Summary of Wejo's Article

Mr. Johnson, I think you might have been a little forthcoming there.

How many people named Jerry with 10 letters in their last name coach a top 5 program? Schumacher.

Er, just to clarify: I don't intend to criticize. Just pointing out that Schumacher's awesome. Liked the article, by the way.

Yes and no.

Yes, it is sport.

No, most high school athletes get involved football, basketball, soccer, etc. to have fun playing a game.

Sure, the objective in every game is to win, so they train to win.

Sure, some of them have it as an objective to be a "star" and to get a scholarship.

But the purpose of high school sports is for kids to have fun and to learn some things about sports and athletics and teamwork and sportsmanship.

Having raised two kids, now in their 20s, I have been amazed at the silly (Yes, when you try to make high school sports serious, it becomes silly.) I am amazed at the silly high school coaches who have said things about:

some girls being too short for freshman high school basketball

(while people like Spud Webb were stars in the NBA)

serious high school athletes need to "specialize"

(while most pro athletes, including stars like Joe Montana and Michael Jordan, participated in multiple sports during high school and even college)

We don't need cross country coaches to get more serious. We need the rest of the coaches to lighten up.

You can practice good training priniciples and still remember that it is "sport," which is to say it should be enjoyable, it should be fun.

Sorry if this was way off topic. I enjoyed Wejo's article and felt I learned from it.

Amen! I didn't really care for XC's rhetoric either and I agree with you.

Wejo- your site and writing's have inspired me in my quest to Qualify for the Boston Marathon when I attempt my first Marathon(The OC Marathon) in January. My training is right on par and I running "Fast but not Hard".

First let me say I'm not a hater, but I just pulled out my "Run With the Champions" book by Marc Bloom

Frank Shorter- 20 mile Sunday runs starting at 6:30 pace, ending at 5 minutes.

Bill Rodgers- "Four years later, before his fourth Boston title, Rodgers did less mileage 120-130 a week, but at a faster pace, aften 5:40 per mile." All on roads I might add.

Alberto Salazar- "Salazar alsom did an 11 mile run on a regular basis. He ran 4:53 to 5:00 a mile his goal pace for the marathon, while throwing in three fast 3/4 mile surges." Sounds like Fartlek to me.

Steve Prefontaine- "His longest runs were 10-12 miles, with a pace that often went well under 6 minutes a mile."

Those are 4 men in the Top 10 EVER as ranked by Runners World. We've got all of them under 6 minutes per mile at some point during mileage, and several covering that on roads. Discuss....

oops. Looks like I didn't remove everything. Please call me Weldon not Mr. Johnson.

Here's another one:

i just wanted to email you and tell you i really enjoyed your article "why i sucked in college". Last year, my freshman year of college, i would run all of my runs around 6:30-7 minute pace and would call it an easy day. I hit a few 90 mile weeks but nothing consistent. I was also not listening to my body when it told me i needed sleep, and i would end up doing stupid college things like you talked about. Well i ended up rolling my ankle pretty badly during february which took me out for 2 weeks, then i tried to jump back into 80 mile weeks and i over trained so i had no outdoor season my freshman year.

This summer i read a lot on yours, and JK's, training philosophies and i was completely blown away. At first it seemed absurd that running so slow could make you so much faster, but i was willing to try anything. At first i would go out on an easy 8 miler and have such a hard time going so slow, but i forced myself to stay within 7:30-8 minute pace. I started off this summer running around 45-50 miles a week so i wouldn't just run myself into the ground. By the start of july i was consistently hitting 70-80 mpw with two tempos and a long run a week, and all of my runs in between being just as slow as i needed them to be to recover. I realized how much better i would feel on my harder days, when i took my easy days as easy as i need them. My previous 5k pr was 15:43 from indoors, but this summer i ran a road race 5k at the start of july and ran 14:59! I was absolutely amazed at how much i had improved with what seemed like such little effort. This is when i swore by the theory of running farther at a slower pace is much better than shorter at a faster pace.

So i came into XC this year with huge aspirations. I knew i had it in me to go low 25's for 8k or maybe even faster. I had my eyes set on qualifying for nationals, which being in the south regional is extremely tough, but i thought if i kept improving like i had been i would definitely have a shot. Well as fate would have it, the second week of school i start feeling absolutely terrible and can't finish workouts. I go to the doctor and i have mono and anemia. So for the past several weeks all i've been able to do is jog for 45-60 minutes, and watch my team mates race. It's probably one of the hardest things to do, but i'm trying to keep my head up and log easy miles until i'm feeling better again.

Anyway, sorry to make my email so long, but i just want you to know that i really like what you're doing with the site and i really enjoyed the article so keep it up.

Thanks for writing your article, it really hit home with me. I've been trying to explain almost exactly what you said to my teammates all season long. It backed up what I switched to in training last spring. I was constantly hammering workouts too hard, to make myself tougher and supposedly faster, then I came across some old stuff you had wrote and thought maybe that running relaxed stuff will work. So I tried it, and I saw instant results. I ran 15:5*(I know pretty darn slow) at a 5k in mid-april, and just decided I needed to do something different because I feel I'm much more talented than that. So, I went to the more relaxed running while doing workout, and I was actually still up at the front of the workout group come the end of the workouts because people were dying and getting tired from hammering from the get-go. So two weeks after the 5k, I ran a 8k road race and got out slow and relaxed and came through 2 in 10:45 and ended up running 25:4*. And another two weeks !

later I closed our conference 10k in 15:5* in horrible weather, and a week after that I ran 15:0* for 5k. So, seeing that a 28:04 10ker is doing this, and supports it really gives me some hope. I hope you can get healthy and start running some good times/races again. Take care and God bless.

Email and my responise:

I just wanted to comment on your latest article about college training. I agreed

with most of what was said because I feel would be in the same position as you

if not for my older brothers. You seem to share many of their ideas about

resisting the urge to hammer easy runs, not killing yourself in intervals, and

consistency in mileage. I always want to run higher mileage but listening to

their advice has always helped so I stay at 80. I just have a few questions. I

have heard high mileage is detrimental to training because it takes away from

workouts, and workouts need to be the focus of your training. How do you

determine the best mileage for training and how long did it take you to build

to your current mileage? Also, about how many miles do you run at 7 minute pace

or slower? I rejoined the team at **** this year and our coach focuses on

trying to avoid those 7 minute pace easy days. He likes to say easy doesn't

mean slow, but relaxed. It seems to have worked very well for you though, and

that makes me think I should try a few different training plans once I graduate

to see what works best (10k, half-marathon, marathon). I'm just not sure how

long I need to stick with a plan for it to take effect, or whether varying my

training dramatically will hurt my racing.

***

My response:

I don't try and run "slow". I try and run easy. But when I'm running a

lot (120 miles) a week on a lot of days 7:30 pace is my relaxed pace.

My brother coaches at Cornell and I think some of the guys have

relaxed and slow confused. They now get pissed if someone wants to go

off an run even 6:45 pace. If you're not running very much, this can

easily be a relaxed pace for someone. Some days I may run 7:30 pace

and some days I may end up finishing at a decent clip, all on easy

days just depending on how I feel. It all depends on who the person

is, what they did the day before, etc.

As for high mileage detracting from workouts I disagree. My coach was

very cautious in bumping up my mileage. But I don't think high mileage

detracts from workouts. If I'm running relaxed or easy on my easy days

I don't have a problem working out. Sure my legs may be tired but I

think people who run less mileage but hammer their easy days are more

likely to compromise their workouts. I'm at least getting some benefit

by running a lot on my easy days.

I'm not saying everyone needs to run 120 miles a week as that works

best for me, but I think almost everyone should at some point be

running 90 to 100 miles a week. Virtually every top distance runner in

the world runs this much at some point.

Hope this helps. Good luck at the meet.

I thought it was interesting that he said that we should be doing more tempo runs in college. This last xc season We didn't do more than 5 tempo runs the entire time. We mainly did short intervals. Now that the season is over and I'm in training for a 1/2 marathon (under a different, and in my opinion much better, coach) I'm getting in 3 hard tempo runs a week and feeling much faster.

Wow way to necro post

i thought this article was awesome.. definitely one of the best i've seen in awhile :)

Summoning threads back from the deeeeaaaad

Hi Guys,

Please find an Hebrew translation of this article at the Breakfast Running Club Jerusalem website.

We would like to thank Weldon once again for giving us the permission to do it.

http://www.bc-running.com/gen_frame.asp?file_name=./docs/wejo.htm

Hey Weldon,

Gusee you didn't know that you're famous in the Middle East...

Thanks for allowing us to make your ideas accessible to many runners not so fluent with the English language.

Our site has also posted, with much appreciated permission, translations to important articles by Pete Pfizinger, Scott Douglas and Kevin Beck. We're baiscally trying to spread the word.

So thanks, and keep up the great work on this site.

Is Weldon converting to Judaism?]

Shmantools boyfriend wrote:

Is Weldon converting to Judaism?]

It will be an appropriate reply to obama's foreign policy.

It's not as if we weren't familiar here in our running club with this article before, but we just can't get enough of it. Again many thanks from yet another Jerusalem breakfast club runner.

Reading your article was very inspiring for me. I just started racing last year and currently 29 years of age. I was recruited by a coach in the washington DC area who saw me running one day and asked me to run on the track with this group that met up every Tuesday. I had never ran track my whole life and was a very new experience for me. The first few workouts were hard, but in time I started to really enjoy them. I ran my first race (which was a 5k) and really flopped. I didn't really know how to race it and came in at 22min. My track workouts told me that I should have been able to hit 19 minutes easily. I realized that my nerves got the better of me and wanted to run better the next time. I did run a few more 5K's last year, but still ran all of them way to slow. This coach asked me if I wanted to run a marathon that following fall. I had no desire to run it at all, but new that I would love to run one at some point. So I decided to run the MCM marathon. for some reason I just new that I would love this race. I didn't wake up all nervous like all the other races I had ran that season. I ran my first marathon in 3:13. Unfortunately though.....I still get nervous running the shorter distance races....in fact I just ran a 10k this past weekend and didn't run it to my potential either. I hope to one day kick this habit.

Wejo,

Read the article, loved it, and shared your training philosophies as well. Kids get caught up in a lot of practing racing and what not in college that kills their ultimate goals. But come on, we all know you were a good runner, but please stop tooting your own horn by posting all these emails and responses. Being humble and letting your article speak for itself does more than you showing others and making yourself feel special about what you wrote. Just food for thought. Being pompous isn't cool, even in the 21st Century.