Training — How much running is too much for teens?

JoeEnglish - 6:38 pm | no comments

Coach Dean Hebert

Coach Dean Hebert

Coach Dean Hebert joins us today to answer a question from a parent, asking about how much running is too much for teen runners:

My daughter runs on a local cross country team. They start running every morning in the summer, 3 miles to 4 miles a day. In August they begin running 4-6 miles a day with races every weekend. In September they begin running 4-5 miles in the mornings and 3-5 miles in the afternoons. They had a retreat over the weekend and ran 20 miles of practice. Every year by this time of year…. the girls team of about 15 members, ages 13 years old to 18 years old at least 1-2 girls have stress fractures in their legs. Are they being trained too hard? Is this too intense for this age group? Marki

The proof is in the pudding. Though teen runners are more likely to encounter injuries due to their initial lack of conditioning and lack of year round training something like stress fractures at that rate is extreme. In all my years of coaching runners of all ages (including teen girls) I would be exaggerating if the incidence of stress fractures are 1 in 100 (or more) per year. 1-2 out of 15 is indeed excessive.

The rule of thumb is still to increase mileage about 10% per week. So let’s do the math together. If the team runs everyday 3 or 4 miles per day then they are running 15-28 miles per week to start out. By September, they are running as much as 8-10 miles per day, which is 50-70 miles per week! And add to that 20 miles in a single weekend retreat. This would be a lot of miles even for marathon runners, but the question I have is for what purpose are all these miles being run? Their cross-country race is only 5k!
Read more…

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Training Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Training: Does the elliptical trainer benefit runners?

Dean Hebert - 10:00 am | no comments

Coach Dean Hebert

Coach Dean Hebert

A reader named Kelly asks:

I have been experiencing some injuries in the past two weeks or so while training for the Marine Corps Marathon in October. This is my first marathon. I was curious what is thought about training on an elliptical machine as part of cross-training. Does that have any benefits? Or are the only two options aqua-running and cycling?

This question has been posed to me a number of times in recent years. Let me lead my answer by telling a short story which will help illustrate the point to be made.

One of the best examples I can think of happened when Kenya decided to field a Winter Olympics team. They sent Philip Boit and Henry Bitok — a couple of elite runners — to Finland to train with the very best cross-country skiers in the world for two years in preparation for the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games.

Boit and Bitok, both from the Nandi tribe, were elite athletes. Boit, 26, a military policeman, has run 100 meters in a hand-timed 10.49 seconds, 200 in 21.06, 400 in 46.20, 800 in 1:47.46 and 1,500 in 3:46.52. (He is a cousin of Mike Boit, the 1972 bronze medalist in the 800-meter run.) And Bitok, 28, a naval officer, was once a top steeplechaser with a career best of 8:17.28, and he has run a half marathon in about 65 minutes.
Read more…

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Running, Training Tags: , , , ,

Training: how much of an impact is 10 days off during marathon prep?

Dean Hebert - 11:57 am | no comments

Coach Dean Hebert

Coach Dean Hebert

A reader named Casandra asks:

“I was 13 weeks into my first marathon training when I over-stretched and either strained or tore the ligament on the bottom of my foot. I took 1 week off, tried to run, found it hurt after my run, took another 4 days off and attempted to run 10mi today and stopped at mile 3, because I could feel the slight bruised feeling on the bottom of my foot return. I have completed 18 miles prior to the injury and would so much like to get back to running. I am training for the Marine Corps Marathon in late October, so I know I have time (I hope) to recover and still be OK to run in the race. My question is, when I cross-train (biking or swimming), how long do I go for? What would be a comparable schedule? Can you suggest a schedule that will hopefully best maintain my cardiovascular conditioning?”

Cassandra, first the bad news. There is no real reliable translation of cross-training equating to running miles. Calories expended can be determined by exercise or activity and heart rates vary widely by discipline. In any case neither of these measures in cross training will help you in preparing to run a marathon. You are training to run a marathon not swim it and not bike it (or elliptical it for that matter). This is not as much an issue of “cardio” – heart and lungs — as it is a neuromuscular issue. You need “running” muscles to function efficiently. That is not to say that other training is useless. It is to say that there is no direct translation of yards swimming to miles biking to miles running.

The good news is 10 days is not to long of a time off, even though this is happening at an inopportune time (then again when do any injuries happen at a good time?). The other good news is that there is training you can do that will maintain your general condition.
Read more…

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Running, Training Tags: , , , ,