Are we ruining our young runners?

High School Running Distance

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9 years ago 01/26/2015 5:49pm EST

re: multisports

multisports wrote:
Good topic. Keep the freshman under 40mpw, sophomores can touch 45-50, juniors 60 and seniors top at around 70. Extremely rare for the typical high school athlete to make a living off running alone unless they are historically fast and have a great personality. Their talent will show at 40mpw and top colleges will see that. YES have them do different sports! They are kids still.

Different things work for different people. For ever athlete who would burn out on moderate mileage, there is another athlete who would lose interest if he didn't feel like he was training to the best of his ability.

9 years ago 01/26/2015 5:59pm EST

re: Let's use our brains for once

Let's use our brains for once wrote:
If playing soccer made you a better distance runner then I'm sure Salazar or Canova would have it as part of their training program. Perhaps the implication from your statement is that runners should be undertrained in HS? That may be the optimal strategy for those with elite talent so as to maximize their long term potential, but what about those with average to above average talent? Shouldn't they be able to maximize their ability in the short window (4-5 years) they have to run competitively before giving it up in college? There's nothing wrong with coaches coaching effectively with any eye towards maximizing talent in HS. The ones that say otherwise are either mediocre coaches looking to justify their lack of success or college coaches hoping they can create more undertrained talent they can then "coach" into star runners. How many D1 talents does an average HS coach have on their team in a given decade? 2 or 3?

You make a great point, but how many runners from those high mileage HS programs would have ran in college had they not been burnt and overtrained in HS? Give me a 2:15 undertrained (40 mpw, basketball or swimmer) female runner out of HS and I'd take her over a 2:10 female that's ran year round at 60-70 mpw. Plenty of D1 coaches would agree. Great article attached to initial post BTW.

9 years ago 01/26/2015 6:41pm EST

re: Interesting theory

I completely get what others are saying about the injury risk, but my first thought without reading your post completely is that coaches only care about their bottom line and that they will try and peak athletes 3x a year and not care about long term development.

9 years ago 01/27/2015 10:45am EST

re: RunWild

Males and Females are different when it comes to this. A male running high-mileage in HS doesn't concern me as much.

9 years ago 01/27/2015 12:06pm EST

re: Za Coach

Running a 4' 11" male freshman 70 mpw while he grows is crazy.

Running a woman, who finished growing in the 7th grade, 70 mpw for parts of the 9th grade, as part of a well rounded training year with modulated volume, not so crazy.

9 years ago 01/27/2015 1:17pm EST

re: dafjklg098346

You're taking extremes. I'm talking about evaluating HS talent as a D1 coach. If a female has shown 5:00ish 1600 talent on 30-40 mpw, without getting injured, that will work. 5:00ish on 70 mpw = not so excited. With a male recruit, I'd expect 70+ mpw.

And 70 mpw for a HS freshman is indeed crazy absent an extraordinary base, built up over years.

9 years ago 01/27/2015 1:40pm EST

re: Interesting theory

Interesting theory wrote:
Is indoor track ruining our kids? Should we be encouraging them to wrestle or play Basketball? Look at our young stars and many of them were also playing other sports in HS. Grant Fisher (soccer), Mary Cain(swimming), Allie O(basketball), Galen(soccer), etc.
http://highschoolsportsstuff.areavoices.com/2015/01/20/one-sport-athletes/
Let's discuss.

Four = "many"?

Faulty premise leads to a faulty conclusion. EOT

9 years ago 01/27/2015 2:56pm EST

re: logic song

The issue is quad strength. Track (the sport) does a poor job in promoting power in runners. Soccer does a good job at this.

9 years ago 01/27/2015 3:20pm EST

re: Za Coach

Za Coach wrote:
You're taking extremes. I'm talking about evaluating HS talent as a D1 coach. If a female has shown 5:00ish 1600 talent on 30-40 mpw, without getting injured, that will work. 5:00ish on 70 mpw = not so excited. With a male recruit, I'd expect 70+ mpw.
And 70 mpw for a HS freshman is indeed crazy absent an extraordinary base, built up over years.

Sounds like dumb evaluation. The obsession with mileage is dumb.

9 years ago 01/27/2015 7:27pm EST

re: Blahbaba

Blahbaba wrote:
The issue is quad strength. Track (the sport) does a poor job in promoting power in runners. Soccer does a good job at this.

I believe this ^^^^. Plus in my experience multi-sport athletes are less likely to see running related injuries in HS. Especially soccer and basketball players.

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