Confusing runner on my team

It's more surprising he made improvements during the season when he had NO base. Running during the summer keeps you from falling apart so you can improve from the training.

It shows that individuals are different and need training that recognizes that.

Yeah, he is a junior right now. His sophomore year he ran 80 miles in a 10 week summer and basically considered himself one of those JV runners who is just on the team for fun...then 4 minutes dropped off his time and he was thrown on the state time. Now he is taking running very seriously and the results are continuing to show. The kid is very talented, for sure, and is also just a good kid. I'm excited to see what he can do. At this rate he could get in the 15:xx this year, especially at our once again fast sections course.

notastar wrote:

It's more surprising he made improvements during the season when he had NO base. Running during the summer keeps you from falling apart so you can improve from the training.

at the hs level, I've seen it to be just the opposite. Running during the summer brings you into the season at a higher fitness level and you will see better times at the end of the season than if you didn't run during the summer, but runners who did not run during the summer show remarkable improvements like this as they go from having no aerobic fitness to gaining some through hs workouts and runs. The only way someone without a base is going to fall apart is if the training is just absolutely grueling, something very few hs's in the nation do. Maybe at York a kid with no base would fall apart, but not at Suburb Town HS on Coach John Smith's 50 mpw (or less!) training.

That's how it should be for every runner, a steady progression. If not, you are doing it wrong.

Our peak mileage is about 60-65 mpw week for the top guys. Since he didn't have a base he probably peaked at a little less than that, but we have a well known and respected coach and our training definitely isn't fluff.

Except last year you didn't know he was any good until half way through the season so his training might have been more fluff than yours.

notastar wrote:

It's more surprising he made improvements during the season when he had NO base. Running during the summer keeps you from falling apart so you can improve from the training.

That's bs. You don't fall apart if you have no base. You fall apart because of gradual overtraining and injury. For someone that didn't train over the summer, you'd expect them to get better and better with training not falling apart.