I had JV's book and couldn't make head nor tail of much of it. The book was so badly produced that some parts of it were genuinely incoherent. I often literally had no idea of what he was trying to say.
Great coach, which is why I got the book to begin with and why I really, really gave it the old college try, but eventually I gave up and gave it away.
A 10+ mile run that would start at ~8500 ft. and end at ~11,000 ft. Someone with a better memory can correct my elevation estimates if they seem off.
Does anyone here to "continuous hill climbs"? I'm curious.
For those not blessed enough to live at a mountain range, maybe a treadmill?
We have no mountains, so we basically do a medium long run on the hilliest loop we have, which includes 2 long uphills about half a mile each, and a few miles of rolling hills. About 9 miles total. It's done easy the day after a workout.
I've done my best to adapt the philosophy for my HS team in a way that makes sense to me. I've basically combined what he writes about in his book and what the current Adams State team does and it has worked well for us.
The tough part is racing each weekend, so we're a little limited in what we can do. I basically pick 2-3 regular season meets that are good chances to run fast and i back things down to try to run fast and train through the others. It works really well if we have a group that puts in a big summer base does everything: 50-60 mpw, a long run, the tempo runs, hill sprints, etc. Even the out of shape guys can jump right in, I just give them more rest and higher quality to force them into shape.
I carry the split tempo runs through August and the start adding in 1000s at the 85% and working up to 800s at 91-94% near the end of the season. We do short intervals on those weeks we want to run fast, like sets of 300s, 400s, 500s etc. Then eventually moving into workouts like 3x1500 or 5x1000 at race pace. Long run on Sundays and tempo every now and again late in the year to top off the aerobic engine. 6x100 every Monday st near top speed keeps the legs ticking over and I'll add in some 200m hills after workouts here and there.
Do any of you know of high schools whose coach follows Joe Vigil's summer training for boys 5K?
I went to a conference where Vigil spoke and his summer training for his athletes was "go run 1000 miles this summer", iirc NCAA rules are finnicky and you can't train a lot with the team over the summer. He said "one guy misheard 3000 miles" and ended up winning 7 national titles over the next few years, he seemed kinda teary eyed talking about it.
But yeah I coach HS guys and use a lot from him. Some general principles from his book and what I learned from my old coach (like another guy in the thread, I had a coach who ran on the Adams state squad)
-Don't run too slow on easy days
-Improve speed before distance on easy days (like if you are running 7:00 pace @ 6 miles, drop to 6:45 pace before going to 8 miles)
-Run more miles if you can handle it
-Do 10-20 strides ~3 times a week
-Tempo runs are the single most important thing to improve running of undeveloped athletes (all highschoolers)
-Work on strength (drills, weight room, hills)
-Do some sort of speed work all year
For mpw for different ages, the book says something like
Interesting! Did not see any mention of the repeat miles which is a staple
of his program isn't it? Or did you eliminate those on purpose?
I basically just use 1000s instead for my kids. Much more manageable mentally, and it seems more appropriate to me since his mile repeats I think we're more of a 10k focused workout. The shorter distance also seems to allow the guys to feel more confident and they usually cut down the last ones. I've kept up the 1600s for certain guys before though, but those have been low 15 5k runners who have stepped up to handling that.
I'll still use mile repeats, like 5x1600 early in the season to break up a tempo run and get some higher quality out of it.
The one thing I go back and forth on is the schedule. He often calls for three workouts a week on T,TH,SAT...intervals, speed, tempo, and then a Sunday long run. I always fear doing too much, but I have done weeks with all three but typically stick to two, and make the long run have a cutdown effort the last 20-30 minutes as the last hard effort of the week.
I’ve been coaching since 1987 and using his methods 1993. I’ve basically broken down the 700 meter repeats to 500 and the mile repeats to 1000. I don’t have the luxury of a 10 mile hill at altitude so we do hill repeats.
In 27 years, the methods have worked like a charm. I’ve had runners qualify for the state meet, every year and many times full teams.
I ran with his xc team some over 50 years ago when in Alamosa CO.
Basic workouts included repeats of about 6x about a mile on grass in the park. Rest interval was about a 90 sec jog.
Also 10 times about a half mile in the same park. Maybe a minute or so jog recovery.
There was also a weekly 2 mile tempo/time trial run pt to pt out on the flat road north of town.
Things are flat around Alamosa so they would travel to get hill work.
Continuous run uphill on Rock Creek Road in the mountains to the southwest. Maybe 10 miles gaining 2000+ feet to over 10,000 feet.
There would also be some runs on the rolling hills of the roads around Ft. Garland to the east.
Due to the overall volume and 7500 foot elevation much of this had to be at a sustainable threshold level in order to survive week to week.
Everyone did the same workouts, with the best guys doing everything faster and also doing two a day runs.
There seemed to be lots of temptation for the slower runners to race the workouts to try to keep up with the faster runners. So slower runners would try to keep up with the fast runners on what were longer easy runs for the fast guys.
It seemed like the system worked well for a handful of the fastest runners, and much less so for everyone else. It was sort of only the strong survive. He started with many good runners on the team and would almost always get 5 strong runners to survive and race well.
T- repeat miles, up to 8, usually 6 at max VO2 velocity
F- recovery of 10+
S- race or 10-12more miles of training pace, usually around 6flat
and there it is. the above is/was usually his CC stuff but more time than not, it went into the track season as well. one of the greatest motivators ever.
yeah, he's in Tuscon.
Your classic “those who survive will thrive” training program. The rest will be injured or just too damn beat up to race well.
T- repeat miles, up to 8, usually 6 at max VO2 velocity
F- recovery of 10+
S- race or 10-12more miles of training pace, usually around 6flat
and there it is. the above is/was usually his CC stuff but more time than not, it went into the track season as well. one of the greatest motivators ever.
yeah, he's in Tuscon.
Your classic “those who survive will thrive” training program. The rest will be injured or just too damn beat up to race well.
Interesting 🤔 so 700m.was the shortest interval he used? That's still around 2 minutes of running duration...
I'm guessing he was focussing on 5k/10krunners, and that he was less interested in 1500m development?
Interesting that he didn't have one day of short intervals, 200/400, about 2-3 miles of work.
In France, the good runners, distance guys, 12:55-13:20 do long intervals on Tuesdays, typically around 8 times 1000 at race pace, sorting around 2.55, ending around 2.45. with 1.5 mins rest.
On Thursdays they do short intervals, like 300s and 400s at around 62 working down to 59 seconds or less, 200 jog or walk, repeat. They usually finish with a few fast 200s in the 26-28 range.
I have a Joe Vigil presentation from the time he was still coaching Brenda Martinez and it's nothing like this.
It's in fact very detailed and a bit like "Vigil Running Formula" for 800-1500. Really good stuff.
I was just thinking about how he coached her during my run this AM. It seemed like the type of athlete B Mart was (800-1500m specialist) didn't fit with the training tenets posted in this thread. However, whatever he did with her clearly worked at a very high level.
Do you mind sharing the presentation? Or at least posting the main highlights from it?
Your classic “those who survive will thrive” training program. The rest will be injured or just too damn beat up to race well.
Interesting 🤔 so 700m.was the shortest interval he used? That's still around 2 minutes of running duration...
I'm guessing he was focussing on 5k/10krunners, and that he was less interested in 1500m development?
Interesting that he didn't have one day of short intervals, 200/400, about 2-3 miles of work.
In France, the good runners, distance guys, 12:55-13:20 do long intervals on Tuesdays, typically around 8 times 1000 at race pace, sorting around 2.55, ending around 2.45. with 1.5 mins rest.
On Thursdays they do short intervals, like 300s and 400s at around 62 working down to 59 seconds or less, 200 jog or walk, repeat. They usually finish with a few fast 200s in the 26-28 range.
I have a Joe Vigil presentation from the time he was still coaching Brenda Martinez and it's nothing like this.
It's in fact very detailed and a bit like "Vigil Running Formula" for 800-1500. Really good stuff.
I was just thinking about how he coached her during my run this AM. It seemed like the type of athlete B Mart was (800-1500m specialist) didn't fit with the training tenets posted in this thread. However, whatever he did with her clearly worked at a very high level.
Do you mind sharing the presentation? Or at least posting the main highlights from it?
Donate $50 to Planned Parenthood and send me the receipt to
T- repeat miles, up to 8, usually 6 at max VO2 velocity
F- recovery of 10+
S- race or 10-12more miles of training pace, usually around 6flat
and there it is. the above is/was usually his CC stuff but more time than not, it went into the track season as well. one of the greatest motivators ever.
yeah, he's in Tuscon.
Your classic “those who survive will thrive” training program. The rest will be injured or just too damn beat up to race well.
"No risk it...no biscuit". Running is not for everybody mentally, physically or anatomically possible. Coaches to contact who were successful offshoots of the Vigial model in CA. Steve Chavez and his great Murrieta Valley teams in the early 2000s. Hung out with Vigil and really integrated it to high school athletes and the heat of Temecula, CA. He shared it with someone named Doug Soles who started a school down the road from him called Great Oak. DS modified the program to minimize injuries and how it would work best for his athletes with what he had to work with terrain wise. Say what you want, if you say Doug just beat up athletes....his teams were incredibly deep. Their boys and girls B teams would've qualified at least to Southern Section CIF finals many years and in some the state meet. I remember one year he had 32 girls under 5:30 in the mile. Then there's this other coach who Chavez help to coach near the end of his coaching career name Coach O'Brien at Arcadia HS. Once again, incredibly deep team. So his principles can work for all levels, but it takes A LOT of time to modify andget it to work for everyone. I remember Soles tiered his squads to this years team, next year's team, and the futures team. These 3 coaches deserve a lot of credit for the attention they put into everyone and not just the studs. But this programs works. One thing I remember Ian Dobson telling me about Vigil was he predicted Deena Kastor's marathon time within a second. It really does help you predict what should happen.
I’ve been coaching since 1987 and using his methods 1993. I’ve basically broken down the 700 meter repeats to 500 and the mile repeats to 1000. I don’t have the luxury of a 10 mile hill at altitude so we do hill repeats.
In 27 years, the methods have worked like a charm. I’ve had runners qualify for the state meet, every year and many times full teams.
Excellent modifying. Make it work for you athletes. Emphasis on hard efforts should be based on time in the zone as much as they are distances. Someone's 700 might be someone else's 800. Then as they progress, they can increase that distance. I use 1200's for many athletes instead of mile repeats or 1000s instead of 1200s. Yep we get the typical running pains on our squad, but almost all progress and get better.