How many miles is too many for high school?

To be safe, they should stay below 200 miles per week. Even if they're female

From birth through teens is the time to get fast 60m to 400m.

200m to 400m: No road mileage

400m specialist: 20K road mileage per week.

400m to 600m: 40K road mileage per week.

400m to 800m: 50K road mileage per week.

600m to 1000m: 60K road mileage per week.

800m to 3000m: 85K road mileage per week

Tinman once said to not focus on mileage, but focus on time run.

He recommends HS kids to run 1 hour a day if they want to be really good, with a long run of around 90 minutes (slowly building it to that duration). So 6x1 hour+90 mins = 7.5 hours.

He doesn't like putting kids on mileage, because 65 mpw could mean something totally different for a 22 min 5k girl than it does to a 17 min 5k girl. The former would be training much harder, as she takes considerably longer to complete 65 mpw, whereas the 17 min 5k girl could probably do it in the 7.5 hours.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Tinman once said to not focus on mileage, but focus on time run.

He recommends HS kids to run 1 hour a day if they want to be really good, with a long run of around 90 minutes (slowly building it to that duration). So 6x1 hour+90 mins = 7.5 hours.

This. Once you get down to running a hour per day and it becomes very easy, than might add more running or just do more cross training.

don't agree with tinman on most thing, except this wrote:

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Tinman once said to not focus on mileage, but focus on time run.

He recommends HS kids to run 1 hour a day if they want to be really good, with a long run of around 90 minutes (slowly building it to that duration). So 6x1 hour+90 mins = 7.5 hours.

This. Once you get down to running a hour per day and it becomes very easy, than might add more running or just do more cross training.

Slow easy running for kids? No!

From birth through teenage years, humans have an opportunity to get faster. One cannot turn 22 and get fast after college.

What? Slow jog, gradually add miles. Realize you have no speed. Too slow to run a fast Marathon. No choice but to be an ultra runner.

Have you noticed that U.S. men historically have been fastest long sprinters (200m, 400m, 110mH & 400mH) in the world going back to 1896 Olympics? Irrespective of racial heritage. Have you noticed U.S. men are good in 800m irrespective of racial heritage? In U.S., we have a sprinting culture: T-ball/coach pitch baseball, Little League Baseball, Pop Warner football. U.S. kids grow up not too long out of diapers sprinting foul line to foul line in T-ball or coach pitch baseball. Kids grow up sprinting in Am. football. Numerous 50 yard sprints. Do you think when kids join T&F, it is time to jog? No! Series of short sprints and longer repeats with low mileage.

7 hours total per week. That's about 60 mpw for a guy. If doing easy runs too fast, that's a problem also.

The 90s called and they want their training back.

Time of running is a good measure. Kids can handle that.

But to answer the question I have coached very successful HS kids for 25 years and most HS boys can be very good with 45-50 miles a week and girls at 38-42.

You get to 60 miles of running in the summer and you got a kid that can be state caliber

about 85 MPW:

As a kid, that’s what I did on my journey to school every day. It was 4-5km away, and I would always come home for lunch, so I covered that distance four times a day, carrying my school books on my back.

But it wasn’t serious training, never about going a certain speed; it was just running – slowly.

No less than 20 kilometres a day, and about 140 kilometres every week.

https://spikes.iaaf.org/post/rhonex-kipruto-slowly-by-slowly

They gave you 60 minutes for lunch? American schools only give 20 minutes.

So if you average 7:30 miles this is

7.5hr * 60min/hr * 7.5miles/min = 60 miles

Seems about right to me as a rule of thumb.

70

16min5k wrote:

How many miles per week is too many for a committed high school runner who likes to run but has no intention of going pro? Besides injury/burnout, what are drawbacks to high mileage?

Before my junior year, I averaged more than a 100 mpw for a 6-week period. However, I only managed to run a 5k in 17:40 for 127th place at my local cross-country championships:

The main drawback to running this high mileage was that I needed to run at a slower pace to get the miles in, so that I could acheive the "holy grail" of 100 mpw.

Before my senior year, I ran about 70-80 mpw with more structured workouts (tempos, intervals, hills, etc..) with a much faster pace. After this faster running, which was more appropriate for a 5k, However, I managed to run a 5k in 16:47 for 31st place at my local cross-country championships:

Thus, by reducing my mileage to 70-80 mpw and running faster, I was able to cut 53 seconds in 1 year off my 5k time and move up 96 spaces.

So, more than 80 mpw is too many.

Well, an earlier post mentioned training for 200, 400, 800, etc. I don't really disagree that mileage isn't likely the primary limiting factor for performance in events less than a mile. When it comes to longer races, though, I agree with the '90s training comment after that. When I was in HS, Americans ran fairly high mileage. I hit about 80, but I can't tolerate as much as some people and can't manage doubling, even in middle age. So I wasn't considered a high-mileage runner at that time. American pros seemed to do 125-140 if I were to believe everything in RW, but I suspect that was considered normal among Rogers' crowd.

Then, 'quality over quantities' took over in the US and, let's face it, there were precious few domestic runners to root for in distance events worldwide. Great at 100-400 but wasn't it 2000 when the marathon team was one man and one woman? It is obvious now that to be good at 10km, and certainly anything longer, mileage matters. Get it together and run a lot. Or do like much of the Board believes and run 800 (maybe 1500) and down. If you are good at these events, great. If your talents lie in something longer, you have to run at least what I did at 15 (averaging around 70).

Shuffle wrote:

To be safe, they should stay below 200 miles per week. Even if they're female

+1

Jim Ryun was running upwards of a 110 MPW. 5 miles every morning on the weekday, afternoon workout totaling 10+ miles and a 16 mile long run on the weekend(in which he carried a hand held radio because he got bored on the long runs).

I'd say 60-70 is a good mark, wouldn't go above 80. If you only get up to 30 or 40 it better be for a good reason (easily gets injured, or is more speed based with really fast shorter workouts). Racing 5k you'll get best results if you're in the 60-80 mile range in high school, 70-90 range in college. It gets to a point where more mileage isn't better and that it's more important for qualify workouts, but for 5k getting above 40 miles per week will be better than staying below that.

i coached high school briefly. every boy who ran 40-50 mpw broke 17 and not 16 for 5k. the one kid who ran 50-65 broke 16 (and 4:10).

Your comment is stupid.

The HS 1600 / 3200 record for 1 hour running per day is much faster than the HS 1600/3200 records for 2 hours training per day.

They hold a stopwatch not a sundial.