Al Sal's advice to Trevor Dunbar in 7th grade: "There’s no such thing as too many miles, kid.”

not really wrote:

SalazDumb wrote:

Too many miles are what ended Salazar's career.

Too many HARD miles is what ended his career.

Salazar had a full and quite successful career, much better than yours I am sure.

rojo, just so you know and old quote from Salazar:

"Think if the highest number of miles you would want to run each week then chop 25% off that number. Runners run too much because we are greedy."

09876 wrote:

No, you've mis-represented the words attributed to Salazar. According to the original post in this thread, Salazar told him: “There’s no such thing as too many miles, kid.” That is UNEQUAL to your claim that Salazar told him that "miles are helpful."

There's always going to be an exception to any rule. At the high school level (considering that this was said to Dunbar in 7th grade), boys are usually trained around 30-40 miles a week even for the kids who have spent 3-4 years on a team. When most athletes and coaches are bombarded by the notion that "high mileage" starts at 50 miles a week it's not a stretch to say "there's no such thing as too many miles, kid" as a cue to break out of that paradigm of low mileage.

Sure, you can than say, "well what if he did 300 miles a week, how about that?" But we all know that doesn't add to the discussion, it's trying to be intellectual by extending something to the point of absurdism.

You can certainly say, "80 miles a week, is that too much for a high school senior?" The answer is a definitive "sometimes."

But that's a valid question. Trevor said that he wasn't sure if Salazar was joking, but we can take Alberto's words as at least holding some truth because he would definitely agree that most athletes should be running more miles when they're younger. That doesn't necessarily mean Chris Solinski or Steve Magness should have added more to their already immense weekly mileage figures as high school runners, but John Doe who ran a 4:28 off of 30 miles a week may have been something pretty impressive if he had built up to 50 miles a week. Could it have gotten him injured? Sure. Could it have gotten him to a level able to get a scholarship at a big D1? Maybe.

I completely understand not wanting to let someone take what is really just a nice soundbite too far, but acting like it should be taken literally isn't clever. Even with my athlete's I sometimes cue them to do some absurd things knowing that they need to hear that a huge change is needed just to get the moderate or even small change that I'm looking for. If I tell a hurdler to try to kick the back of the hurdle as they clear it, I'm not expecting them to actually do it (they can't if they're running fast either way), I just know it will get their lead leg down faster. It's very likely that all he meant was that it takes a lot of running to compete with the best (even that's not a hard rule, but it's true enough times that it's worth realizing).

Why did Dunbar leave Hudson?

Likely Stinson will also leave?

Hurysz also retired.

Wish they’d held it together, could have been a good training group.

I was a John Doe who ran 4:28 off 30 miles a week, got the attention of a D1, then got injured at the D1 running too many miles.

not really wrote:

SalazDumb wrote:

Too many miles are what ended Salazar's career.

Too many HARD miles is what ended his career.

but i thought canova is all about doing HARD miles all the way up to race pace or faster than race pace 30km runs

hmmmm lolz which brings us back to the canova rant the other day where he claimed FULL responsibility for Mo's breakthrough in his late 20s......and all this time we have been told it was from al sal....well brojos which is it? al sal or canova? (or aden lolz)

Brad dissolved the Hudson elite group to coach Allie Keiffer. Besides, Trevor is more of miler and Brad specializes in the marathon.

FFF wrote:

I was a John Doe who ran 4:28 off 30 miles a week, got the attention of a D1, then got injured at the D1 running too many miles.

And you would have never been anything with just 30 miles a week.

not really wrote:

SalazDumb wrote:

Too many miles are what ended Salazar's career.

Too many HARD miles is what ended his career.

+1 Many local "hobby joggers" can do do 90 mpw. The issue is how hard those miles are run, and what other speed workouts are included in a typical week or training cycle. Also, do you train for a couple of peaks per year, if you're racing marathons, or do you try to race year-around with a high level of fitness? Not doing these things will certainly lead to burnout and/or injury.

not really wrote:

SalazDumb wrote:

Too many miles are what ended Salazar's career.

Too many HARD miles is what ended his career.

You might be thinking of someone else. Salazar did not run his mileage all that fast. He saved the hard effort for the track.

Sand Dunes wrote:

I agree with Salazar, if we want to win; we better push it to the limit. Better to burn out than to fade away.

Is there a Club 27 for distance runners?

Hey, average Joe.

Run as you are.

And I'm swearing I don't have a kick.

A leading coach says something inspiring to a 7th grader, and later, the runner has a solid running career and is spreading similar inspiration. What's not to like?

It takes a long time to build up your mileage safely. High Schoolers who do low mileage are going to struggle when they go to college and have to run high mileage. It would have been better for them to gradually build up their base during high school so that the transition to college level training would not have been so difficult.

Little League Baseball has it right IMO. Little League Baseball goes by age. One needs to show an actual birth certificate or passport for Little League Baseball. In US, we say, "This 7th grader did this or this high school junior did that." Age is more important. Some parents start their kids in kindergarten at age 4; other parents start their kids in kindergarten at age 6. We have kids held back a grade. A seventh grader may be 11 to 14.

Geb ran 15 miles round trip to school as a child. Just run easy baby and build that engine. The problem with American running is that we strap on the gps and run too FAST. High schoolers race way too much and that is what causes burn not running easy miles.

I took the photo in the article. That was right after Trevor broke 4 minutes in the mile for the first time and became the fastest Dunbar in the family. The whole family is a great bunch of people. Trevor's brother Miles is a pretty solid runner too.

Wishing Trevor all the best in his new adventures in Boston.

FFF wrote:

I was a John Doe who ran 4:28 off 30 miles a week, got the attention of a D1, then got injured at the D1 running too many miles.

Your HS coach should have built up your mileage so you were prepared to adapt to college training. It is not too much mileage that ruins HS runners, it is too many hard workouts and races. Good HS runners should build up their mileage and limit hard workouts/races to 2 to 3 days per week. Add strides after easy day runs.

Da Truth be Told wrote:

Geb ran 15 miles round trip to school as a child. Just run easy baby and build that engine. The problem with American running is that we strap on the gps and run too FAST. High schoolers race way too much and that is what causes burn not running easy miles.

If one looks on Athletic.net, you will see some high school T&F coaches making some kids race both 1600 & 3200 in silly dual, tri or quad meets. Why?

Les wrote:

not really wrote:

Too many HARD miles is what ended his career.

You might be thinking of someone else. Salazar did not run his mileage all that fast. He saved the hard effort for the track.

^ This