ghost of Arthur wrote:
Anyone else notice that Krummenacker was doing a distance-based training program before switching to coach Luiz de Oliveira's much more speed-based training, and then had his breakout year followed by another decent year and then started to fade. Webb had his distance-based training year and 10k PR in 2006 (and mediocre 8/15 racing) and then went to a more speed-based training cycle in 2007 and was one of the top 8/15 runners in the world, and now has started fading. Maybe some of these 8/15 guys need to look at a two year training cycle of building endurance one year and speed the next?
Although we don't know exactly what Webb's been doing and we know that a hamstring injury did him in this time (injuries and bad health in other years), this is basically right in my view. Webb did great the following year after building a great base for the 10k. That year was destroyed by appendicitis(?) and maybe some other stuff, but the following year, he had turned to speed training and it was the right time for it. I'd even add another example, Steve Scherer. He trained with Nick Willis and didn't like all the hard long runs. So, he goes out to California, does speed training, and runs something like 3:56 right off the bat indoors. The rest of the year he doesn't improve much and the following year, he's really no better. He didn't realize that training long distance with Willis set up his big improvement with speed training. It's a dialectic. You need both to make the leap, but you can't have both at the same time, so you do the one for a while and then build the other, whichever is your weakness.
And to the point that I've heard a lot that Webb was a one hit wonder, he won multiple national championships and ran at the very least the following set of miles and 1500's:
3:53 (hs), 3:51 (April), 3:50 (Pre--tremendous confidence in that race, like the pace setters were just for him), 3:48 high (London?), 3:50 (elsewhere?), 3:46, 3:32, 3:30.
Incidentally, Ritz also ran his pr (13:16) at that Brasschaatt meet in '07.