Miles per week for a 13 year old boy?

burn out is a risk of doing high mileage, if not physically then mentally. IMO 40 mpw sounds pretty high for 13 years old so I would suggest not going any higher than that until a year or so into high school. There are no real championships worth training hard for at 13, and nobody is going to be offering scholarships, so I think the most important thing is that he actually likes to run, and backs off if it ever feels like training is overwhelming

I ran 10k to school and back. Went on to break dozens of athletic records.

30 is what I allowed my now 16 year old to do at 13 and my middle child is now 13 and doing the same(28-30)

What about for girls?

Max 40. Make sure he's very involved with other sports, just seems to be the case that those who don't specialize too young in the US have more longevity/durability

For kids 12-15, limit mileage to 3X their age

For kids 16-18, limit mileage to 4X their age

For adults 19-30, limit mileage to 5X their age

40 is kind of high especially if he is relatively new to running. In my opinion, mileage should be built up gradually over a period of years, I say keep him at 25 mpw or so for now because he is quite young, I know it is quite low but ligaments and tendons need to develop properly but because this is low ish mileage and he probably has extra energy to burn, have him play another sport on top of this (preferably something that builds speed like soccer) or enroll him in another activity preferably not as high impact.

20-25 at the very most. Recommend 20. Keep him undertrained and wanting more. There is absolutely no reason to do more. Can get up to 30 mpw next year. Add 5 mpw each year.

ideaguy23 wrote:

For kids 12-15, limit mileage to 3X their age

Honestly I think this is a terrible standard. 45 now for a 15 year old is really low. That’s 6.4 miles per day. The xc team at my high school (which i’m not a part of) runs 50mpw. I personally am 14 and I have run multiple 100 mile weeks and had no problems. Currently, I’m running 80mpw. I think that the age limit for mileage shouldn’t be set in stone. Just make sure that the kid wants to run far and isn’t hurting themselves while running far. Also you have to bring down intensity when you bring up volume, so that might not be the best for someone focusing on track times.

This much wrote:

20-25 at the very most. Recommend 20. Keep him undertrained and wanting more. There is absolutely no reason to do more. Can get up to 30 mpw next year. Add 5 mpw each year.

LRC: 20-25 mpw aT tHe VeRy MoSt fOr A 13 yEaR oLD. tHeY’LL gEt HuRT doING mORe

also LRC: wHy aRE aLL tHe aMeRiCaN mArAtHoNeRs sLoW????

13 year old kids aren t marathoners. They can become a marathoner 10 years down the road. Hopefully they will be hungry to run in 10 years. I have seen way too many over hyped and over trained kids amount to nothing by the time they get to college. While you neednt save it all for college you still can have success in high school years if you are patient and running 40-50 mpw in high school. 13 years is too early to predict success in high school or college yesrs.

2:12 marathoners in the US wrote:

This much wrote:

20-25 at the very most. Recommend 20. Keep him undertrained and wanting more. There is absolutely no reason to do more. Can get up to 30 mpw next year. Add 5 mpw each year.

LRC: 20-25 mpw aT tHe VeRy MoSt fOr A 13 yEaR oLD. tHeY’LL gEt HuRT doING mORe

also LRC: wHy aRE aLL tHe aMeRiCaN mArAtHoNeRs sLoW????

A bit of cognitive dissonance. Kids in Africa are running a lot more mileage. The Japanese put in a lot more mileage when they are young. See a pattern?

This much wrote:

13 year old kids aren t marathoners. They can become a marathoner 10 years down the road. Hopefully they will be hungry to run in 10 years. I have seen way too many over hyped and over trained kids amount to nothing by the time they get to college. While you neednt save it all for college you still can have success in high school years if you are patient and running 40-50 mpw in high school. 13 years is too early to predict success in high school or college yesrs.

"To be a consistent winner means preparing not just one day, one month or even one year - but for a lifetime."- Bill Rodgers

Haile Gebrselassie ran 10 kilometers to school and back, growing up.

Patrick Makau said, "As a pupil, I used to run or fartlek to school, seven kilometres each way, for total of eight years. Most of the time I did this with just one meal a day, but definitely often while very hungry and without food for a whole day."

See this? As American kids are sitting and getting driven around everywhere, the East Africans are putting in the mileage. By time western kids start to run, they have a lot of catching up to do as far as aerobic development is concerned.

Just scanned iaaf website and reviewed all time 5k list. Clearly dominated by kenyans and ethiopians. But there were at least 10 US runners listed and still couldnt find a single japanese runner yet on the list. I dont see the japanese way of doing things as being a good example.

With the kenyans and ethiopians - true they have significant more time on their feet in their youth. But i would suggest those arent training miles. They are transportation miles. They dont get burnt out on training because most of their time on their feet doesnt come with the intensity and baggage of too much training. Its a lifestyle and cultural thing that doesnt include the hyper and over the top mentality that we have for youth sports in the US.

This much wrote:

Just scanned iaaf website and reviewed all time 5k list. Clearly dominated by kenyans and ethiopians. But there were at least 10 US runners listed and still couldnt find a single japanese runner yet on the list. I dont see the japanese way of doing things as being a good example.

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For the millionth time, that is because they don't care about middle distance events on the track. They care about the Ekiden(road relays, legs are usually around 20 kilometres) and marathon. Look at all there sub 2:10 marathon runners. Near a hundred now.

a 13 year-old boy should not be counting mileage.

just do a variety of sports, and do two or three runs per week when he feels like it. run over different sorts of terrain, over grassland, parks, through woods as well as on the roads and do some low key laps on a running track for variety but do not think of any of this as "training." at his age this should just be an activity he does because he enjoys it. just make it a fun thing he will want to do again, with his dad.

don't measure anything, or time anything, or compare him to other boys or, even worse, compare him to super stars of the sport who supposedly ran to school and back every day. neither Jim Ryun nor Ron Clarke or Dave Bedford or Galen Rupp ever ran to school one day in their life and it didn't do them any harm.

cheers.

Since 1960 japan has 3 medals in the olympic marathon. The united states has 3 as well (actually 4if you add meb).

If they only care about the marathon then by this measure japan hasnt accomplished anything more than the US. They havent produced anything significantly better than the US at the highest competitive level of the event. They might have more “bench depth” but there is no difference in the starting line ups when compared to the US. Again, they dont appear to be a model worth emulating.

This much wrote:

Since 1960 japan has 3 medals in the olympic marathon. The united states has 3 as well (actually 4if you add meb).

If they only care about the marathon then by this measure japan hasnt accomplished anything more than the US. They havent produced anything significantly better than the US at the highest competitive level of the event. They might have more “bench depth” but there is no difference in the starting line ups when compared to the US. Again, they dont appear to be a model worth emulating.

Japan has had 4 olympic marathon medals in the women's race. And at the world championships, Japan has had 10 women medal and 3 men medal. Of the top 25 women marathon times, 3 are Japanese women. Pretty good for a population of only 130 million vs the U.S. population of 330 million.

What did the ingebrigsten kids do?