The Washington Post ran an article this week about a runner in Maryland, Mikias Gelagle, who logged some 100-mile weeks this summer in preparation for the cross country season. The article brings up a good question: How many miles per week should a high school runner be running? Personally, I don't think anyone can just say 100 miles a week is too many. It's all about how you get there. If you've been steadily increasing your mileage and been relatively injury-free, you should be able to handle 100 miles per week.
The human body is not, as the article claimed was stated by some coaches, a car that is going to break down after a certain number of miles. That is as absurd as telling people they should not exercise hard because their heart only has a finite number of beats. If you take care of yourself, you can run high mileage for years.
In order to maximize your potential in any event 800m and up, you need to run high mileage. When you start should be up to you, not some arbitrary time.
1 comment:
Actually, there's been some interesting work done pointing to the fact that most hearts - this is true throughout the animal kingdom - beat about the same number of beats per lifetime. Could also have something to do with the correlation between a low resting heart rate and good health/longevity in general.
I agree with your main point, btw, just thought that one example interesting.
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