how much can hs runners improve year-to-year?

I improved about a minute over 5k after my first summer of real training. I wasn't running 20:00 though so your guys can probably see more significant improvement if you get them to be serious about it.

One of my old HS coaches in his first year of coaching called up Joe Newton and got his advice. He took a group of 20 minute 5k guys and turned them into 16 min guys in a year and then won back to back state championships. You've got the right idea. Build up the mileage and let the workouts come. Don't be afraid to push them. You'd be surprised how fast they can adjust to mileage given the proper build up. The big thing is to take everything day to day, don't try to plan out the whole season. You should try to get a feel for how everyone is feeling each day before deciding if you should do a workout.

you have a neat opportunity. congrats

If you're going to be focusing long-term then you better start today haha. Anyway, how much can hs runners improve? That can vary greatly. Since your guys are running around 20:00, it will likely be easy for them to knock a couple minutes off of their time. I've heard of some runners who have knocked off 3 minutes in one season, but I've also heard of runners that have not improved in a season at all. The sky is the limit.

at our school freshman who who start the season under 20 finish under 18. freshman who finish under 18 should run under 17 the next year. junior and senior gets tricky.

The intitial improvement in the first year should be a couple minutes or more. After that, 30-45 seconds a year should be expected with a gradual progression of training.

well as a freshman i was 19:32 and then i did 350 summer miles and i came back with a 17:05 as a sophomore. i should be doing about 900+ miles or so this summer (16 weeks instead of 12 week period like last summer) and i should be going sub-16 and be one of the best in state. so really is just depends on the ability of the runner but i would say that they could easily go to 18:30s or so the next year if that is what they were at if not breaking 18.

well as a freshman i was 19:32 and then i did 350 summer miles and i came back with a 17:05 as a sophomore. i should be doing about 900+ miles or so this summer (16 weeks instead of 12 week period like last summer) and i should be going sub-16 and be one of the best in state. so really is just depends on the ability of the runner but i would say that they could easily go to 18:30s or so the next year if that is what they were at if not breaking 18.

Be optimistic and ambitious in your team and individual goals, but also try to be flexible and customize the workouts as much as you can. It's not that easy to coach a team with widely ranging ability and discipline, like is typical for high school. Once you see what you've got, try to get kids paired up by ability and get them to run together on the weekends and over the vacations, including subsequent summers. If you can get the kids to be disciplined and focused on a goal, you are doing great. You get what you get with the talent. Teams with average talent and better than average discipline and chemistry routinely beat more talented teams. Plus they are fun to coach and when you do get talented kids moving through a program, they pull everyone along and make it even more exciting and rewarding.

If this group buys into your approach and has good team chemistry, I think you are looking at 19s and 17s, respectively for the boys and girls. Try to nip any whining and complaining in the bud without being too harsh. A couple whiners on a team can spread a lot of bad energy. Make them feel proud that they chose a sport that takes guts and discipline.

I think you need to teach the sport from a fun perspective. Image yourself as a 14 or 15 year old. Show up to summer practice and coach says "Go out and do 6 easy". I don't know about you, but for me as a 14 year old a 6 mile run would get monotonous. My high school coach would send us out on flag pole runs (i.e., get a team of 4, have to have 1 JV runner, and go touch every flag pole this side of town. Makes for about 9 miles in my hometown. First whole team across the finish line wins ice cream on coach). Something like this would build teamwork, and 9 miles is plenty for a long run.

Thanks for all the input. I know it'll take a lot of patience to get these kids to realize what they're capable of, but I couldn't be more excited about this job. If our varsity guys end up averaging 18:30-19:00, we should be able to jump into the top half of the conference (from nearly last a season ago), and a similar improvement for the girls would put them in contention for a state meet berth. I can see those achievements getting everyone excited for their sport and give us a lot of momentum heading into next season, with just a handful of seniors in the program now.

My first XC season I went in on 15 mpw with a 5k pr of 23:00. By the end of the season I was running 40 mpw and ran 19:16. At the of the track season I ran 18:08, and by the end of my 2 year ran 17:20 off of about 50 mpw. People will really improve alot with good training and coaching. Good luck sounds like a fun opportunity.

xcsuperstar1202 wrote:

well as a freshman i was 19:32 and then i did 350 summer miles and i came back with a 17:05 as a sophomore. i should be doing about 900+ miles or so this summer (16 weeks instead of 12 week period like last summer) and i should be going sub-16 and be one of the best in state. so really is just depends on the ability of the runner but i would say that they could easily go to 18:30s or so the next year if that is what they were at if not breaking 18.

Just because you cut of 2:30 doesn't mean you'll easily be able to cut off another 1:30, as your times get lower it's harder to cut time off. You also must be in a weak state.

he'll probably run 16:20-16:30

I like the advice about contacting Joe Newton. Well, that may be tough to do these days; but at least get his books. "The Long Green Line" is fantastic, though if you get his later books you can see that his training has changed. Also note that Joe himself talks about building up the program over a period of ~5 years--if your guys try to do what Joe's are doing now, you won't have a team left! Regardless, his specific motivation ideas are priceless.

Remember that, particularly in high school, "one year of growth equals two years of coaching." If you keep your kids out for the team, from one year to the next, you absolutely will see real progress. *Consistency* is much more important than individual killer workouts.

Group goals can also help, especially with the girls: maybe working to get five girls under time X on a particular course, seven under X+a, ten under X+b, etc. This way even the non-scorers know they're shooting for something important, and the early finishers will go nuts cheering their teammates on to break "that" time.

Finally, I enjoyed the suggestion about making workouts more game-like. Paarlauf is great for getting the kids to work together. Use your imagination with paarlauf: you can have boys be partners with girls, or have runners of different abilities/experience running different-length loops (and just coming back to a common "exchange" zone to touch off their partners).

I think the fact that you're interested enough to post your question shows that the kids will be lucky to have you. Good luck. Enjoy yourself! Learn lots!

haha yo wrote:

You also must be in a weak state.

Typical letsrun idiot. If you can run in the 15's for 5k cross, you will be "one of the top runners" in every state.

haha yo wrote:

xcsuperstar1202 wrote:

well as a freshman i was 19:32 and then i did 350 summer miles and i came back with a 17:05 as a sophomore. i should be doing about 900+ miles or so this summer (16 weeks instead of 12 week period like last summer) and i should be going sub-16 and be one of the best in state. so really is just depends on the ability of the runner but i would say that they could easily go to 18:30s or so the next year if that is what they were at if not breaking 18.

Just because you cut of 2:30 doesn't mean you'll easily be able to cut off another 1:30, as your times get lower it's harder to cut time off. You also must be in a weak state.

Or their state has a decently hard championship course.

Dan Onymous wrote:

haha yo wrote:

Just because you cut of 2:30 doesn't mean you'll easily be able to cut off another 1:30, as your times get lower it's harder to cut time off. You also must be in a weak state.

Or their state has a decently hard championship course.

Depends a bit on the definition of top (top 5/25,100). Running sub 16 is pretty respectable for junior on most legit courses.

The improvement from fresh to soph tends to be huge as you have people that are going from 14 weeks of total training to like 60 weeks or almost 5 in terms of weeks (in terms of miles it is probably more). From soph to jun. it is more like 2x. How realistic the OP goals are depend a lot on his track times from the spring which should show how he has responded to the previous 6 months of training. If he ran a sub 9:50 3200 this spring, I like his odds of running sub 16. If he ran a 10:30, he is more likely to be disappointed.

if you get them to run 60k's a week they will all run around or under 18 minutes, the talented ones will run 17 or under. but ease them into more k's in a week slowly, dont just jump from one lot of mileage to heaps higher mileage.