Steve Scott's Complete Training Log 1981-1982

A few comments:

1) Morning runs. One of the things you'll hear over and over again at Letsrun is young runners looking for justification NOT to run twice a day. You won't find it here.

2) Tempo runs. If you read Scott's log, like most runners in the day, you won' find the word "tempo" anywhere. "Tempe" maybe, but not "tempo". Why? Because Scott was doing them right. You see tempo runs everywhere, most often, "hard runs" or "last half (5miles) hard." If your tempo run is an end-all, needing rest days before and after, you've done them too hard. I don't give a damn what your VDOT table says.

3) Hills. "Deeee Heeeeel!" "What hill?" "Any heeeeelll!" The one thing that most runners of the day did consistantly was hills. Scott ran hills year-round. Went he wasn't doing repeats he was doing long runs on them. Ya think there might be a link?

4) Just think how good Scott would have been with a HRM and GPS device and some freakin duct tape on his nose?

Malmo:

Good insights!

I would add only one comment. He did a combination of distance work and intensity year-round. I think too many people do just mileage when they should add some quality to that mileage and do it week after week. One doesn't have to do huge volumes of intervals, but intensity should be part of one's regular schedule, I think. Tinman

trackhead, who is Pete?

I don't know -- I'm going to drop off his original logs later tonight, I'll ask.

Cheers Trackhead for that, awesome stuff.

Sometimes i think people forget how awesome steve scott was, like you hear a lot of talk about going back to the days of Jim ryun but what about the days of steve scott, even in todays track world he would be up there with the best.

Also theres some crackup notes in there too:

11/15: AM ASU Homecoming 10k. Ran wrong way, tied for 1st w/ Pete. PM 7mi easy

DNR - drove to Pinetop. Quail hunting.

12/10: Flew to Ill. PM Ran 10mi good pace. Very cold, jaw froze

12/13: AM 8mi run (slow-good-hard), Rolling Stones concert. Stones were great!

12/25: DNR - ate too much turkey

1/27: AM 11mi w/John. Drove to Lake Tarawera. Caught 6lb1oz trout!

Trackhead

Thanks very much indeed for the effort in putting that together ... we'll have all the great milers of the 80s covered by the time we finish!

Cheers, mate

Martin

Guys, THIS is what letsrun.com should be all about....thank you.

trackhead,

1) At what point did Steve begin doing 100m sprints? (Were those just part of the Irv Ray program?)

2) Was all of the 81-82 training under Len's supervision or did Steve do it by himself?

Pete is Pete Hessein; a Irvine teammate who trained with Steve in Az and ran for Sub 4. He now lives in PA (I believe it is his home state).

Man, this stuff is Gold.

The internet is a great tool.

I hope you young bucks realize how good you have it.

This is the stuff that made Steve Scott the great runner that he was. Irv Ray didn't come into the picture until the twilight of Steve's career.

1.) Yes, that's one aspect that came in when Irv took over (in retrospect Steve has said that he wished he had done them throughout his career).

2.) Steve was coached by Len from 1974 to 1985. Their coaching relationship ended when a number of factors led to Len's dismissal from ASU, and Len moved to Oceanside, CA to open up a card casino. Len was recently appointed track/cc coach at Santa Barbra City College. Steve coached himself in 85/86 and wasn't satisfied (he didn't plan ahead, he decided what he was going to do when he got there to do it). He was coached in 87/88 by Arch Jellies, a Lydiardite who's notable athletes include Walker, Quax, Dixon... 1987 was bad, ending with the WC in Rome, where Steve placed last, but in '88 took 5th in the final at Seoul. After '88 Steve decided he didn't like being coached from 15,000 miles away with one weekly phone call the only source of coaching and didn't land a permanent coach again until 1994 when he started with Irv Ray, and they focused on running the first Master's outdoor sub4. Much of Irv's program was built upon the work he did with Steve. The 400m pace work was especially critical with an athlete as Steve was, advancing in age and losing leg speed.

trackhead wrote:

1.) Yes, that's one aspect that came in when Irv took over (in retrospect Steve has said that he wished he had done them throughout his career).

.

What type of workouts?

What body of evidence does he have to make him certain they(short sprints) would work and would improve his already tremendous performances?

60s, 80s, 100s, 120s @ goal 400m speed to improve 400m speed/ability via recruiting FT fibres and improving nervous response.

amazing insights...if only we could get more! i always want more!

Spoke with Steve earlier this evening when I returned his logs, I may put up additional years when I have the leisure time.

Thanks very much, Trackhead. Your efforts mean a lot to us. Steve Scott is to me the eptiome of what running is about. He put himself on the line often. He didn't have to be in perfect shape to compete. He gave us a lot of races for a lot of years. The man should be thought of as a hero. He is one of mine and I am a hard critic. Tinman

Additional comment about Pete: Steve said that Pete was company for punishment; that Steve ran Pete ragged on almost all of their runs (of course Pete only did the off-track work with him).

trackhead wrote:Additional comment about Pete: Steve said that Pete was company for punishment; that Steve ran Pete ragged on almost all of their runs (of course Pete only did the off-track work with him).