High schoolers SUCK at easy runs

True, it might not be the coaches fault when the athletes are not doing what was prescribed on a certain day. But, in the “long run” it is because having good honest and open communication with your team enables you to make the needed changes to a workout schedule.

If my guys race it in on a training run they will let me know. They feel comfortable telling me because rather than yelling at them we laugh it off, figure it out together that it was not the best plan but things happen. Instead of that hard workout the next day we will back off and reset. The next easy run we might talk ahead of time about keeping it under control so we can hit that tempo run or whatever you have going the next day.

In my experience this works every time if you empower your athletes to embrace and take ownership of their own training.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

In the whole week she ran a total of 5.45 miles at 6:11 average, in her first week of road running after injury. How about running 10-15 miles at 8 min pace? Then 20-30 miles next week at 8 min pace?

I was going to say a few things here. 1) Yes most HSers run way too fast on their easy days, but....

The but part is 1) most of them are barely running. If you aren't running much mileage, you can get away with it to some degree. I mean 5 miles the entire week? Plus t hey are super young so it's easy to recover.

But this isn't just a high school team. When Nick Willis came to run a mile in Ithaca when I was at Cornell, he showed up at the track the day after the race to run easy wtih the guys. He was like, "Is this the pace htey normally go? Everyone was over 7 minute pace." Before I could apologize or get into my philosophy of taking the easy days easy he said, "Finally I've found a college team I can run with."

I was like, "But don't the guys at Michigan know you've got an Olympic medal? Wouldn't they run your slow and your pace?" He was like, "Nope. They like to run it fast."

Found something I agree with Rojo on! I think it's a ton easy to run a faster pace on easy days when your mileage isn't high to begin with. When I'm in marathon training, my easy days get slower when I'm in a 100 mile week but my easy mileage is a touch faster if I'm in the 60-80 mile range. High schoolers, in general, run too fast on easy days + start off races too fast. They'll learn but they're also at a unique time where they're getting better each day by just running more. A good coach is going to help them understand easy days and to not race workouts but I don't think it's the end of the world if a sub-5 1600 runner is running 6:40 pace in what's probably less than a 50 mile week. Sure, it should probably be closer to 7-7:30 pace but they're probably not doing their hardest workouts yet.

sit and kick wrote:

I thought for a mid distance runner [eg 1500, 3000], running a lot of miles at/about 8k pace is actually ~ideal

its not like they are training for distance races [5k+]

You are aware that BOTH of the girls sited are HS XC runners right? So they ARE specifically training for the 5k XC distance.

Also, how would "a mid distance runner [eg 1500, 3000], running a lot of miles at/about 8k pace"? A FIVE MILE run does not even rise to the level of "a lot of miles" and 8k pace would be all-out pace for that?

Do you believe that "a mid distance runner [eg 1500, 3000]" runs 1, 2, or 3 miles at 8k pace every day and that is " actually ~ideal"?

You seem to lack any and all common sense.

Here's a story. When weldon was training in flagstaff doing his training for the 2000 Trials, I showed up and was shocked how slow he was going on his easy days. I called up John Kellogg and said, "Should I secretly run like 10-15 seconds a mile faster on the easy days as I bet he'll follow as I doubt he'll notice it." John was like, "No the easy pace is the last thing we'll worry about."

Fast forward a year or so and weldon was coming back form an injury. He'd been out for a few months I believe and decided he could run with us on a morning run. We head out the door and he was like flying. We turned to him and were like, "Dude what are you doing? Are you joking around? Why are you running so fast?" He said, "I'm not running fast. This is how fast I always run."

We're like, "You're wrong. You're running way fater. YOu must just feel really fresh as you are coming off of zero miles a week versus like 130"

Sure enough we get to the fence where we turn around. If I recall correctly, we go there like 2 minutes faster than normal so he was going like 40 seconds a mile faster (it was about 20 minutes) tha normal.

Moral of the story - People need to learn effort - not pace.

A new female runner ( running for only a few years) doing 50 miles a week, IS similar to a pro, who’s been running for 10+ years and has built a big base, that is running 75-90 miles a week. If doing a lot of hard workouts, which high school coaches are notorious for, the easy paces need to be slow. Throw away the watch on recovery runs and just go for a nice jog.

D2/d3 college programs are guilty too. Guys there go no slower than 6:30 and while for the fast ones that’s fine, for the others it’s way too quick

Coachy Coach wrote:

OK now I think we are on the same page. Yes some elite HS teams probably run all of their easy days too fast, not most teams.

I do agree that not EVERY person that runs their easy runs too fast is going to die or burnout. Some make it through and are good because of it. I honestly don't think that the initial girl is running all of her easy runs at or around 6:40 pace. I would guess that's showing off for the story.

I don't think there are very many teams running way too fast. We just have a bunch of people on this board that like doing crazy high volumes and because of it have really slow easy paces. Maybe HS would be better off also running 100+mpw instead of 50-60 but I sort of doubt it.

If you go back to Lydiard and the like, you had a lot of these somewhat medium type runs not running 3+ mins slower than 5k pace. 60-120s off 5k pace is pretty reasonable for daily runs when you are only running 45-60mins/day (6-10 miles). The only time it was ever much of an issue in HS was when the top guy was feeling really good. Him running 6 min pace was fast but reasonable for him. Me (and the rest of the team) running 6:00 pace instead of the 6:30-6:45 pace we normally did wasn't a great idea but far from a disaster. In some programs you would have just called it a tempo run.

Supposedly Arkansas in the 90s was this type of college program where they were running moderate mileage (70-90) but most of the afternoon distance runs were all sub 6 min pace (call it about 90s for most of those athletes). They seemed to do fine:)

And I am willing to bet if in HS we were at 8000 feet running up hills on a dirt path, our average pace would have been a lot slower. I also bet that if those elite kenyans moved to sea level and trained on flat, harder surfaces, their daily pace would increase.

They also suck at long distance running. Can anyone name a current US HS student who has finished a marathon? Half marathon?

The Truth May Hurt wrote:

They also suck at long distance running. Can anyone name a current US HS student who has finished a marathon? Half marathon?

There was a female last year who ran a 2:4x marathon after XC season.

The Truth May Hurt wrote:

They also suck at long distance running. Can anyone name a current US HS student who has finished a marathon? Half marathon?

Can anyone name a current state where the half marathon or marathon is an official event in High School? Any state with an event longer than a 5k?

Going 45-60 seconds off 5k race pace on easy days, along with workouts is insane! A very, very few might be able to handle this, but most would become exhausted or injured. 90 seconds is good for easy pace ( even a little faster without a hard workout the day or two before) but recovery pace, from a hard workout or race, needs to be 90 seconds to 120 ++ seconds slower, depending on how you feel. If really tired, go even slower. It's not as simple as just picking an easy pace and staying at that pace. An athlete has to consider what other workouts/races are happening in the weekly plan.

c7runner7 wrote:

The Truth May Hurt wrote:

They also suck at long distance running. Can anyone name a current US HS student who has finished a marathon? Half marathon?

Can anyone name a current state where the half marathon or marathon is an official event in High School? Any state with an event longer than a 5k?

There's probably a XC course somewhere where it is actually 6k.

Easy days easy.

I've found that works for me--I don't even have a heart monitor. I run completely by feel. I don't even have a GPS watch either.

This has helped me get better at the speedwork and build my volume. I've never run 50 mpw before my entire life until this year but my body seems ok with it.

And where is Arkansas now? Nowhere to be seen.

Easy miles FTW!

I remember reading a story about Bill Bowerman who would time his athletes through the first mile of their easy runs, if they were under 6 minutes, they had to stand their till 6 minute mark.

There was female last year ran a 2:4x marathon after XC season. wrote:

The Truth May Hurt wrote:

They also suck at long distance running. Can anyone name a current US HS student who has finished a marathon? Half marathon?

There was a female last year who ran a 2:4x marathon after XC season.

You must be talking about Tierney Wolfgram who ran 2:40:03 as 15-year old sophomore on standard 40-60 mpw. Just because the HS kids don't participate in marathons or half's (which they rightfully shouldn't) doesn't mean they wouldn't be good at it. Tuohy would have probably beat Gwen Jorgensen, a pro doing 100-110 mpw in Chicago last year. These young girls are really crazy often going out super hard and hanging on somehow. Wolfgram split 17:32 and then 35:42 for 10k and was leading the race for a good amount of time.

Sadly she was injured last season (foot fracture) and tripped during states XC. Then she transferred which gave her 1-year ineligibility, so she still won't be able to race varsity this fall. Hope she still gets into some decent races, maybe crush some JV meets and then is able to compete with the best in the nation in spring T&F.

Also water is wet, the sky is blue wrote:

High school years are difficult. Most high schoolers are incredibly insecure. Insecurity leads people to try and prove themselves in every workout.

Every practice turned into a race when I was in high school.

Pretty spot on. High school kids are high school kids. They do stuff that doesn't make sense.

youth. strength. good sleep. good genes. making a mistake. could be lots of things.

If they can go on a swim and play in the water let them do that.