That's the subject of this great article in the Denver Post, in which luminaries such as Bob Kennedy, Adam Goucher, Arturo Barrios, Deena Kastor and Mark Plaatjes are interviewed. The consensus appears to be that 35-50 miles per week is plenty (Kennedy says that 70 is the absolute max, but he only ran 30-40 miles per week in high school and dominated). And that makes sense; the races are only 5K, sometimes less. There's no need to train like a marathoner for a 3 mile race.
The reason why every cross-country coach in America should read the piece, though, is that all of these great athletes and their coaches agree that every high school runner should peak after high school; in other words, to train a kid like an elite athlete will ensure that s/he never gets better after age 17 and will probably burn him/her out for life -- the worst disservice a coach can do to a young runner. This is from Bob Kennedy (sidebar):
"I was blessed with talent, and that kind of got me through. I had a great coach, Irv Christenson. He was a great human being. He recognized I had a lot of talent, and instead of trying to do amazing things with me so he benefited, he sought out advice from friends of his who were college coaches. His philosophy was, 'I just need to get this guy to the next level, ready to run and ready to grow from there."'
To my mind, training for a 5K should be about quality, not quantity. Use the summer to build a base, with daily 4-7mi runs very easy. Do a long run on Sundays (8-10mi max). About 4 weeks out from the first meet, introduce tempo runs and intervals; I'd rather have kids cut their mileage back, but do more at race pace and faster, than put in a bunch of what amount to garbage miles. Come race day, your kids will get more out of an interval sesson of 8x400 at race pace with 1 minute rest in between and a mile warm-up and warm down than they will out of a 6 mile jog (provided they have that summer base, of course).
I was lucky to have a high school coach who understood this. I was unlucky to have a college coach who wanted all of his runners prepared to run 80-90+ miles per week when school opened in August, even the freshman. Some coaches, like the excellent Joe Piane at Notre Dame and Miami University's coach, Warren Mandrell, understand that that high volume is too much to ask of 18 year-old kids who were running only 30-40 miles per week two months before. They usually expect their freshman to run 60 miles per week or so, and never twice a day. I'd be interested in an article geared toward college coaches explaining how best to bring along freshmen.
Comments