Coaching elite high school runner

Add strides at the end of runs. 2 easy 2 medium 2 hard. With spikes or just barefoot.

The best advice I got when I had my first what I would call elite high school runner was:

Just don't ruin him/her.

Don't over do it and add mileage and reps very slowly. Leave room for growth in college.

My best runner was sub 4:10 on 60 mpw. He had room to add mileage in college and is now a pro.

Help me out with he runs 70mpw but your existing plan is 45mpw. You were training that runner for cross @ 70 & are now looking to adjust indoor/outdoor 45mpw to that same 70?

I agree that your job is to not ruin a runner by overdoing it. Better to be a little undertrained & still in love with the sport when you get ready to run in college. It's a tough 8ish years of running to be peaking 3x/year every year for XC/indoor/outdoor. 70 is probably what the very top runners are doing. If your runner is there then keeping them there is fine but you could get by on a little less.

2 hard workouts/week is more than enough at this level (& that should include races). Even 1.5 workouts/week works with good volume in those workouts. Easy ways to increase the mileage are short doubles, adding a medium long run, adding mileage to the long run. Maybe think about pausing or scaling workouts back when you increase mileage. I honestly don't think a runner, especially a HS runner, needs to be doubling until they get up to around 70mpw in singles. Once you're tapped out averaging 10 miles/day, Then 2 easy doubles to get from 70 to 80mpw is fine. Again, dk if most HSers need to be there. College coaches like the potential of a 50mpw 15min XC runners versus a 70mpw 15min XC runner.

it's odd that people are jumping into a bunch of recipes without asking what you want to cook. my general belief is the best XC coaching isn't one size fits all. my specific belief here would be no one is perfect and what are his weaknesses? you said "placed" but not "won." so what does he need to win? better kicking speed? faster splits? better endurance? mix that in.

example: i was a good college defender, the equivalent of a cover-corner in football. was that way when i was playing HS and when i showed up. i also had a raw ability to create some attacking chaos as a former attacker, goal and a few assists a season. but i relied heavily on speed. i sat down before my junior year and was like, i will get my defending practice and game feel and whatnot from summer league. what is it i don't already have? i thought about it and my school did little skill work, and i thought i could use some poise on the ball. i spent every morning that summer in my parents' frontyard doing skills drills before going to work. summer league practices and games handled the stuff i already did well, fitness, defense, etc.

work on what you don't do well. without identifying that the recipes are pointless.

What's the point of 2 easy strides? Or medium?

The point of strides is to run fast. so shouldn't t' they all be fast?

Another thing, he is already running 70 mile weeks, that is plenty for a HS kid, no need to add double workouts or more mileage, focus the training an aerobic development, add in small amounts of speed consistently and keep him healthy and happy.

Doubling in the AM means less sleep, that is bad, sleep is good.

They always say that when working out you should finish feeling like you could have done more, the same goes for training, you should finish the week feeling like you could have done more. Training consistently over a long period of time brings results.

No need to add pool work to a kid already running 70 mops, obviously he is pretty sound bio mechanically to handle running. Add pool training to kids who can't handle running that much. Don't over think it, don't over coach.

I got this,..

For the strength training aspect I highly recommend the book “Running Rewired” by Jay Dicharry. It’s super comprehensive and has multiple plans and routines to follow. You can get it on Amazon.

Keep mileage consistent. Don't jump around. Only taper before biggest races. Long run, tempo, 2 workouts and keep everything else easy or maintenance pace. Better to double several days and have a day off out of 10 days of training. The goal is progression.

I coach a number of good high school aged athletes and thought I would give you a sample what we do here in Australia during our winter.

I only see my athletes for training 3x per week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Athletes generally take Monday off and the rest of the week looks like this for winter training preparing for Nationals XC at the end of August. Here is a sample week with my younger athletes running 40-50 miles per week and 17-18 year olds running 50-65 miles per week:

Monday OFF

Tuesday Am optional 20-30 minute run Pm 1500m threshold + 4-5k of 300 on 200 float on grass circuit + 1500 threshold (something like this every week)

Wednesday (on their own) 6-10 miles depending on athlete

Thursday AM optional 20-30 minute run PM 5k threshold 1k float 1500 or 2.5k threshold (always threshold sessions on Thursday)

Friday easy 5 miles

Saturday Hilly 6-8mile circuit surging hills or 7-10mile progressive run (as we get closer to Nats 6-8x1k on 4:30 cycle on grass. Athletes will generally cover 9-12 miles of total running

Sunday 9-12 mile long run depending on athlete.

I have given you a good XC sample of what we do and this may also be beneficial to other coaches who may read this. One of my 18 year olds has run 3:54/8:25/14:39/30:39 for 1500/3k/5k/10kroad and I have a 15 year old who has run 1;56/3:57/8:46 and won National XC 4k in 12:37 as a 14 year old 8th grader last year. Talented athletes but nothing special in regards to training.

Good luck!