Ithinkshetrainsherself wrote:
http://www.milesplit.com/articles/245659/summer-training-blog-rawlins-sydney-thorvaldsonThis girl works out every day. I have never seen this. Discuss.
Wow, I'm a mid-20s guy, and I was about as fast as this girl in HS (at least by the workouts). This was major deja vu; it's exactly the sort of log I had back in those days.
The "sore and tired again today", the "didn't go as fast as I wanted", the "supposed to be an easy run, but I went HM pace instead. Whoops!" All so familiar to me. And her log has the same pervading sense of "yeah, I guess I'm training harder than I'm supposed to, maybe I 'should' be patient, but running fast can't be a bad thing, and I feel good about how hard I'm working as well as getting that daily validation." Redoing a bad workout a few hours later, the slight disconnect from personal decisions (see her use of "apparently"), the double on a "rest" day, all these things feel like old friends.
You just feel so good and so tough and so fit, and like you're going to be so fast (and sometimes you do get really fast). Everyone else thinks you're super tough too. And on top of it all, you get the multiple-times-daily dose of adrenaline and endorphins, and that wonderful, exhausted feeling you get when you're training harder, surely, than anyone could possibly train.
I'm sure many on LetsRun know exactly what I'm talking about, and others (the lucky ones) have no idea at all.
I love running now just as much as I did then, and I know I've still got PRs in my legs, but it hasn't been an easy road. Not that the same thing will necessarily happen to her. But since high school I've struggled big time with injuries, I stagnated for a couple years, and I struggled to raise my mileage. And the biggest thing from this specifically is it took me a really long time to be able to run without effort. The thing is: it feels so easy when you're cruising along at a fast pace, but that's actually because you're pumping adrenaline around; slow down 20 seconds per mile, and it actually feels HARDER because it's still pretty fast, but you don't get the same excitement from it. It's really hard to run an "OK" pace for this reason. One of the biggest skills I've learned in the past ten years, and I feel one of the most important skills in running, is to be able to run at a decent, even clip while being emotionally detached.
So not that Thorvaldson is going to read this post, but my advice to her and others like her (besides a general warning to be patient) would be to get good at running "OK" with minimal effort.
I always read about taking easy runs easy, but it seems like a lot of these top kids run their runs much faster than "Jack Daniels" pace. It's very frustrating, and makes me doubt my training. I wish some reliable coaches who have coached top high school girls, or professional runners, would give their advise about pace on easy run days. Please don't tell me to ask my coach. I know there are some great high school coaches out there, but there are also a lot that hardly know anything. I have a coach who never ran in college and I am pretty much on my own to guide myself with the right paces and mileage. I'm a decent runner, 10:55 for the 2 mile, but am very confused about the appropriate paces and milage that is good for a motivated high school girl.
fast pace wrote:
I always read about taking easy runs easy, but it seems like a lot of these top kids run their runs much faster than "Jack Daniels" pace. It's very frustrating, and makes me doubt my training. I wish some reliable coaches who have coached top high school girls, or professional runners, would give their advise about pace on easy run days. Please don't tell me to ask my coach. I know there are some great high school coaches out there, but there are also a lot that hardly know anything. I have a coach who never ran in college and I am pretty much on my own to guide myself with the right paces and mileage. I'm a decent runner, 10:55 for the 2 mile, but am very confused about the appropriate paces and milage that is good for a motivated high school girl.
The answers are not hard to find
Honestly even if someone's really talented I would err on the side of caution at her age. She has potentially 10+ years left, even if she avoids injury I feel like she might just get sick of the sport training like this.
Yeah, so I ran 15:59 in high school, got eighth at NY State meet in cross. I did easy runs no faster than 7:30. Her sub 7 everyday seems ridiculous.
100% agree, that log reads a lot like my training log from a few years ago when I was in school. I also ended up in a torrid injury cycle. Hopefully that doesn't happen to her.
fast pace wrote:
I always read about taking easy runs easy, but it seems like a lot of these top kids run their runs much faster than "Jack Daniels" pace. It's very frustrating, and makes me doubt my training. I wish some reliable coaches who have coached top high school girls, or professional runners, would give their advise about pace on easy run days. Please don't tell me to ask my coach. I know there are some great high school coaches out there, but there are also a lot that hardly know anything. I have a coach who never ran in college and I am pretty much on my own to guide myself with the right paces and mileage. I'm a decent runner, 10:55 for the 2 mile, but am very confused about the appropriate paces and milage that is good for a motivated high school girl.
Some runners need to train harder, reminds me of Carlos Lopes in the two types of runners thread, or of John Walker who would hammer every run.
I dont know if running attracts OCD types, or if it is a cause of it.
For every successful runner you can point to that ran low mileage, you can point to someone that was booking huge numbers. That just confuses the issue even more.
When a coach has a talented, motivated runner, part of his job is to hold the athlete back.. This isn't football or some other sport where motivation is a big part of the coaching, distance runners need to be told when NOT to run. It's part of our mental make up. We over do, we ignore aches and pains, and clues that we should hold back. We are endurance athletes so that is what we do- we endure.
Especially when it comes to teenage girls, distance runners have all sorts of eating disorders, stress, worry, anxiety. Some of these girls would do anything to be better, I'm sure if her coach told her to run 100 miles she'd do it.
I hope she continues to improve and has a great career, but the sport is littered with HS girls that burned out quickly.
I was exactly like that when I was young. Those endless easy runs that turned into tempos because I felt so strong and thought that the more hard kilometers I put in every week, the better I get. Then I was sore the next day and dragged my feet along for a a few kilometers - or weven worse: found fresh friends that would pace me to another semi-tempo, and then I never understood why I couldn´t nail my workouts...
lol she prefaces every workout by saying "I was a little sore" what the heck dude
This is suicide and she's going to get injured.
I cringed on every entry. Literally every one (besides her 'rest day' Saturday), said, "My legs were sore going in", "My legs were really sore", or "My legs were really tired". That is so upsetting to see. Yeah, you should be training hard and be sore every once in a while, but it shouldn't be every day. She isn't getting adequate recovery.
Now, lets make this clear: I don't think it is her coach's fault. I think the mileage he is giving her is fine. But you can see throughout the log that she has a tendency to make things harder than she needs to, and takes it too hard mentally when things don't go the way she wants.
For example, she did that 5k 'tempo' @ 6:20 pace and was upset at herself, despite the fact that she was running on hurting legs. I mean, it's a tempo on an XC course, not a race. And you're hurt.
So later that day, she does what was supposed to be an easy 3 miles, but almost 20 seconds per mile faster than that tempo earlier in the day to 'redeem' herself. That's an unhealthy attitude. Combine that with a alack of recovery, and we're primed for the burnout of yet another inspiring young talent.
I agree that the training paces were concerning. However, we don't know if that week was a normal week for her. Maybe she was excited to be posting her workouts on Milesplit, so she went harder than normal. Also, She is finishing the season strong, so that leads me to believe that the week she posted was not how she normally handles her runs. I would think that if she ran like this all the time, she would have gotten injured or had some down races from being overly tired.
Don't know the full story wrote:
I agree that the training paces were concerning. However, we don't know if that week was a normal week for her. Maybe she was excited to be posting her workouts on Milesplit, so she went harder than normal. Also, She is finishing the season strong, so that leads me to believe that the week she posted was not how she normally handles her runs. I would think that if she ran like this all the time, she would have gotten injured or had some down races from being overly tired.
It's not necessarily the week itself that's the most worrying; it's the pressure she appears to be putting on herself to always go fast, and the satisfaction she gets from pushing real hard. Maybe this week is totally fine, but some week she'll be right on the edge of injury; we all get there. Will she have the discipline to pull back? It's good to care and to train hard, but laziness is an underrated asset to a distance runner
ever heard of Ritz???? wrote:
Ritz practically had a workout every day in high school.
Ritz was one of the greatest high school xc runners ever, we can hardly compare him to normal people, regardless of how talented they may be. What Ritz had went beyond talent, he is a legend.
Kept saying "wtf" to myself as I was reading her training log. She does a workout every day and wonders why her legs are tired. Her philosophy on her recovery run in the afternoon being faster than her tempo in the morning "sure isn't a bad thing" is stupid. You can't manage to do a tempo at your "easy" run pace? This girl doesn't know any better and whoever her coach is needs to leave the sport. She'll be burnt out by next year.
First- Am I missing something? This is one week of training... c’mon, you really can’t draw that many conclusions.
2nd: It was about a 55 mile week with 4 doubles and her Longest long run. 55 miles is definitely more than most high school girls run... but that was with 11 runs. In other words, an average of 5 miles per session. Yeah, she probabaly runs too fast sometimes... but it’s different when you run that short. She’s not a male collegiate runner putting in 100+ mile weeks with her “recovery run” being 10-12 miles or more. Plus her ‘workouts’ aren’t long so she’s not totally beat up. You can’t just look at “pace” as the only factor.
Most people won’t agree and you’ll continue to bash this girl, so I’m probabaly wasting my time... but please, be more open-minded about training. Sometimes (not always) but sometimes you have to be slightly unorthodox in order to not be ‘just average’. And just because you read a few running books doesn’t make you a master of all things running and training. A little knowledge is the most dangerous. Threads like this are part of the reason why runners/coaches feel bad for running ‘too fast’ or pushing too hard. Sometimes you just need to run. My first year of college, I hated running because I was concerned with making my recovery runs the right pace. I ran 5:45-6:00 every day in high school and now all of the sudden I couldn’t run faster than 6:45 pace or I was “overtraining”. So I tried running slow. Running was boring, it drained me mentally, and guess what.. I sucked. Now I just run, I literally don’t care what pace I run most of the time. I just run, and I’m a lot faster. So training methods aren’t a “one-size fits all”.
This girl may obsess too much about running fast all the time, but DON’T take away her drive to run fast..she’ll eventually learn to dial it back sometimes. But the instinct to go fast is what makes champions. Those super-obsessed “I can’t run a second faster than recovery-pace or my legs will explode” people are almost always sub-elite at best.. I’ve literally never met a champion with that mentality. (They’ve learned to balance their instincts with holding back on easy days most of the times, but they aren’t afraid to occasionally let it rip at any given time).
So just stop with all the critiquing of everyone’s training. And quit saying everyone is going to “burn out” or get injured. People usually burn out from external pressures. This girl is running faster because she wants to- not because her coach is making her. In my case, the burden of running slow led to the feeling of burn out. I just disliked the slow running 5 days a week. Now that I’ve graduated college, I can run easy, but I’ve dropped many sub 5:00 miles, (heck, even a 4:30 mile) at the end of easy recovery runs or ‘ easy doubles’. And I LOVE running this way.. with this freedom to do whatever I want. THIS prevents burn out.
That sample week was full-on cringe material. And it's not like she came in fresh; she complained of soreness from a week at camp, which I am going to guess was even more in terms of volume and/or intensity.
Compare the training of Gaitan and Starliper, who are ranked well above her, and they are running 30-60+ seconds slower, and not altitude and look like they are having fun doing it. I doubt even Tuohy hammers like that most of the time.
Tick...Tock...
Who ever is coaching her is not thinking what will she be doing 5 years from now or even 2 years from now. What is his plan this girl to go to be professional after high school? Even with that mind set, this is just too much for a girl in high school even for a freshman girl in college.
Here is my high school summer training looked like when i was in high school
Monday- Easy 7 mile run starting 7:30- going to 6:20 by the end of the run
Tuesday- 4-6k repeats at 3;03-:2:57 per km with 2:30m Rest
Wednesday- Easy 8 mile starting 7:00 minute mile pace then finish with 6:30 minute mile pace
Thursday-- Morning 4 mile easy then Evening 7 miles starting 7:00 minute mile then drop to 5:45 by the end of the run
Friday-- 4 mile Tempo, hard run starting at 5:20-4:50 then evening 4 mile easy at 8 minutes mile pace
Saturday- Long run, 10-12 mile starting 7:30 minutes mile to 6:00 by the end of the run
Sunday-- Rest
PR. 15:20Km cross country , 8:58 track 2 mile
In Norway, the Ingebrigtsen dad does.