In regard to the "50x440" workout on Wednesday in his jr yr of hs (p. 6? of this thread):
I could be wrong, but am pretty sure that that was reported by Cordner Nelson (in The Jim Ryun Story) as *40*x440--four sets of 10--and wonder whether listing the first set at 20 was a misprint/mistype/misrecord.
As with a great many swim workouts, Timmy's track workouts typically have a real symmetry to them. (They're very aesthetically--if not physically!--pleasing that way.) My impression is that it would be very unusual for Timmy to have a set of 20, set of 10, set of 10, set of 10--four or five sets of 10 would be much more his style.
In any case, even 40 reps--10 miles of quarters--is still a mighty workout. And they were "on 3:00" (to use swim terminology), so that was still two hours of quarters--not counting warmup, cooldown, and work between sets. Easily a three-hour-plus workout in toto.
Note: I know running the quarters on 3:00 bothers some people--that seems like a lot of rest for quarters at a pace that was just "high-aerobic" for Ryun. But bear in mind that this was a team workout. Timmy had large squads, and it would have taken some of his guys more than 90 seconds to run these. "On 3:00" was a way to give the slower kids a decent recovery before starting the next rep. (Also, Timmons typically recorded every rep for every kid--it takes a little while just jotting that many times down, before the next rep begins!)