Millage and Training

Preface (MUST READ): So I think I wrote this post 4 or 5 times on the train and I’m really just not sure how to go about posting it. There is a lot to say about how millage works and how different people react to different styles of coaching. When I’ve talked to other runners in high school and in different college programs it seems that most coaches try their best to cater towards their athletes to make a group of them as successful as possible. It’s tough, especially for high school coaches, who can see up to 70 guys during an XC season and then try and maximize all of their potentials. As my assistant coach in high school, Rob Rogers, said to us all the time: “You’re only as good as your slowest runner.” Running in high school can mean a lot of things to a lot of people and coach all of these types of personalities and body types, it is impossible for a high school coach to be perfect. At college and then professional levels the focus narrows more on why each runner is there and the number of runners under a coach also deceases (usually, I know some small schools allow coaches to specialize better) and this helps each athlete get more attention to specific needs. I write this preface to try and help everyone reading this article understand that all of your coaches are correct and are training you to the best of their abilities. I don’t write this article to have all of you questioning training methods, ect, but instead to help start a discussion and help all of you become more aware of different types of training that go on. I have seen a couple types of training methods and been in different programs and after seeing different methods I have begun to branch out more to try and find what works best for me, we will all find something different. Not one training method is correct, but there are many that work very well as overarching frames to help high school runners succeed. And remember guys like Galen Rupp are on a 15+ year training plan, while your coaches have you at best for 12 seasons (4 years) so the plans will be shortened and they want to help make you as successful as possible in those years.

So remember as you read this article do not forget my opening words. Your coaches are doing a fantastic job and they want you to be as successful as possible.

Types of Training: All of these methods that I will discuss have been used by different professional athletes and they have been successful in doing so. Here are some numbers to start us off so you can see that millage isn’t everything.

20 Miles per week: High school runners such as Miles Batty ran 4:22 in high school with only 20 miles per week, my roommate ran 4:21 in high school with this millage as well. Batty ran for BYU and set the indoor mile record of 3:54.54 and went on to win the DMR and Indoor mile once and was runner-up in the 1500m outdoors. He runs about 60 miles per week now. Now, can you be successful maintaining 20 miles per week? A) Yes. For two reasons. 1) Our bodies don’t fully develop physically until we are older. Most runners peak from around 24 to 27, so you will not peak in high school or college physical, but you can break/wear your body down. Pushing high millage at younger ages can be detrimental to careers if not done correctly (aka slowly raising millage, very, very slowly). High schoolers with low millage often explode onto to the college seen much like Batty did. Other guys ran D3 or barely at all in high school and college such as Nick Symmonds and Matthew Elliott (who ran 4:42 in high school), but kept training and gaining strength and have gone on to race very well on a world level (3:34 and 3:37 1500’s which are well under the 4:00 barrier as equivalents).

2) Charles Jock: If you don’t know who Jock is, he was a 2x runner up for 800m at NCAA’s and is one of the gutsy 800m runners I’ve ever seen. With a 1:44.85 PR he often goes out in 50. Or faster, usually with the lead, and helps bring his competitors, like Robby Andrews, to great times. In college for UC-Irvine, Jock ran 18 to 20 miles per week. He worked with strength and speed training along with very fast runs. He would always be under 6:30 pace, usually under 6 minute pace for every mile he ran. Low millage can work with supplemented training such a pool, and weight room. He is currently working up to 25 miles a week and is doing so over a 6 month period. This is quite slow, but it’s to ensure that he does not get injured to the change in training. – When I increase millage it would be about 5 miles every month, but a very slow build, so 20 miles, 22, 23, 25, 24, 26, 28, 30, 22, 28, 31, 32 ect. to ensure that the body is health and is ok with the higher levels. And then down weeks every two months can help recovery. Again, I’m only a sophomore in college so do not take this post as how to do everything correctly. I’m just trying to begin a conversation on how millage works for different types of people.

45 miles per week: RTJ as often said he believes this should be the limit for high school runners. In many ways I don’t think there should be a cap on how many miles runners do in high school as long as they have a coach watching them who understands training correct. Guys like Magaha ran low millage but he was very successful, vs guys like Quinn Devlin who ran 100 to 110 miles per week and got a stress fracture his senior year (at least this is what he said in his XC journal for PennTrack). Guys like Matthew Centrowitz ran 60 miles a week: “His father, who has coached the American University team to national prominence in just 10 years, has also influenced Matt’s training, keeping with his Oregon tradition of relatively low mileage, that it’s better to underdo than overdo. Until this year, Matt never ran more than 60 miles a week and only ran once a day.” http://www.runnersworld.com/high-school-profiles/hs-profile-matt-centrowitz. Guys like Nick Symmonds (1:42.95 800m and 3:34 1500) run 60 miles per week as professionals.

From what I’ve seen from 30 to 60 miles per week is usually a very health millage number. Now, each runner usually has a range that is safe for them. For me it’s 45 to 60 miles per week. In high school I hit 70 on occasion to try and catch up due to missed summer runs or to get ahead of the competition, but this only ended poorly for me as I cannot handle that type of millage, it destroys my body. It’s all about finding your niche and sticking with it, or slowly, like Charles Jock, pushing the envelope on how high you can go. One does not simply jump 10 to 20 miles without sever trauma to the body, usually resulting in injury.

Guys like David Rudisha (WR holder and Olympic Champion for 800m in 1:40.91) and Galen Rupp (only non-African to break 27 minutes for 10k and Silver Medalist in the event) both run from 90 to 110 miles per week. Rupp has built up to this since high school, he is now 27 years old. Other runners such as Cameron Levins (University of Southern Utah who double goaled at the 2012 NCAA outdoor championships in the 5k and 10k) ran 190 miles per week during the 2011/2012 season, but after joining Nike he has gone down to 135 to 140 miles per week, and he has been very successful.

As we can see, all types of millage can be very successful. All of these runners are older and more mature, allowing their bodies to be stronger and handle more heat, which is why most of them supplement with strength training. Other than core and push-ups, strength training in high school for the most part isn’t needed unless of course your coach has a program in place, in which case it’s probably very keyed in on specific area’s and will be helpful. Just lifting on your own will probably hurt you.

I want to end this article by saying that all types of millage and training as the potential to work for many different people. Roger Bannister, the first man to break 4 minutes in the mile, only trained for 30 to 45 minutes a day, as he was a junior doctor at the time and has gone on to be a fantastic neurologist. So keep listening to your coaches, but do listen to your bodies as well. If something is hurting, ect get it checked out. My high school millage was too much for me and I’ve been practically injury free in college after deceasing millage, which helped bring me to PR’s, while others like my roommage jumped from 20 miles a week up to 50 and then to 70, which only ended in a very long term injury keeping him out of running for the whole XC season. Having higher millage can be beneficial, but it is never the be-all, end-all. And if you strive to run more miles, talk with your coaches and make a plan, don’t do it on your own. They are all in their positions for a reason and have seen all types of runners and can help key you in on what can help make you all the best you can be.

That’s all for now Folks,

--ForrestCRN