What does training look like for all these ridiculously fast high school kids?

epo

barely going to school

carbon race shoes

(I know what I'm saying)

Quadruple threshold

Anti-aging clinics

I can tell you why.

1. Better shoes.
2. The internet allows for others to compare and share training and copy the elites and spy on your competition and outwork them.
3. Higher mileage.

Six minute abs.

Number 1 is true.

Number 2 is bogus.

Kids todays run a lot less than guys in the 70s/80s and even guys I ran against in the 2000s.

Shoes, yes. Training knowledge also.

Just like always, there is a wide variance in training.

There’s definitely something beyond the shoes going on with HS kids. Milesplit number 50 ranking for 3200m each year:

2021: 8:58

2022:8:57

2023:8:54

2024:8:51

it makes me hypothesize that since 2020 some sort of training factor is in the mix since time has been continuously dropping.

My kids fast and he’s not on anything, takes a list of college classes in high school. Now he does wear carbon shoes which I look at just like any other sport when equipment gets better. Every sport evolves. So actually you don’t know what your saying

You can see what they're doing since many post on Strava.

It’s the shoes. The shoes allow for more training and fewer injuries. That builds upon itself. The cumulative effect of the shoes is what you are seeing.

What would Fernandez and Verzbicas have done with these super shoes?

The current wave of fast HS runners is a result of a wider net for talented runners, due to the introduction of middle school distance running.

PAAVO baby!

Definitely the training. I was in high school in 1998-2002, so not too long ago in the big scheme of things. I was a low to mid 16 minute XC runner at a small school, and I trained with one of the top big school teams in the state because no one else on my team was even close to my ability. We definitely trained way too hard, as there was no concept of heart rate training or controlled efforts.

A typical non race week in the late summer/early fall looked something like this for me:

Mon: Hard 4 mile tempo 5:30ish pace (pretty much a time trial effort).

Tuesday: Base mileage, 7-9 miles, ran at 6:30-7:00 minute pace

Wed: Hill repeats 8x90 seconds (pretty much all out.)

Thursday: Base mileage, 7-9 miles, ran at 6:30-7:00 minute pace

Friday: Longer intervals, such as 6x1k at 5k pace (pretty much all out)

Saturday: Long run 10-12 miles, descending to tempo effort

Sunday: easy run

Obviously way too much intensity for a 16 minute 5k runner in high school, and the easy and long runs were wayyy too fast. If I was coaching myself today, I would slow the tempo run down by 20 seconds per mile, slow the base miles down by 1 minute per mile, change the hills to a shorter length, ie 30 seconds or so, and do the long run at a "zone 2" effort" and descend the 6x1k so that I am not digging myself a big hole by doing each one at 100% effort. I am pretty sure I could have ran much faster in high school, as once I started training properly in college I was able to get into the 14s pretty quickly.

For boys, it's EPO. For girls, they are boys on HRT.

Vax

The correct answer is they are starting to train earlier in their lives. Look at the Youngs and Sahlmans --- they were training and racing as early as elementary school. They had a youth track program.

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Yes I agree, but shoes is such a small part of it. Some of the top programs have kids doubling before school 2-4 times/week. The amount of races that pull the fastest kids together from out of state makes a huge difference too. Arcadia, Brooks, Twilight meets, etc. all give kids stress-free racing and the ability to go faster. More great meets and places to race in the winter too has made a huge difference. The best kids are probably doing the same as they were in the 80's, but now there's whole teams of kids doing more mileage, doubles, better training, etc. That's why there's been so much more depth.