upon my arrival. Before I came on as the distance coach, the team ran 6 days a week with another "on your own day," so many actually ran 5 days a week. The girls were 25-35 mpw and the guys were 45-50 mpw. Pretty bad.

The incoming freshman and all of the returners had such a low mileage background that I couldn't increase that much. I ditched the on your own day and had everyone do 6-7 days a week of running. Most had trouble adjusting to 7 days a week so they stayed 6 days a week. Girls ended up 40-45 mpw and guys 60-65 mpw.

In two years the team went from a bunch of 25:40-25:50 guys to 24:30-24:40 types. My top guy was 23:57. Girls responded even better. 22:10-22:20 girls became 20:30 types. Top girls went 20:04 and 20:11. Outdoor 5k average went from 15:03 to 14:24 average. Women went from 17:57 to 16:57 average.

Now and days my veteran girls get up to 70 mpw and guys will go 85-90 mpw, but back then I got a lot done off of little mileage compared to other programs. The key was doing a lot of strength work. Workouts were focused around marathon pace running, tempos, longer reps, hills, etc. The long run was long and so were the workout days, everything else was pretty damn short in comparison.