Who the heck trains a sophomore in high school like this

Ritz practically had a workout every day in high school.

It depends what you call a workout. I would scale back the quality if I were her coach, but it isn't so ridiculous of a week that I would make any absolute statements.

It is a lot of mileage for a 15 year old girl. It isn't ridiculous, most of her doubles are short, but it is still pretty high mileage for her age. Seems risky for her long term health. But again, it isn't the number of workouts that concerns me and it isn't so ridiculous that I think it is black and white.

My biggest concern isn't the programming, it is how fast her "easy" places are sometimes. Her 5k PR according to this article is 17:30, which is 5:40ish pace. Yet she has base mileage runs where she approaches 6 flat pace. I think that is clearly too fast. Slowing those runs down should allow her more recovery and reduce the risk of burnout at 18 and improve the chances she doesn't follow the path of somebody like Amber Trotter.

Well if she can stay healthy she'll run fast but I can't imagine that happening. I hope i'm wrong though!

Ever heard of Jim Ryun?

She does easy runs barely slower than her race pace and seems to be pacing herself as a sub 16 person ...

What's concerning is her progressive run where she dropped a minute off the first mile, then at the end only sped up by 10 seconds. That means she's scraping up at the limits of her ability (and she was going at her 5k pace for that mile).

Who cares. She'll burn out within 12 months from now.

i'm a 16:58 guy and I would not be able to complete that week. Her PR is 17:3ish.

Easy runs at 6:30s, triples, and no rest days. Who ever is coaching her is mentally ill.

epicTCK wrote:

i'm a 16:58 guy and I would not be able to complete that week. Her PR is 17:3ish.

Easy runs at 6:30s, triples, and no rest days. Who ever is coaching her is mentally ill.

The best 5k shape I've ever got was when I was hammering singles everyday, 10-15 miles at a 6:30 pace or faster. Got me to a 16:30 5k PR.

Don't forget, this is at altitude to boot.

I have never met a female that has an easy pace. Everyone that I knows runs everyday at the same pace and it’s always close to their race pace.

She won NXN NW. Good for her. Hope she can avoid injury and burnout.

Yes, at 21 he was essentially done. (1967 was his last world record. It was all downhill afterwards.)

William Peyton wrote:

Yes, at 21 he was essentially done. (1967 was his last world record. It was all downhill afterwards.)

He got a silver in the 1500m 68 Olympics. And, he would've probably won a medal in 72 if he wasn't tripped in the semi finals.

Notice in her log she would note "Felt sore today" well no duh if I ran every run near or at race pace I would be sore ALL the time as well. Also notice she triples? What is that about? I feel as though she is actually training herself. Looks like training a type A personality would give themselves and likewise be disappointed with if you only ran "6:30" when your PR is 17:30.

I don’t think any high school girls should be doing 12 mile runs at 6:30 pace. For that matter, very few high school boys should. It’s not because they can’t. It’s because a 12 mile hard run is not ideal training for a high school athlete.

I hope you don't train high school athletes. High school males who run 4:20 or faster for the mile can easily run 12 miles in 75 minutes. And should be doing runs up to 90 minutes or longer. Rudy Chapa high school training for a reminder to all of you who think high schoolers shouldn't run much more than 30-40 miles per week:

*stipe wrote:

I don’t think any high school girls should be doing 12 mile runs at 6:30 pace. For that matter, very few high school boys should. It’s not because they can’t. It’s because a 12 mile hard run is not ideal training for a high school athlete.

I agree with the other poster that harder long runs are not inherently bad for high school athletes. Overall her week is ridiculous, but if this was one of the only hard efforts below 7:20 pace all week I wouldn’t call it crazy.

I was looking at some of the other athletes that blogged and Tori Gaitan had a 73 mile week in 6 days. Is that what it takes to be elite today?

http://www.milesplit.com/articles/245329?page=2

crazy wrote:

I was looking at some of the other athletes that blogged and Tori Gaitan had a 73 mile week in 6 days. Is that what it takes to be elite today?

http://www.milesplit.com/articles/245329?page=2

Then subsequently had a foot injury...

I was also looking through some of those, and was surprised by the variation in training from girls all with relatively similar times.

You have that first girl doing all of her runs ~6:00-6:30 pace and running a moderate amount of mileage, then you have Tori Gaitan who does some pretty serious mileage but at more reasonable paces, then you have the most modest of the three in Marlee Starliper who was doing 35-45 miles a week mostly at 7:00-7:20 pace.

I think the moral of it all is that some people are just more talented than others. Some people might have to do that huge mileage to keep up with the really talented kids who are training modestly.