What is wrong with Kentucky Track

what?!?!?!

RE: What is wrong with Kentucky Track 2/28/2012 8:22AM - in reply to SECrunner

SECrunner wrote:

As a former UK runner that ran in the mid 2000s, I'll second what UK Fan wrote. I don't ever remember doing a workout that took 3 hrs. to complete, and I never remember doing anything like the workout you described. We did do what Weber called "split runs" but they were a couple miles easy, 3 miles tempo, 1 mile easy, ~2 miles tempo. We also often did 200m "cut-downs" at the end of distance runs the day before hard interval work, but not what you described. Like UK Fan said, DW is a believer in high quality, lower mileage. I ran the 800/mile and never remember going over 60 miles/week or running doubles. Our longest runs were around 10 miles out near Keeneland. The true distance guys may have hit 70 or 80 miles/week when I was there, but I can't remember exactly. Also, we did do weights. We had a little circuit that we would do 1-2x/week.

DW has developed some good runners but he hasn't had an outstanding group of guys like Freeman, Doaty, Devenport, in a few years. However, John Richardson seemed to do well while there - multiple SEC titles, and Luis Orta just won the 3k and 5k this weekend at SECs. Not everyone flourishes under his system. Lots of guys simply can't handle the intensity but others have done quite well on it. Thomas Morgan went from being a 4:30 miler in high school to winning SEC XC, running around 3:40 for the 1500 and running in the 13:30s-13:40s for the 5k. Not too shabby.

Weber was an 800 runner in college and I believe that's what he loves to coach. He's won an NCAA XC Championship as a coach, although it was in 1988 with the girls.

He's not a bad coach, but he's no John McDonnell. I just think his training philosophy doesn't work for everyone. He produces some good runners but it's hard to do well in the SEC if you don't have a complete team. LSU, Florida, Arkansas - they're all very good every year and they have/had legendary coaches.

I know I'm rambling now, but you also have to look at the high school running in Kentucky. It's not a hotbed for outstanding HS talent, so that makes the recruiting a bit tougher, too.

I think this is correct, however, part of being a great coach is not trying to fit everyone into a "one size fits all" training style. Instead of runners trying to adapt to a system that may not allow them to grow to their fullest potential, you need to figure out what works best for them. Not everyone will grow under a low mileage, high intensity routine. Most days, there were one or maybe 2 variations of a workout for 10-15 guys. All of whom, were all doing different distance events, in different years in college. How freshmen distance runners were doing the same mileage as seniors on the team, is unbelievable to me. Or to put it a different way, I couldn't understand how senior distance runners were doing the same mileage as the freshmen distance runners.

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