robert678 wrote:
In HS one time I ran a hard 10 miles solo just to see what I could do, I ran 6:17 pace. I ran 16:53 earlier in xc that year. I'm guessing this was just a hard long run for Ewert, and not an easy long run like what most regularly do. When I ran that hard 10 miler, it gave me plenty of confidence, but I probably needed like a week to fully recover from it. Big confidence booster, but does more harm than good. Lance Harter won't let her do stuff like that anymore when she gets to Arkansas.
It is actually a good session - 1 hour hard, close to TT-type of effort - to test someone's endurance/threshold. Lydiard had these runs in his base phase even. If she did the 6 min/mile during that run and still felt relatively relaxed, it is safe to say that her endurance is highly developed at the moment (race walking probably helps a lot).
Then, she could test her CV with a 30 min run like this and her aerobic power with a 6-9 min run (2400-3000m) and you get a good overview of her current strengths and weaknesses, and what she should work on in the summer now to get ready for college.
Lance Harter is not an "easy" coach. He often prescribes some extra work AFTER a workout is already done. For example, he recently prescribed 5x1k @5k pace and then instead of letting them go on a cd added on another Mile at a pretty brisk pace. That's great training, but it's going to be challenging even for Ewert. Harter is of course one of the best coaches on the NCAA circuit, but Ewert's HS coach kept her injury-free for 4 years, improved her year-after-year (last year she was "only" 3rd at NXN, this year already 2nd) and has apparently also done great work with her endurance. She will become a monster once she starts doing the hard workouts with Arkansas women.