What Follow The Summer of Malmo?

After a summer like that a guy might be a bit light in the heels. Just do the thousand mile summer, that's what worked for us and other kids back when we knew how to train.

hs-- wrote:

I see that the Summer of Malmo is meant to be flexible in terms of volume/mileage and intensity, but for a high-schooler trying to follow this idea, what sort of weekly mileage would you suggest working up to? I'm a sophomore right now, running slightly over 50mpw so far this season. Any input would be appreciated

Whatever you increase your mileage to, do it gradually. That was one of the many mistakes I made that lead to a major injury I'm still dealing with four years later. I was running probably 30-35 mpw during my high school track season and then in the summer jumped to 60+ mpw too soon, including doubles, tempos, intervals, and a race each week. Not to mention I ran all my easy/recovery runs faster than they should have been. No doubt this was a good program and made me a lot faster, but I just wish I would have been a little more careful.

If you cut out the high intensity stuff and slow down the pace of your daily runs when needed, you don't have to worry much about building gradually.

That was a sign to stop stretching, not running:

Now *that's* funny... and true.

[quote]txrunnergirl-- wrote:

...Whatever you increase your mileage to, do it gradually. That was one of the many mistakes I made that lead to a major injury I\'m still dealing with four years later. I was running probably 30-35 mpw during my high school track season and then in the summer jumped to 60+ mpw too soon, including doubles, tempos, intervals, and a race each week. Not to mention I ran all my easy/recovery runs faster than they should have been. No doubt this was a good program and made me a lot faster, but I just wish I would have been a little more careful.

I\'d say it was more the tempos, intervals, races, fast recoveries than just the increase in mileage. I\'m Malmo\'s age, though a slow runner, but I can easily go from 50 to 80 to 100 to 120 miles a week when I have the time...and I\'m just an over-3hr. guy I haven\'t been injured since 1985. Malmo (sounds weird, I\'m one of a few who actually call him George) is famous for his weekly increases, going from 0-120 in a matter of only a few weeks. Coaches, especially h.s. coaches, don\'t generally want to hear that training should be fun. How can their frustrated military/ authoritarian mindset show it\'s power over the athletes if they\'re having fun?

It also depends on how exactly you want to define gradual and your background as a runner. I never ran anything more than a mile (and that was a struggle) before my sophomore year of high school. Then when I started running on my high school team, we were running the usual 30-35 mpw. The summer between my junior and senior year was when I did the summer track thing and doubled my mileage in a matter of weeks. So for me, that was not gradual.

Drew Eckmann wrote:

. Coaches, especially h.s. coaches, don't generally want to hear that training should be fun. How can their frustrated military/ authoritarian mindset show it's power over the athletes if they're having fun?

I'd love for my athletes to get together and run and have fun doing it. I have no desire to be authoritarian and militaristic (even though I was an Army NCO). I want my kids to have longevity in the sport and I realize that having it be fun is one way to achieve that.

Having said that, let me explain that not all high school kids are the same. I have coached teams that gelled and I would never have to tell them to do their weekend runs. They would get together and run and in their common effort, found all sorts of fun and enjoyment. 3 of the 6 from that team went on to run collegiately and 2 are still doing well ther (one dropped out to enter seminary). I never had to talk tough with that group.

Currently, I have a team where there are few self starters and many slackers. I try to make it fun by building games into the workout (recently we did a scavenger hunt around town where they had to go on foot the whole way). Unfortunately, many of the "runners" will still walk once they are away from campus. I finally had to take a hard line approach and tell them that if I caught any of them walking on runs, that they would get a strike (3 strikes and you are off the team. Other things that could earn strikes are unexcused absences from practice, missed meets, detentions, suspensions from school...)

I fully believe in the summer of malmo, however, athletes need to be motivated and have team chemistry for it to work. Coaches cannot force the summer of malmo on anyone. That would just cause it to be the summer that coach made us run a shitload of miles. I don't think that would lead to any kind of good race results because it would be a chore to the kids and they would be mentally stale by the beginning of the season.

What he's saying is that you ran your mileage too fast. Read up on Lydiard, that's one of the first things he says, that the real obstacle isn't the distance but the pace. Nothing you do in running should have such huge repercussions for so long, certainly not for someone who's under 25 and has no medical or biomechanical issues otherwise. You're still doing something wrong if it's become that chronic.

Without any other information, I'd guess you aren't bringing the mileage down when your body tells it to. With this high mileage stuff (or even lower mileage), the one thing I've noticed is that runners get married to a certain amount of miles just because it was written on a piece of paper. I often hear about runners getting in XXX miles per week, to discover that they get in exactly XXX miles a weeks, every week for months. You need to be flexible and bring it down on occasion. To borrow from a famous JP Morgan quote on the markets, "mileage, it will fluctuate."

Base training isn't an average of the mileage from period A-B. Base training is the average of biggest weeks from period A-B. Race weeks, travel weeks, down weeks don't count against base training. Take the damn day off if you need it. Anyone who has ever read Steve Scott's logs should be able to see this principle at work. Scott pretty much got in 85 to 90 miles a week for months and months on end. What I noticed about his logs was that almost every week was interrupted by a travel day or a race day in which he ran little or none. If you analyzed the daily median and mode mileage from his logs I bet it would amount to about 14-15 miles. That's good solid basework.

If you find yourself counting up the miles after the 6th day of the week and adjusting the 7th to make a certain level, that means your focus is all wrong. I've got untold dozens upon dozens of 97,98, and 99 mile weeks. I could just as easily made them all 100, but for what?

Yes, I discovered to listen to my body at a very early age. Then again, the best coach I've ever met was my high school coach. I got lucky early.

Malmo, were those training sessions with the Mahon group at Haywood Field, or on Pre's Trail. Also, if you did those up-tempo workouts twice a week...what other running did you do during the week.

Isn't summer a time to recharge the batteries. When do you start getting serious about the upcoming x-c season (beginning of August?). When should you peak in the fall? Did you ever not make PSU's travel squad for September races?

CoachB wrote:

I fully believe in the summer of malmo, however, athletes need to be motivated and have team chemistry for it to work. Coaches cannot force the summer of malmo on anyone. That would just cause it to be the summer that coach made us run a shitload of miles. I don't think that would lead to any kind of good race results because it would be a chore to the kids and they would be mentally stale by the beginning of the season.

CoachB, the entire point of Summer of malmo is to imbue self-motivation, commitment and dependency (the good kind) among the troops. No young athlete will ever become truly motivated until he/she believes that the motivation is coming from within, not directed from above. I believe that's the whole point of delegating team captains - to give your kids the feeling that they are part of the process, and a big part of their ultimate success.

[quote]malmo wrote:

If you find yourself counting up the miles after the 6th day of the week and adjusting the 7th to make a certain level, that means your focus is all wrong. I've got untold dozens upon dozens of 97,98, and 99 mile weeks. I could just as easily made them all 100, but for what?

No way I could have ever ended the week with 98,99,97 miles. I would have gone out at 9pm to run 3 miles. Call it obsessive/compulsive or whatever; I just could not have done that. (even though I know it makes no sense and the body doesn't know the difference)

I have a friend who was a roommate of the fine miler from the early 70's, Jerome Howe, from Kansas State. He told me that when Howe was in his mileage/base phase in the fall, he would 'have' to hit 140 mpw and if that meant going out to jog 2 miles at 10pm, to get there, he did it.

desert rodent wrote:

Malmo, were those training sessions with the Mahon group at Haywood Field, or on Pre's Trail. Also, if you did those up-tempo workouts twice a week...what other running did you do during the week.

Isn't summer a time to recharge the batteries. When do you start getting serious about the upcoming x-c season (beginning of August?). When should you peak in the fall? Did you ever not make PSU's travel squad for September races?

I wouldn't call it the "Mahon group." Terrance was a green and as wet behind the ears as they come.

Hayward Field, twice weekly, and easy running between.

Yes, Summer is the time for "recharging" the batteries, that's the whole point of Summer of malmo.

That isn't physiologically-based, it's psychological/mental.

malmo wrote:

CoachB, the entire point of Summer of malmo is to imbue self-motivation, commitment and dependency (the good kind) among the troops. No young athlete will ever become truly motivated until he/she believes that the motivation is coming from within, not directed from above. I believe that's the whole point of delegating team captains - to give your kids the feeling that they are part of the process, and a big part of their ultimate success.

I agree with you 100%, but what happens when the kids just don't do it or when your captains end up seeming more interested in making themselves look good?

They need to be reminded of the goals you/they set for the team.

Your military/authoritarian mindset isn't frustrated. You went out and did what you had to do. You didn't sit home at night and think about what you *would do* if in that situation. My goal as a high school coach was to give the kids an interest in the sport that they could carry into adulthood. Looks like yours is the same. Of course you want to the kids to run well and my kids usually did. I still 'advise' a few of my kids who run for Div.I teams. I always wanted to prepare kids for the fact that you most likely aren't going to be playing 'ballgames' when you're past 25 but you can sure go out and enjoy a run in the park. I think that's a rarity, maybe not

kids NEED structure, dedication and discipline; which are all missing in today's youth as opposed to 30 years ago.

funny....year of the Caveman.