Training Method of Jumbo Elliot

1) 6 x 400

2)10 x 400

Do that from January to June. Race as often as possible. Kick asses on both sides of the track.

Contact Tom Donnelly at Haverford.

can you be more specific malmo, paces and mileage?

Yes and No. 10 x 400 at mile pace. 6 x 400 at 800 pace.

My post is not a joke, nor an exaggeration. I roomed with Tiny Kane at the World university Games in Bulgaria. One night Kane played "guess the workout" from the training log. It got to be quite hilarious because each and every workout was one of two constructions (cited above). There are no contrived macro, micro, or super macro-mini-cycles in Jumbo's method. There are no sciolistic "running formulas" memorize. Jumbo wasn't selling you books or anything else. He was training winners.

The lesson of the day: Train to prepare yourself to race. Everything else is just window dressing.

oh, and train twice a day. "Live like a clock" Jumbo used to say.

Thanks for the info. That seems to contridict JTuppers v02 max work or the extreme science behind coe and martin. That sounds almost too simple to be true so 400s @ mile pace w/ 400 jog and 400s @ 800 pace w/ 400 jog or so form of that workout.

curious reader wrote:That sounds almost too simple to be true

Why? It makes a lot of sense to me.

It seems too simple because of books like better training for distance runners and daniels running formula that put a lot of science behind distance running. It lacks lactate threshold work and v02 max type training but I guess so did lydiard.

Here's a contrast between the styles of KU's Bob Timmons (Jim Ryun's coach) and Jumbo Elliott. This is from an article in Sports Illustrated from March 1970 of a race during the NCAA indoor track championship. Villanova and KU were vying for the title:

Six points home, and now it was Andy O'Reilly's turn in the 880. Villanova figured to score, but then so did Kansas with its freshman star, Brian McElroy. "Andy's so high he's about four stories off the floor," said Elliott. "I just want him to finish in front of McElroy." O'Reilly finished second to Wisconsin s Mark Winzinried. Four more points. McElroy finished last. Villanova couldn't believe it; Kansas was stunned.

Timmons looked like he had been shot in the stomach. "I should have known," he said. "I guess it was youth. Monday he came to me and said he needed a lot of speed work. And I let him. I let him. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Speed work. I didn't want to hurt him psychologically. And all it did was tie him up."

"Who the heck is the coach?" Elliott snapped when he heard that. Timmons is not one of his favorite people. "Him or the freshman? I take my kids off speed work two weeks before a big race."

(Interestingly enough, McElroy became disenchanted with Timmons's coaching and transferred to Villanova.)

McElroy, who left Kansas 2� seasons ago after becoming disenchanted with the training regimen of Coach Bob Timmons , turned in a 4:06.4 leg that improved Villanova 's first-place margin to 80 yards.

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1083449/1/index.htm

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1087305/2/index.htm

curious reader wrote:

It lacks lactate threshold work and v02 max type training but I guess so did lydiard.

Runners in the old days did LT training - they just didn´t know that they were doing it. They just went out and ran hard on some of their distance runs.

Incorrect wrote:

Runners in the old days did LT training - they just didn´t know that they were doing it. They just went out and ran hard on some of their distance runs.

Agreed. Lydiard had his guys doing all their base phase milage at 6 minute pace or faster for up to 22 miles over hills. I'm willing to bet a significant portion of their mileage was close to 75%+ max heart rate.

Elliot's view was to keep matters simple. Runners came to him to run--that is, to race, and that's what they did. We need to remember that in the 50s and 60s there were many more indoor meets and outdoors there were many duel meets, and in relay meets his guys would run several events. Also, the success of his athletes was really in the 880 and mile. But Elliot was a master psychologist. The knew how to motivate different young men and to build upon an athlete's given desire to compete. And his runners trusted him, which meant they trusted their training. It also didn't hurt that he not only had good connections to Ireland, but also to an East Coast Catholic High School system--Essex Catholic in New Jersey, to name one.

If you look at the "science" behind Jumbo's training, it is not too different than what is done today. My 2nd and 3rd hand understanding of his training is that over the summer his instructions were to "call me after you've run 100mpw for a while." Natuarally, many of these runs were going to be pretty hard (since there were no real workouts), so you're looking at a summer of high mileage and "anaerobic threshold runs." Throw in some striders and it looks eerily (sic?) similar to the summer of malmo. In season, 6 and 10x400m was the staple workouts, which are perfect examples of anaerobic tolerance (or whatever you like to call it) workouts.

The one piece that does seem to be missing would be some longer stuff, like repeat 800s and miles...I would have to think that would be beneficial, especially for the steeplers on up. Anyone know if they did much of that?

If Jumbo, or anyone, was racing the 1500m/mile I would think that somehow someway doing a workout of 10 times 400m at 1500m/mile pace would somehow someway prepare him, or anyone, to run a 1500m/mile race. Call me a rebel or maybe a revolutionary!

Ditto for the 800m and 6 x 400m.

Why 10? Why 6? It probably just felt right. I mean you could go ahead and run 10x400m at mile pace and then continue on for 11, 12, 13, or whatever, but my guess would be that your times/form would deteriorate to the point that 11, 12, 13, or whatever many reps over 10 just didn't seem "right".

Ditto for the marathoner's "10 mile run at marathon pace". The "old school" Ethiopians in Bekele's day (1960s) used to do it, Shorter would do it after running another 10 easy. The 10/10 workout. Why 10 miles easy followed by 10 miles hard? Why not 8/12 or 10/12? Probably because it's not something you could do week to week. Might be that 10/10 is "just right".

Every "successful" workout you can think of has been tried and perfected on the road and on the track before the physiologist told you it was ok.

Think less, run more. More importantly, make running and training somewhat unique to you and your environment. You have a nice loop that's about 1.5 miles but JD's program calls for 1 mile or 2 mile repeats....don't make things difficult just run your loop or twice your loop and go for times around that loop. Make training personal. Find a couple workouts you can do around your neighborhood and make them yours. Now you can compare these workouts from week to week, month to month, and year to year. Have a few loops you know you can hammer from time to time (preferably gently rolling, not many turns or traffic) and make them your own. These are the workouts in which you test your endurance.

Think less, run more, train smarter, race better.

Alan

malmo wrote:

1) 6 x 400

2)10 x 400

Do that from January to June. Race as often as possible. Kick asses on both sides of the track.

? the death of a former distance coach at Villanova this past year and the accolades he got from top runners, had me going, 'what? who?' as I always thought that Jumbo Elliot was the distance coach at Villanova from Liquouri's days til he died. I was not aware of the other guy, who's name I can't recall, as I'd never heard of him?

Runningart2004 wrote:

Think less, run more, train smarter, race better.

Alan

and race slower than you did in high school :)

not the real distance coach wrote:

? the death of a former distance coach at Villanova this past year and the accolades he got from top runners, had me going, 'what? who?' as I always thought that Jumbo Elliot was the distance coach at Villanova from Liquouri's days til he died. I was not aware of the other guy, who's name I can't recall, as I'd never heard of him?

Jack Pyrah, of course. Jim Tuppeny (Penn) was also a jumbo assistant.

so, was Jumbo like Bowerman at Oregon,? (Dillenger did the real, day to day coaching, starting in the late 60s).

What you're not talking about with Jumbo is the XC training his runners did in the fall. It's not like his guys just ran intervals Jan-June and sat on their butts the other 7 months of the year, and the XC is where VO2max/AT development came from. Also, workouts like 10X400 and 20X200 at the right recovery ratios produce significant VO2max divdlopment.

Also, they couldn't compete timewise with the more scientific training of Coe and El G, nor with what Lagat has with Dr. Li.