Very impressive. WIsco's Morgan McDonald ran 14:07 in HS on less than 40 mpw

I trained with him in Oz. Immense talent. Coach had the Australian 10k record holder in the stable and thought that Morgan was the most talented runner he's ever worked with, which says a lot. Very nice guy also, would always talk to everyone in the squad, from the young kids to the older guys. Did a bit more than 40mpw though, regularly did long runs over 23kms on Sundays for example.

InsiderAussie wrote:

Did a bit more than 40mpw though, regularly did long runs over 23kms on Sundays for example.

How does one 23 km run on Sunday make an example of him doing more than 40mpw?

23km is 14 miles in one day.

Unless he ran under 4 miles the rest of the days then he ran over 40 miles. 4 miles is a tiny amount when you consider that lots of typical 5k sessions are in excess of 4 miles, such as 5 x 1mile. Not including warmups etcetera.

Critical thinking wrote:

23km is 14 miles in one day.

Unless he ran under 4 miles the rest of the days then he ran over 40 miles. 4 miles is a tiny amount when you consider that lots of typical 5k sessions are in excess of 4 miles, such as 5 x 1mile. Not including warmups etcetera.

This basically. We would cover at least 12km on a Saturday and Thursday and at least 10km on a Tuesday, so I'm assuming on his easy days M/W/F which we didn't run as a squad he ran more than 5km total which would be 40Miles. Again, that's not to say he was a high mileage runner, was nowhere near 90Mpw or anything like that, but just a bit more than 40.

InsiderAussie wrote:

Critical thinking wrote:

23km is 14 miles in one day.

Unless he ran under 4 miles the rest of the days then he ran over 40 miles. 4 miles is a tiny amount when you consider that lots of typical 5k sessions are in excess of 4 miles, such as 5 x 1mile. Not including warmups etcetera.

This basically. We would cover at least 12km on a Saturday and Thursday and at least 10km on a Tuesday, so I'm assuming on his easy days M/W/F which we didn't run as a squad he ran more than 5km total which would be 40Miles. Again, that's not to say he was a high mileage runner, was nowhere near 90Mpw or anything like that, but just a bit more than 40.

Sometimes people choose to ignore or not count certain areas of their mileage such as warmups or even actual sessions, choosing instead to only add up their steady runs. Sometimes people exaggerate to get onto a good team or impress others.

This whole 'only does x miles' is a red herring anyway. Mileage really doesn't mean much. There is so much more to training.

Critical thinking wrote:

23km is 14 miles in one day.

Unless he ran under 4 miles the rest of the days then he ran over 40 miles. 4 miles is a tiny amount when you consider that lots of typical 5k sessions are in excess of 4 miles, such as 5 x 1mile. Not including warmups etcetera.

What high school runner does 5x1 mile?!??

Probably one that runs 14:07

Canadian DBag wrote:

Critical thinking wrote:

23km is 14 miles in one day.

Unless he ran under 4 miles the rest of the days then he ran over 40 miles. 4 miles is a tiny amount when you consider that lots of typical 5k sessions are in excess of 4 miles, such as 5 x 1mile. Not including warmups etcetera.

What high school runner does 5x1 mile?!??

my school had a bad program and we did 4-5xmile? What school doesn't?

Even if he did 14 miles in one day -- which I'm sure he didn't do every week, he could still do 40 miles.

If he was in HS - he's racing at least 1x per week.

M - 14 miles

T - 6 miles easy (20)

W - long intervals: 1 mi warm up, 5 x 1 mile w/ standing rest, 1 mile cool down (27)

Th - short intervals: 1 mi warm up, 10 x 400, 1 mi cool down (31.5)

F - Pre meet: 3 miles easy + stretching/drills (34.5)

S - race: 1 mi, 3k race, 1 mi (38.3)

S - off

..repeat.

Canadian DBag wrote:

Critical thinking wrote:

23km is 14 miles in one day.

Unless he ran under 4 miles the rest of the days then he ran over 40 miles. 4 miles is a tiny amount when you consider that lots of typical 5k sessions are in excess of 4 miles, such as 5 x 1mile. Not including warmups etcetera.

What high school runner does 5x1 mile?!??

What High school coach doesn't have their kids do 4 x mile!??---These can be used for a variety of affects from of either a VO2 workout (91-93%), tempo intervals (cruise intervals @ 85%), or, everybodys favorite, CV intervals @ 90%. If you are not doing these in high school your leaving out a lot of critical training. Miles may be a tad long for freshman and sophs who shoud be doing 4 x 1ks instead, upperclassmen miles. Long intervals are important! They should be trimmed to 300 - 400 meters and get faster peaking for state.

McDonald is a guy to watch. If his 40 miles / week was done right, it's not big deal for the right athlete to run 14:07.

Brings to mind the late, great Chris Chataway. Celebrated his world record against Vladimir Kuts by smoking a big cigar!

Chataway profiled:

http://www.racingpast.ca/john_contents.php?id=94

we never did mile repeats in high school, part of the reason most of us were bad.

Yea, 4 x 1 miles are done by everybody, not so sure. And, running 300's and 400's peaking for state xc? That is old school thinking, certainly not necessary or that effective.

Canadian DBag wrote:

Critical thinking wrote:

23km is 14 miles in one day.

Unless he ran under 4 miles the rest of the days then he ran over 40 miles. 4 miles is a tiny amount when you consider that lots of typical 5k sessions are in excess of 4 miles, such as 5 x 1mile. Not including warmups etcetera.

What high school runner does 5x1 mile?!??

Um. Lots?

mile is weak wrote:

Even if he did 14 miles in one day -- which I'm sure he didn't do every week, he could still do 40 miles.

If he was in HS - he's racing at least 1x per week.

M - 14 miles

T - 6 miles easy (20)

W - long intervals: 1 mi warm up, 5 x 1 mile w/ standing rest, 1 mile cool down (27)

Th - short intervals: 1 mi warm up, 10 x 400, 1 mi cool down (31.5)

F - Pre meet: 3 miles easy + stretching/drills (34.5)

S - race: 1 mi, 3k race, 1 mi (38.3)

S - off

..repeat.

Exactly. Some highschoolers even take TWO days off or have TWO races per week.

I love how RoJo started this whole thread off assuming "about 40 MPW" somehow meant "less than 40 mpw" and it actually was something more than 40 mpw. But such is "journalism" nowadays.

mile is weak wrote:

Even if he did 14 miles in one day -- which I'm sure he didn't do every week, he could still do 40 miles.

If he was in HS - he's racing at least 1x per week.

He's from Australia, not the U.S. I'm not aware of any country in the world other that the U.S. that has the culture of frequent dual meets that exists in U.S. high school running. I'd be shocked if any good Aussie high-schooler was racing more than once every few weeks.

Also, the "insider" poster noted that he was training with group of Australian 10,000-meter record holder Ben St. Lawrence. That means he was training with Sean Williams. Here's a blog post from when he made the World Junior Cross team at 16:

By that point, he'd already been training with Sean Williams for seven(!) years, i.e. since he was nine years old, though he'd only started training "seriously" and given up soccer the previous year.

I have no idea what his mileage was, but I suspect the guy who trained with him has a better estimate than simply guessing how "most" high schoolers train.

hold the phone wrote:

By that point, he'd already been training with Sean Williams for seven(!) years, i.e. since he was nine years old, though he'd only started training "seriously" and given up soccer the previous year.

I have no idea what his mileage was, but I suspect the guy who trained with him has a better estimate than simply guessing how "most" high schoolers train.

Training for seven years since he was 9 and playing soccer almost completely erases the significance of "he only does 40 mpw".

This is a strange thread. The kid ran faster than 99.999% of US HS runners EVER on 40mi/week.

5000m is just not that long of a race. And volume alone doesn't tell you anything.