Henry Rono training for masters mile record. PART II

Coach BD

RE: Henry Rono training for masters mile record. PART II 8/11/2007 7:29PM - in reply to fred

I will be 52 next month, 140lbs, average 70+ a week, run under 17:00k when fit. I have coached runners for 20 years. Most of the runners I have coached I have had to help them with desire, vision, work ethic, determination, and sacrifices. This is part of coaching not just coaching runners that are on top already.

I have followed this thread since the beginning. I follow it because I can relate to it as a 51 year old competitive runner. These are some of my thoughts on this thread.

In the beginning the facts were.

1. Henry’s weight was 210lb.
2. Henry had not trained in years, and certainly not at an elite level
3. Henry up front said he would train to break the 1 mile record
4. Right off the bat he posted how many minutes a day he was running like runs up to 144 min.
5. He post what he doing at the risk of what people are going to say

As a 51 runner who trains as hard as I can with out getting hurt I though that running that many minutes a day was just incredible. Having coached runners that have gained weight after long lay offs, I founded it very interesting that Henry could run that many minutes a day with out a lot of problems.

As I have followed this thread I was thinking why and how can Henry do this. I believe that when Henry was world class he trained at high volumes with out the fear of pace and how many miles he was running. Most of the posters on this board think that his mileage is like 100 week or more. At a very slow pace it is probably a lot less. I think most runners are too insecure or impatient to go that slow all the time. I would have told Henry to cross train to make up the mileage to loose the weight. I think because Henry believes what he is doing will work he has the patients to grid it out day after day. Only runners with that kind of vision would have the patients to train like that. That’s why most of us do not understand.

Early on I though that if Henry ever gets his times down it would be scary competing against a guy that has been building this huge base. I am no Henry F’n Reno but I do have first hand knowledge how hard it is to be competitive even at 140lb let alone at 170+lbs. When Henry ran 17:4? at Carlsbad, I thought what an accomplishment.

Some people on this board do not realize that it takes years even if you are gifted to be world class.

Henry himself said he is in base phase #2. Until he says he has moved to his phase 3 I do not expect him to drop much more in speed or weight.

I know it will be even more difficalt for Henry because he has not learned the lessons of what a runner learns at his age. Each year I have learned what I have to do to adapt to my ageing. Henry just started at this age it will be hard for him to know like when to drop out of workouts when things are not right. This is just one thing us older runners learn.
Henry is a new kid on the block even if he is Henry Rono.

Up to this point I think his training is very good considering these facts. I could write a lot more but I just had to come on here and make a few points. I just don’t think some posters here have any idea how hard it is to train at the elite level when your goal is to be the best, or how long it takes even if you are Henry F’n Reno and you do get your weight down to 140lbs.!

There is a lot of great things that Henry is doing that all runners should learn from.

I hope I have nailed the hammer on the head.

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