Sara Hall: Don’t buy into the myth that kids can’t run a lot of mileage in high school or they’ll get hurt/bur

Should have left it back there several pages ago.

Do you really think any HS xc/track coach (even the bad ones) in America would have their sub 50 400 guy run 70 miles per week? And crazier still, LRC would be the impetus to usher in this era of high mileage half milers.

Hi Miles wrote:

Check with Houlihan, Schweizer, Fisher, and Hunter to see whrn they first hit 70mpw. Check with Simpson or Jager. No high school girl should do more than 55mpw and no high school boy should do more than 60mpw unless they are going on 20 years old when they graduate.

Drew averaged about 70 miles per week as a senior, with some weeks as high as 76-78, I think. I'd have to go back and look. He was 60-65 as a junior.

You Marathoners ruin let's run. U.S., no matter the mileage will not catch up to east Africans in Marathon. Might as well go all in at 800m. You do know: In 1990, U.S. and Kenya had roughly equal the number of sub-1:44 800m men all-time. If you were a high school runner, you would know: Most high school programs lump 800m, 1600m & 3200m runners together.

Thanks for saying this out loud Coach, you would not, or maybe you would, believe the battles I've had with my sons XC coaches to allow them to run over 35 miles per week. If not for pressure from the AD and consistently disappointing results they'd be stuck on the 30 mpw/6 day a week plan, cutting down to 25 mpw/5 day a week during the "Competition Phase" which is essentially the months of September and October. When I've questioned how they came up with this plan they cheerfully tell me that college coaches told them that they love runners coming into their programs on 30 mpw.

When I've offered to buy them some of the HS seminars that you and your cohorts have attended they get a little fidgety and say no thanks and proceed to tell me that they've done more than enough research to support their program.

On a funnier note, I did mention that if they didn't want me to buy them some seminar material they should get on Let's Run and do some research on their own. When they heard Let's Run they looked a little panicked and said, "You go to THAT website?!?"

Jefe in the CO wrote:

On a funnier note, I did mention that if they didn't want me to buy them some seminar material they should get on Let's Run and do some research on their own. When they heard Let's Run they looked a little panicked and said, "You go to THAT website?!?"

HA HA! Try being Drew Hunter's mother as well as a LetsRun reader :-0 My skin has gotten very thick over the last several years! Always a lot of interesting stuff to read here...some of it is actually useful.

If you are not a high mileage HS kid, don't go to a high mileage college program, simple fix.

You can also have great teams by getting stud transfers on a regular basis. Seems to be pretty common these days, the NXN curse.

one cent? wrote:

If you are not a high mileage HS kid, don't go to a high mileage college program, simple fix.

You can also have great teams by getting stud transfers on a regular basis. Seems to be pretty common these days, the NXN curse.

Would love to hear your definition of a 'low mileage' college team. As well as some examples of a low mileage team with high level cross country success. Regardless, even a low mileage college team is going to be higher mileage than a low mileage high school team. It's also most likely going to be a middle distance focused team, not a 5K 10K focused team. That's great for kids who are speedier middle distance types. Not the makeup of most of my kids.

And yeah, when you have a little team success, you are going to attract transfers. Not much I can do about that, is there?

The mileage is all relative. A low mileage college team could consist of guys running anywhere from 60-100+, depending on the background of the athletes they recruit. What I was saying is if you are a low mileage HS guy, maybe 50ish per week in HS, don't go to a program where the coach just is a one size fits all type and has everyone on the same plan.

Mileage is just a number, you could be running 50 per week in 6 days where someone else is running 70 in 7 days, not much of a difference, the 6 day guy will just not be as likely to crash and burn. Long run could be the same for both, maybe that HS coach values easy days and recovery more.

Maybe your guys are less likely to be speedier middle distance types because of the amount of miles they run? Just a thought?

Think about that though. A 60 miles per week, 'low' mileage college team could be almost double what a low mileage, super talented, HS kid is running. A huge adjustment. I would not say that 50 miles per week is a low mileage HS program- I'd say that's actually above average mileage for a HS boy (but probably not above average mileage on stronger teams- wonder what other HS coaches would say about this?) . It's also hard to talk about mileage without referencing what age HS kids we are talking about. My stronger freshmen boys build up to about 35-40 miles per week, but each year they run more mileage, so some are easily at 60 mpw by senior year.

I could not agree more about the low mileage talented kid going off to a school known for 80-100 mile weeks. Probably not going to go well unless the kid had the potential all along to run more than they did in HS.

As for my guys being less likely to be speedy mid D types due to their volume, well, as I said, they don't run high mileage when they are starting out as freshmen/sophomores, so I think we get a pretty good idea of their natural speed. If a freshman boy isn't breaking 56/57 seconds for a 400, I don't generally think they are blessed with a lot of natural speed. Some of that is dependent on how developed they are as freshmen, but so far, this has turned out to be pretty true. I had a freshman distance boy split 52 in the 400 this past year, regularly. We will train him a bit differently than his same age teammates who have similar times in the 800/1600/3200 as he does, since he has some jets AND some stamina, though his similar age teammates have decent speed (all ran between 54-56 I think, quite a good little crew). But he probably has some real ability in the 800, whereas the others are likely more 1600/3200. And some of my higher mileage seniors did pretty well in the middle distances as well, despite their higher mileage, with 50-53 second 400 speed and 1:51-1:55 800 speed. I think it is indeed possible that they could have run a little faster in the shorter events if we had focused on that, but instead, they had very good performances across all events from 800-3200. Doubtful their 1600/3200 would have been as good if I cut them all back to 40-50 mile weeks and more speed work.

Coach Hunter-

With all due respect, you're still just a high school coach and you've simply have begun to "Drink the Kool-Aid" and are realizing if you increase a young athlete's workload and they don't get hurt they will run fast. Not rocket science. Any reasonable intelligent coach can achieve this. The point is that physiologically a 14-18 year old is still growing, growth plates, tendons, ligaments, etc.... By having them consistently subject themselves to the constant physical stress of running (impact) you're increasing the risk of retarding those systems and thus having them breakdown. I'm not saying to have them run 20-30 mpw and expect success, rather a systematic approach which incorporates moderate buildup of mileage to 45-60mpw as a senior with an emphasis on quality and not quantity. Introduction of pool workouts and core development is a great supplement to training. Once the athlete enters their early to mid 20's they can then increase mileage that fits what they can handle. There's plenty of time to run 100+mile weeks.

I believe the "Two bulls on a hill looking down upon a group of heifers" story applies here. Why run down the hill to get one when you can walk down the hill and get 'em all.

Be patient and your time will come.

An emphasis on quality over quantity can be much more dangerous, less scaleable and more likely to cause burnout. However, we are all talking in generalities and there are grey scales in all of these terms and the combination of them. You’d like to hope you have reasonable minded, smart, experienced coaches (like coach hunter) that can help create programs that help the athlete achieve their best (if that’s what they want). likely they would include significant volume if the kids are capable and ready.

Can't figure out what you are trying to say here. I think I made the point that we use a patient progression, and that we individualize a kid's volume. We also have very few injury issues, especially on our boys team. We do plenty of supplemental work in an effort to build more durable bodies, in fact, we spend more time on that stuff than we do on our running with most of our team. We emphasize the importance of recovery: sleep, nutrition, and very easy recovery runs. We do non-impact cross training on ElliptiGos for kids who can't run mileage or who have developed the beginning of an injury, or just as a nice break from running for a day or two. Don't have a convenient pool so deep water running is an option only if the kid can get to a pool on their own, but we have had a few who have made that happen.

Definitely don't agree that 'quality' trumps 'quantity'. Too much 'quality' leads to injury and burnout, whereas more easy mileage and fewer hard workouts leads to growth and development over time. Guess I did drink that kool-aid since I observed that it worked, at least here at our school. Most of our kids love running, many want to run at the next level, and are still running after they graduate, even the ones who don't go on to run in college. To me, that is success, growing life-long runners (hopefully, a bit early to know yet.)

I guess I should apologize for JUST being a high school coach who isn't a rocket scientist? You sound like you think high school coaches are somehow an inferior class of coaches. But I'd argue that a successful HS coach has probably developed their skills a bit more than the college coach who has never worked with developmental athletes. We have a much wider range of athletes we have to figure out how to develop. Hope that doesn't offend any college coaches. I know a few who might agree with me.

Just want to say thank you.

But that isn't really how our system works does it? If you are a HS athlete with aspirations of running competitively at the next level there is an inherent risk of running fast enough by your junior year to catch the eye of competitive programs and pushing yourself too hard to get there. Hopefully that's where a good HS coach can step in to add some perspective. It's all about access to coaching, facilities, financial support, etc. Yes it might be best to wait until your mid 20s to pour on the gas but sometimes life gets in the way of your 100 mile weeks by then.

I'd like to hear a 4:20 HS miler explaining to a well funded D1 coach that his time really translates to a 4:08 because he's on the Butthole's Jug of Koolaid timeline. There is a fine line between taking your sweet time walking down the hill and being competitive enough to run down and get them all.

BergLaufer wrote:

https://twitter.com/SaraHall3/status/1150476929209786368?s=20

Maybe Sara Hall is looking at it wrong and would be faster today if she hadn’t run 70 mpw in high school?!

what an unnecessary Twitter post wrote:

BergLaufer wrote:

https://twitter.com/SaraHall3/status/1150476929209786368?s=20

Maybe Sara Hall is looking at it wrong and would be faster today if she hadn’t run 70 mpw in high school?!

"Maybe" can go either way. Maybe she'd be even faster now if she'd run more than 70 mpw in high school.

For every organic system, there's a level of stress that leads to adaptation and a level of stress that exceeds the capacity for adaptation and leads to breakdown. The question is what is the appropriate level. There's no basis for saying that 50 is fine but 70 is stupid. While there are certainly differences between adolescent and mature bodies, the differences are not extreme. Adolescents are not extraordinarily fragile, and they respond amazingly well to training.

The main difference between adolescents and adults in how much training they can handle mostly comes down to how much they've built up to previously. The main danger isn't mileage per se. It's inadequate recovery and big mileage deltas.

Which brings me to one of the main reasons to run high (actually moderate) mileage in high school:

There actually isn't that much time. Most people have a pretty small window during which they're going to be competing seriously. Few high school athletes run in college. Few collegiate athletes compete seriously after graduation. Few pros stay at it for more than a couple of years. (And the reason most pros stop isn't because of injury; it's because they're not fast enough to make it worth it.)

Many American athletes--even pros--don't consider themselves ready for the marathon until their late 20s, which is mostly a result of the low mileage they've been doing early in their careers. In Japan, by contrast, you've got the good college runners putting up world class times in the half marathon before they've even graduated. (I'm not saying that the pendulum needs to swing all the way to the Japanese approach, but it does illuminate some of the shortcomings of the American approach.)

You are incorrect with many things in your post.

There are high school coaches who also coach at a high level outside of school or are former international or national runners. "Just a high school coach" is a ridiculous swipe. You should apologize.

The more a body is used to running (easy, medium, steady) volumes, off-road, the less so-called impact stresses there are because the process of running is smoother. Take a kid from the couch and have him run, yes there is impact. His form is likely sloppy and run-specific muscles weak and neuro-muscular coordination not all that smooth.

A number is arbitrary and actually shouldn't be counted in mileage, but time as well as effort as opposed to pace.

There are kids that can pile up 100-mile weeks if you look at soccer, general play, basketball, and other sports and activities if they are not sitting on a couch gaming 10 hours a week. We don't measure general movement in mileage, but kids can be active outdoors for 5-30 hours per week if in the right environment.

Stop with this "too much mileage" and growth plates hogwash. Providing, as Sara Hall said, the kid is completely self-motivated and perhaps directed off-road let them run all they feel comfortable with. They stop, when they feel like stopping.

Playing games, soccer basketball for example are not comparable to running. They change direction and move in different planes. Running is one foot in front of the other in one plane, too much of a good thing is bad until they are more developed.

And, most importantly. The coaches job is too sometimes hold them back from hurting themselves, not just let them go until it's too late.