Is Jack Daniels useless?

If you take the bones of his schedules then it's a pretty good guide to getting better. His 5/10k schedule is just one speed session, one threshold session, and a long run per week. It's not revolutionary but it will make most people better. Some people say it's too intense, like Pete Magill whose schedules look very light by comparison. Even the people who question Daniels will tell you his work was influential but he doesn't periodize in the way that most coaches like to these days.

As for the 20 minute tempo: why is that such an issue? I see that or something similar in most schedules. Sometimes it's broken up into 2x10 minutes or 4x6minutes with short rest but it amounts to the same sort of stimulus.

Agreed, man. But dude, Jack Daniels ain't good sippin whiskey.

This may be a dumb question, but how do many modern coaches periodize in a way that is counter to what Jack Daniels suggests? I'm not trying to challenge you, I'm genuinely curious. If you have anything I can read on the subject please give me some suggestions.

The worst contribution of JD is the overemphasis on “date pace” versus “goal pace.”

It limits performance and stifles the overcompensation that is fundamental to becoming a more efficient, stronger runner.

It’s the reason why a Jack Daniels Hs school program might turn out a small handful of sub-4:30, sub-9:40 guys at best, but an elite program will have more running 4:0x-4:1x and 8:4x-8:5x.

This may very well be different than the answer high hopes will give but I'll give one.

In Daniels' formula he essentially focuses on just 1 variable every phase, either R, T or I. He appears to bring in a different variable as his phases change.

It's more than focus, for example in phase 3 of his high school cross country program he'll seem to emphasize I pace. Where are the R workouts or T workouts in this phase in his book? Does he not recommend any?

During their summer training for XC could a HS runner do a bit of 200s at mile pace once in a while, perhaps cruise intervals every week and 600s at 5k pace every 10 days or so or would this hurt their development?

At one of his talks he stated that as a scientist he changes just 1 variable at a time. No doubt he and other good coaches know how to tinker with more than 1 stimuli at a time but in writing a book for beginning runners and coaches it makes sense to give what seems like a dogmatic formula.

What some people don´t seem to understand is that "Daniels running formula" is a guide meant to be used by sub elite who don´t have a coach or less knowledgeable HS coaches. That´s why it´s so simplified. JD coached Jerry Lawson to an American record in the marathon, and that training didn´t look like anything written in DRF.

I saw this with a colleague who was pretty dogmatic and didn't increase the Vdot level paces until his runners ran certain times in a XC race. Yet they weren't racing often enough and weren't doing any quality work. For example guys who had been 9:50 2 milers opened the season with an 18:30 5k after doing nothing but slow 40 to 50 miles a week through the summer. This coach figured they were at a certain level and undertrained them.

You could listen to Steve Magness's On Coaching podcast. Jonathan Marcus is a bellend on twitter and I don't know if either are actually good coaches, but they both have good knowledge of the history of coaching. The recent episode on the Norwegian method of training covers periodization as do any of their discussions of Lydiard and Canova

As a HS Freshman I could of thrown down a 60 sec or less quarter pretty much anytime as I was more fast twitch. Our coach though went the heavy on long intervals (around 1980) and it was assumed you were doing a lot of "easy running" outside of afternoon practice, though not everyone was, including me. About the time I was entering burnout my junior year, I thought I and others should of been sent off to do easy or medium runs on many of those interval days. I basically sandbagged track and xc until I graduated, likely not reaching my potential.

I never stopped running but didn't really train. About 10 years back I decided to do some races and to train and Daniels book was one that I bought. Of note was certain workouts (intervals) being a certain percentage of total volume and he talked about low mileage hs kids doing too much intervals and said THAT'S TOO MUCH. I wish I could of shown that too my coach when I was 15! His suggestions for masters runners is essentially what I am still following, so no, JD is not useless.

His vo2 max and tempo workouts charts got me to a 53 minute 10 mile, 31:00 10k and 15 flat 5k after being a 18:00 5k and 60 minute 10 miler. He has good stuff but no-one should follow verbatim cause we are all different.

Seems like we can wrap this one up, folks! I’ve always liked Daniels, and glad to see so many others agree. Closest I’ve seen to consensus on a Letsrun thread about something other than Shelby Houlihan in a long time.

I'm sorry for those who have never had the opportunity to meet Jack Daniels, or to understand his physiology brilliance, training insights, and influence on world class distance runners. Daniels is basically the foundation for all modern training approaches.

Furthermore, those who know Jack best would be the first to agree with the above statement. Just a few notes:

# in 1968 Daniels helped American distance Olympians prepare themselves for the basically impossible task of competing at Mexico City. He was the one who best understood the altitude challenges and what could be done to get ready

# in the late 1970s and beyond, he worked for Nike, testing many of the company's top runners of that era, and advising them on their physiology results and their best individual training programs. He was an "official coach" to few of these athletes, but ask any of them if they learned anything from Jack, and I can guarantee you the answer will be "Yes. Lots."

# in 1984, a desperate Joan Benoit decided she had no choice but to undergo knee surgery two weeks before the first U.S. Women's Olympic Marathon Trials. When she came out of surgery, she couldn't put weight on her leg. So Jack suspended a bicycle upside down over a table, and told Joan to arm-pump the pedals for exercise. It's not likely that anyone else could have conceived this ingenious strategy. And you know where Joan went from there.

# Jack also coached Ken Martin (2:09:38, NYC, 1989), Magda Boulet, and too many other greats to be mentioned here.

# He's funny, low key, disparaging towards none, and has spoken at hundreds of national and international coaching clinics, where he has been widely appreciated. He has always freely shared his insights and knowledge.

# His core training philosophy--"Do the least amount of work you can to achieve your goals"--has stood the test of time.

# Jack will turn 90 in mid 2023. I wish we could turn the clock backwards, and have him around for another 90 years.

There was a pretty average runner from California who had Daniel's influenced training during high school. He turned out pretty well. Think his name was German Hernandez?

Thank you Amby.

I've worked with Jack and it was a pleasure to learn from a great educator.

He was also an olympic athlete.

Clearly you really haven’t read the book.

Try sitting on the bottle

I agree with a lot of what's been said about JD democratizing training and making it accessible to non-elites or those of us returning to running after a layoff. The emphasis on paces and cycles is pretty solid and, once you go through it a few times, you get a feel for what you need to tweak, discard, emphasize.

Gotta disagree with this:
The worst contribution of JD is the overemphasis on “date pace” versus “goal pace.”

For most of us non-pro runners it's the opposite. Plenty of non-elite runners have a goal time they think they can run, so they ramp up the training paces Then they crash half-way through the race and afterwards think. "God, I'm such a p*ssy, why can't I handle a little pain? I mean, I can hit the paces in workouts by digging really deep a couple times a week." Well, you picked out a goal time that had no relation to reality and fried yourself. If anything, proving what you can do in a race before cranking up the training paces is a much more sensible way to go for those of us with full-time jobs and obligations that don't include getting paid to run.

A few things about Daniels that I don't get:

How come nothing faster than 800m race pace in his training plans?

How come no paces between I pace and T pace in his plans? (Although he does acknowledge that some coaches like 10K pace better than I pace or 5K pace.)

How come no R pace workouts with short recovery except for his "high stress" (I think that's what he calls them) workouts? And does he ever explain when and why to use a high stress workout? If so, I missed it.