The Reasons Behind the Running Renaissance

Here is Part II of Steven Paske's examination of what's behind the recent resurgence in high school distance running -- both national-wide and in Minnesota. Yesterday, in Part I, Paske considered the impact of the Internet on training. Today, he looks at the effects of higher training mileage and the impact of immigrant runners on performances.

Paske is a former Osseo High School and Marquette University runner and author of a novel about cross country called "Breaking Stride." Paske's newest book, "The Immortal," was recently e-published by synergebooks.com. For more information about all of Paske's writing, see www.stephenpaske.com.

The Reasons Behind the Running Renaissance -- Part II
By Steven Paske

High Mileage:

Tim Miles has been the coach at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota since 1979. During that time 19 of his teams have qualified for the NCAA Championships and four of those teams finished in the top five. He’s not inclined to believe that the Internet is the primary reason for the sudden resurgence in high school distance running. Instead he has a body of evidence that espouses a different theory.

“In 1990 Track and Field News did a report on the diminishing performance of distance running in the country. It was terrible. There was lots of cross training and very little running. Runners read articles on doing things like going fishing instead of running,” he says. “If I can generalize, I think that high school coaches were proud of saying things like we’re saving our kids for college. God forbid you’d be a high mileage coach. My brother Bill remembers being a speaker at a clinic in the 90’s and being introduced as a high-mileage guy. At the same clinic in the 70’s he was introduced as a low-mileage guy. Between the clinics he never changed his coaching style.

Miles has been keeping track of the summer mileage totals of his incoming freshmen since he started coaching. He breaks the data down into the mileage of all incoming freshmen; freshmen who ran sub 10:10 for 3200 as preps, and those that eventually competed all four years of college. To him the reason for the sudden surge is quite clear. Kids are returning to high mileage.

“I remember saying in the 90’s that my freshmen were a year behind coming in from where they were when I started,” he says. “Now we’re bouncing back. My runners are showing up better prepared than they have in a long time."

This becomes readily apparent if you break down the numbers. From 1979-1985 his incoming freshmen that would compete four years averaged 433 miles the summer before college. From 1986-1992 this total plummeted to 277 and the 1993-1999 total of 289 wasn’t much better. Then things inexplicably changed. From 2000-2006 the numbers rocketed upwards to 380, directly coinciding with the running renaissance. The jump for sub 10:10 3200-meter runners was even higher.

Conversations with some of today’s top runners help affirm the theory. Mead, Heath, Finnerty, and King all peak as high as 70 miles per week or more in the summer. Lumbar will even throw in a 100 mile week once in a while. Uselding notes that it’s a lot more common to see runners doing 50 miles a week or more in the summer on their own than in the past. It’s not an iron-clad theory however.

Steve Leuer, Jeremy Polson, Nic Mattack and Eric Hartmark finished first through fourth at the Minnesota State Cross Country Meet in 1995. With the exception of the champion Leuer, who due to injury only ran 76 miles and would eventually go on to win the Footlocker Midwest Regional, the other three runners all had close to 1000-mile summers. Yet none of them came close to producing the scorching times now being routinely put out by runners.

Putting it Together:

Neither the Internet or high-mileage theory seems to exclusively explain why high school running is rapidly getting better. Other factors, such as an influx of Somali immigrants to several Minnesota towns have deepened the talent pool, and no doubt there are similar tales of the immigrated talent appearing nationally. The deeper the talent pool the more kids will run faster. Perhaps that one runner exceeding certain standards has an enormous impact. In interviewing runners and coaches, one common belief about why people are running faster recurred more than any other.

“My feeling is people make other people faster,” says Heath. “After my brother (Stanford’s Garrett Heath) ran 9:06 his senior year, I think that people in the State saw that, and it lowered their mental standard. You see somebody run fast and you think I can run that too."

“People are influenced by what they see other people doing,” says Finnerty. “If somebody sees somebody run 8:55 then it looks like it’s possible for them to do that too. With the Internet it’s easy to see what other people are doing if you want."

“There’s a lot of kids who come here from other countries and running is something they’re good at,” says Mead, who arrived from Somalia himself in 2000. “It becomes more competitive because the kids here want to beat those kids, so they train harder than they otherwise would have."

“With the way communication is it’s easier to keep up with the Jones’ in today’s atmosphere,” says Uselding. “You can see what the guy across town is doing and ask yourself what you are going to have to do to combat that."

Perhaps there’s no single answer to explain exactly why high-school distance running in American has rebounded. The proliferation of the Internet has dramatically increased the availability of sound training advice. The mileage totals of high school runners seem to have trended upwards. Foreign immigrants have added to the talent pool and forced home-grown Americans to work harder to compete at a high level.

It seems that a unique combination of better training methods, more dedicated athletes and an influx of outside talent have meshed together to create this new golden age of high school running. Now that we have a pretty good idea about some of the reasons behind the running renaissance, it’s up to the current and future athletes to make sure that it continues.