Nate Jenkins training - 190 mile week smart?

harlem roadrunner wrote:

Plus he just ran 25:30 for five miles this week after not being able to break 32:00 for 10k a few weeks ago. Yeah I'm sure this guy's not a workout warrior at all.

I actually kinda suck in workouts, that 10k has a course record of 30:12 set the same summer as he set the course record at Peachtree in 27:04, I didn't run well but it is about as slow a 10k course as you can find. Plus I was anemic at steamboat, peachtree, boilermaker, bix this year but I finally got that squared away with a change in diet. A big change that I'm still in the process of and once I got it all down and get settled with it I'll post a blog on it. But to be honest I really do suck at workouts. I have tried to do the hanson 16 mile at mp thing and I know hall does 15's at 8000 feet at mp but I've never run more then 8 miles at mp with out a break in training. I rarely can run more then half the distance of a race at the pace I can race it at. But then I've had a rough year and f***ed up a couple of times so feel free to second guess it all. thing is this I ran slower then everyone on this board claims to have run in HS and college. I can't even now break 58.5 for a 400m or 14 for a 100m. I don't have a coach, a agent. I don't have training partners and rather then rip people apart who ran faster then me I looked at what they were doing when they were kind enough to make it available and because of that and some luck and a lot of support from a small core group of people, like 2 or 3. I have gone from being a shit nobody to at least a guy who falls on the outside of national class and the high end of mediocre. I think I'll run much faster but even if I don't I'll be happy to walk away knowing I actually tried and put my heart my soul and my body on the line rather then sitting around eating cheeto's out of the vending machine at work while posting negative comments on letsrun and bitching about how I wish I had so and so's talent. Well maybe you do. Thanks to all the supporters by the way. Particularly runningart and malmo. You are both dead right in your posts.

Sage, thanks. I hear you met Shannon O. she had good things to say. Keep up the good work yourself.

S. Canaday wrote:

Nate the Great is a total badass.

The guy is a student of the sport, he's willing to take risks and train like crazy and as a result he got 7th at the Olympic Trials marathon.

I don't believe in "junk" miles. Not to compare to his week, but I put in a 150 mile week once this summer and ran 3 times a day a lot and went slow...and I believe it was a great idea. Its about super compensation, making your body adapt to new stimulus and progressing over the years with a base of high-mileage training.

Those people posting stupid comments about this training phase need to respect what he's done for the sport and read up on how elite marathon runners actually train.

our college X-C team put in 100 mile weeks back in the early to mid 70s. Not that unusual at that time.

The thing people fail to realize is that N.J. is a terrible runner, and a terrible athlete in general.He barely broke 10 min for the 2 mile in high school,and he came from a successfull program.

Most people of his poor ability would be happy to run a marathon in 2;30.

He only succeeds because he is willing to train hard and give it 100%. Obviously this at times is going to lead to injury or sickness. But when he hits it right the results are pretty sweet.

I think for a person of his dreadfully poor ability he has done pretty well for himself.

relax guy...we're just messing with you

creep goes for another bag of cheetos and reclines on his lazyboy as he reads another infamous posts on "let's run"

Please! Let's not get carried away. Nate was a very, very good runner in high school. Perhaps he didn't post national-class times on the track, but he was a stud in cross country and it's not as though UMass-Lowell is in the business of taking no-name scrubs. They're a good team and they recruit talented runners.

I get what you're saying- he gets as much as he can out of his body. I have nothing but respect for him. I thought his seventh-place finish at the Trials was incredibly inspiring and from what I can tell, he can run even faster.

I just find the backhanded compliments a little overboard. He wasn't some 300-lb ogre running 35:00 5k's in high school. He was a very good high school runner who trained his ass off to become a national-class marathoner. He's not a "terrible athlete." He was faster than at least 99% of the kids he ran against in high school. Now, he's faster than all but 6 marathoners in the country!

i am interested to hear about the change in your diet and how you feel you are benifiting from it. thanks for sharing.

dude running those kind of workouts you must need to eat like 60 or 70 bananas

i looked up his name on tilastopaja after his 7th place 2:14 in the olympic trials and i was very impressed he was able to run a 2:14 marathon with personal best's of 14:20 for 5k, 30.27 for 10k and 66 minutes for the half marathon, either he di not taper at all for the shorter races, or his endurance is off the charts and he really gets everything out of his training. tremendous work ethic can pay off.

"We ran twice a day, sometimes three times. Twenty miles a day, sometimes more. There were a couple of 170-mile weeks... All we did was run - run, eat, and sleep." -

Frank Shorter detailing his training with Jack Bacheler and Jeff Galloway prior to the 1972 Olympics

Joe Nationwide wrote:

"We ran twice a day, sometimes three times. Twenty miles a day, sometimes more. There were a couple of 170-mile weeks... All we did was run - run, eat, and sleep." -

Frank Shorter detailing his training with Jack Bacheler and Jeff Galloway prior to the 1972 Olympics

I thought Galloway did Gallow-walking to make it to the Olympics. Do all of those Gallow-walkers know about this?

;)

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. ..I run to see who has the most guts.

Why do you LR naysayers run?

Steve Prefontaine wrote:

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. ..I run to see who has the most guts.

Why do you LR naysayers run?

That must be why you used to drink and drive too. A shame they had to scrape your guts off the road. But at least you got to see them!

doug burke wrote:i was very impressed he was able to run a 2:14 marathon with personal best's of 14:20 for 5k, 30.27 for 10k and 66 minutes for the half marathon...

nj,

Those are not junk miles.

They are making your stronger and smarter.

Every mile you do and plan to do has a place and purpose. Ask Wejo, ask JK, ask Gerry Lindgren.

All 3 of those times are pretty standard for an endurance type runner. I thought he ran like a 64 half (some adjustment of a short course or something) which would map pretty well to a 2:14. I am guessing he just hasn't run a lot of 5/10ks lately when he is in great shape and rested.

doug burke wrote:

i looked up his name on tilastopaja after his 7th place 2:14 in the olympic trials and i was very impressed he was able to run a 2:14 marathon with personal best's of 14:20 for 5k, 30.27 for 10k and 66 minutes for the half marathon, either he di not taper at all for the shorter races, or his endurance is off the charts and he really gets everything out of his training. tremendous work ethic can pay off.

i am going to go ahead and throw my two bits into this discussion.

First off, Nate Jenkins=smart! If you have been following his log/blog all along you would know he somewhat follows the Renato Canova approach to training. I dont think anyone can argue with Canova's success, and please dont bring uup drugs because every coach in the world has athletes that use. (sorry to go off topic, I dont believe Nate is using, dont put words into my mouth.)

Second, Jenkins has matched hard work with consistenc and dtermination. the guy gets up everyday and even when nursing a bad hammyhe gets the mileage in, does the rehab and gets the massage he needs. He is making the right choices. So he may have hit some bumps in the road with his diet and becoming anemic, but not everyone gets everything right.

Jenkins is making huge headway in this sport and is doing things the right way. If you dont believe in his training proram dont read his blog...but dont criticize the guy nd his goals. 190 miles a week...yes, tht may seem like a lot of mileage, but do yourealize that some of the women that were compeitive in the marathon a the games this year were averaging around 180? In our hayday we had several guys running around 160-180, it was a routine. Somewhere along the line America has gone for the more quality and less quantitity routine with not enough emphasis on the base building phase.

We have to let our runners put in their miles, and let them run whatever pace they need to. No one gets a prize for running the fastest times day in and day out in training.

It is also interesting how not many individals are on here questioning Brian Sell when he routinely puts in around 160 mile weeks, but the moment Jenkins puts in 1900 everyone has a huge problem. That is compeltely rediculous, Just because Sell has built up the blue collar reputation doesnt mean we can't have another guy like that. Hell, I think we all now that this country could use more than 2 distance runners/marathoners that are willing to match their work ethic with their goals. We have too many people trying to take the short cut of working with Dirty Al, using Anti-G treadmills, and sleeping in altitude chambers.

I can assure you that if this came up in Japan or China there wouldnt be many questioning the 190 mile week(s).

Sorry for spelling and grammar, its probably atrocious.

who mcares about Nate--he's just another guy who thinks he'll be great--this guys is the man

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze7ve0j/natlanthem.mp3

Nate Jenkins is the most blue collered distance runner in recent years professionally I believe. The guy worked for everything he ever had and none of it was ever given to him. He trains similar to the distance studs of the 70s who all believed that you go out there and put in the big mileage your going to run well . Jenkins was never even a D2 all american and he knows he has to do the mileage to compete with guys who are talented and to step it up to when it really counts. Nate lives a low cost lifestyle which is another reason why he is still competing even without a decent salary like most of the guys he competes against and he shows some guys who want to give it a shot after the college career is over that there is a chance and you have to make the sacrifices and the changes in lifestyle which nate has to be a good runner and to compete at that level. Also Nate peeks well when it counts like Austin and The trials because hes a marathoner not a track guy so just to clarify that to people who bash him on this board.