Coach Mike Scannell on Parker Valby: "I don't know why she's so popular... I hope her training is not very popular."

Suzy has three Olympics under her belt. 9- time NCAA champ.

PV has a long way to just get a seat at the table.

Unfortunately, now a days there is a double standard and hypocrisy in women's sports.

Don't judge me by my looks but by my performance. Then she has to have the "it" looks for ad campaigns. Sad.

Were you in a coma for the last couple of months?

1. It's because she's hot

2. I seriously wonder, though, if all her time on the arc trainer has changed her form for the worse. I had a training partner who, during the (admittedly long and cold) winters, maybe ran outside once per week for his long run and did the rest on a treadmill. Ended up running good times but seemed to develop a bit of a 'hitch' in his stride that he never had before

I would want a coach to be trying to figure out why Valby has been able to do so well with such a very different training program instead of just dismissing it out of hand. There is definitely groupthink in distance coaching that is definitely shown by Scannell's comments. Valby's success with minimal mileage presents a big opportunity to rethink training orthodoxy and experiment with a new approach to training.

And kind of the same feeling about Valby's popularity. Distance running has been terrible at marketing its athletes. Valby uses social media well with a very minimal amount of posting. She is funny and lets her humor and personality show in her media appearances and on social media. The groupthink of the distance running world is that athletes need to laser focus on training and competing and their results should be what drives their popularity.

Because she absolutely dominated her level of competition? Because she runs to dominate with a degree of brash confidence not seen very often and needed to compete with the best? Or because you are jazzed by traditionally attractive women?

At 19 Anna was the #8 ranked tennis player in the world. If she had been in college playing ncaa she would have been by far the best player. She was, as well, one of the very best doubles player (#1 ranking). If injuries had not derailed her she might have achieved more.

It is true, though, that her fame surpassed her achievements.

So, yes, Parker is no Anna Kournikova. At least not yet. Give her a few years and she might.

Valby came out of relative obscurity and, in the space of a couple of years, got really, really good, won a bunch of NCAA titles, set some significant records, etc. And the natural conclusion is that her training must be bad?

You can't even use the classic fallback of, ah! but she originally gained all her fitness from years of Lydiard-style training in the past which gave her the strength to get away with what she's doing now,,,but only for a little while! As far as I can tell, she's never done much mileage. So she's achieved what she's achieved off low mileage and cross-training. In her case at least, it was a good way to train.

Unless your thinking is that she would have been SO much more successful if only she'd trained like everyone else?

I don't believe she's doing as much cross-training anymore under Coogan and is pretty much a typical distance runner. Does anyone have any other insights? All I have is the Mark Coogan podcast and a couple YouTube workout videos to go off of...

I said she doesn't have to be good, not that she can't be both attractive and good. She will have sponsors even if she is not great.

people (like him) who have never tried what she is doing don't really know what they are talking about.

Here is what he has wrong:

1) you can be fast on low mileage

2) you don't have to cross-train the same amount of time because there is not a 1:1 ratio for whatever reason. For example: anyone who bikes and runs know a 1 hour bike does not equate to a 1 hour run. Most would agree that it is closer to 2-2.5 hour bike = 1 hour run.

I row and feel that :30 on a rower = 1 hour run. I have done 1 hour on the rower and that really equates to a 20 miler run (2 hour effort). I don't know who arc trainer translates time wise but if you really want to know, don't ask mojohns like this, ask those who actually do cross-training because they are the ones who know.

my formula is this:

row = 2x running

run = 2x biking

back to his point about she can't be this fast doing X amount of running miles. He does not know.

I ran 25-40 miles per week when I was 24 for about 9 months after college (where i was running 70-90 most weeks with lower weeks as well). By running just 4 days per week and running fresh all the time and cross training on what used to be my easy days, I got considerably better/faster. By his logic, this would not have happened. I did not lower my mileage for injury issues or because i couldn't handle high mileage (years later I have run as high as 210 miles in a week = with no injuries). Which type of training made me fastest?

actually the low mileage did with high quality and cross-training (the exact opposite of what he is claiming)

On a recent podcast one of BYU's Thompson bros said both he and his twin were on the Valby training plan. They are prone to stress fractures and spend five hours a week on the arc trainer plus running 65 miles. Their teammates run 100+ miles per week. Without those two healthy they don't win the championship.

What an idiot. He doesn't know why the NCAA GOAT who made the Olympic team in two events at age 21, looks like an Instagram model, and consistently gives awesome interviews is so popular?

And then he accuses her of hyping her low-volume training to make money? What? Her story of being an injury-prone mess before focusing on cross-training is quite consistent with her slow times until the last couple years.

I’d agree with all but the “good personality” - not that she has a bad personality by any means, but she is an odd duck and can come across as a bit self-involved/entitled. I always enjoy watching John Anderson try to interview her because she drives him nuts 😄

She's a darn good runner, & ssmoking hot 🔥 what's wrong with that?

she aint running 14.10 and america loves winners

I get the impression that she and John Anderson are both in on the same joke and are having fun with each other during their interviews.