how to avoid burning out in high school

If you feel run down, take it easy. Listen to your body and you should be fine.

When your training becomes depressing to you and you lose the joy of running and competing, then take a brake. Get in trouble, feel boobies, try another sport (even a rec league or for fun with friends) and come back to running after the break. If you still feel burnt out then hang it up.

Is your name by chance Eli, if not disregard this but you remind me of someone I have on strava.

DO NOT post on letsrun asking for training advice. They are going to tell you to get up to 50 mile weeks and you will burn out as a high schooler.

Listen to your coach always, and be honest when you feel run down or injured.

Preserve your love for the sport and youll be fine, so dont take it too seriously from the get go.

Play other sports for fun in your down time, have other things you like to do and you will be solid throughout high school and into college.

beware of letsrun wrote:

DO NOT post on letsrun asking for training advice. They are going to tell you to get up to 50 mile weeks and you will burn out as a high schooler.

LMAO, is this a joke? It has to be.

3 things will help prevent you from burning out

1) learn to really love the sport. not just the successes, but the failures, the obstacles, the process of training.

2) less hard track training. focus more on tempo running, fartleks, hills — especially in the offseason.

3) periodize your training. take down periods after racing seasons. focus on basebuilding over summer and winter. don’t try and tackle everything at all times of the year

shshhs wrote:

3 things will help prevent you from burning out

1) learn to really love the sport. not just the successes, but the failures, the obstacles, the process of training.

2) less hard track training. focus more on tempo running, fartleks, hills — especially in the offseason.

3) periodize your training. take down periods after racing seasons. focus on basebuilding over summer and winter. don’t try and tackle everything at all times of the year

+1

Point one, enjoy running rather than only focusing on setting new PBs. Running requires patience, just take it one step at a time.

Point two, running in nature is just more enjoyable. And, it will improve your strength more and help you later in the season.

slopster wrote:

Ive heard and even been told by friends that theres a good chance ill burnout in high school

Your friends don't know anything. Also learn how to type. Train and get up to 40-45 miles a week over the summer and your hard work will pay off over your friends who don't run.

beware of letsrun wrote:

DO NOT post on letsrun asking for training advice. They are going to tell you to get up to 50 mile weeks and you will burn out as a high schooler.

Listen to your coach always, and be honest when you feel run down or injured.

Preserve your love for the sport and youll be fine, so dont take it too seriously from the get go.

Play other sports for fun in your down time, have other things you like to do and you will be solid throughout high school and into college.

Lots of problems with the above post.

"They are going to tell you to get up to 50 mile weeks..." - Running mileage like 50 per week will NOT burn you out if you build up to it properly and do not pair it with too much intensity. If you instantly start running 50 per week and have 3 days of workouts/races per week and hammer your easy runs, yeah, you'll probably burn out. If you build up to 50 per week (which you can do relatively quickly - within a year or two - as long as there isn't a bunch of intensity involved), run your recovery days like recovery days, and don't have a training schedule with too many workouts/races, burnout is extremely unlikely.

"Listen to your coach always, ..." - Let's face it, a lot of HS coaches will do the bad stuff I outlined above, especially overload you with workouts and races. Make sure you get in your weekly long run and run the workouts under control.

"Preserve your love for the sport ... so dont take it too seriously..." - So if you take something seriously, you'll love it less? Huh? If you love the sport, take it seriously in a focused, healthy way by not overdoing the intensity/volume combination, and your love of the sport will grow. Overdo the intensity and racing, and your love of the sport can wane. That doesn't mean you're not taking it seriously.

To avoid burnout make sure you have other interests.

Burning out can mean overtraining (too much mileage too soon, or too many intense workouts with too little rest, or not enough of a break after the season), so avoid that. But the burnout cases I've seen more often have been a result of:

1. Bad romance, especially within the team. Don't date and then have a nasty break-up with a member of the girls team, especially the star runner. The fall-out is horrific.

2. Money. If you pick up a part-time fast food job to pay for a car, your running will go downhill. Try to minimize expenses and keep any job in balance with school.

3. Mental issues. Try to avoid being the guy whose ego gets in the way of listening to his coach, goes overboard in workouts, and tries to lead the huge invitational XC race he has no chance of winning.

4. Discouragement. Not every season will be a strong of PRs and thrilling victories. Training consistently over the summer with no coach or teammates can be a drag. But a summer on the couch followed by a few weeks of intense training is a good recipe for injury, burnout, and making your coach and teammates hate you.

Also, be sure to capitalize "I" and include the apostrophe in "I've" and "I'm."

I'll tell you how to avoid burning out in high school. Don't join the official school team. Don't even go into the gym (or lunchroom or wherever) on sign-up day. Avoid the coach. This should be easy to do; I never met my high school track coach and I ran more than anyone else at the school.

This really is the secret. You get to train and race exactly as you see fit.

You burn out when you don't enjoy the sport anymore, that's it. You have to enjoy the process of getting better, not just the end result. At your current age you probably get faster very rapidly, you can probably see improvement over just a couple months time. When you're older and faster that will begin to slow down, you may go a year or more without that PR, or you may be injured and run poorly for a season. How will you react to this? The people who can't overcome this will 'burnout', and the people who don't enjoy the grind anymore and don't like practice will 'burnout'... If you continue to enjoy the sport and enjoy the process of working hard, you won't burnout. And don't listen to people who put numbers on maximum training limits. For one person they might want to peak at 50 miles per week, for someone else it may be 70, for someone else they may even reach 80 in high school. Do what feels good for you, for the most part a mild progression is best, adding maybe 5-10 miles each year. If you continue to improve you may end up reaching 100 mile weeks if you become a top end college runner or professional.