Max King 100x200m Workout

i don't know how often they did this sort of thing, but i doubt doing something like this once or twice a year has any effect at all on long-term development.

anyway, i agree with the psychological aspect of it. sometimes you should just DO things to know you can get through them.

"As an academic scholarship student at Cornell University..."

Okay, I understand that they're saying he didn't have an *athletic* scholarship--there aren't any in the Ivy League--but it's potentially misleading to refer to *academic* scholarships. "Academic scholarship" sounds like a merit scholarship, whereas the Ivies only have scholarships based on family need--period.

Dude's name is

MAX

KING

He was either going to be a great distance runner or a great porn star.

not me wrote:

"As an academic scholarship student at Cornell University..."

Okay, I understand that they're saying he didn't have an *athletic* scholarship--there aren't any in the Ivy League--but it's potentially misleading to refer to *academic* scholarships. "Academic scholarship" sounds like a merit scholarship, whereas the Ivies only have scholarships based on family need--period.

I think it's true that if your family can afford tuition, there are no scholarships (from the school), but for those who qualify for financial aid you get can get merit based loan reduction. For instance:

If you are in one of these programs you can have loans reduced by up to $4,000 a year.

dean moriarty wrote:

Amen!

whoop de doo wrote:

You've got to understand there are two types of track coaches: psychologists and physiologists.

This is a psychologist's workout. Sure it might not have immediate physical benefits (and I'll even concede that some of its effects may be initally deterimental), but knowing you're tough enough to make it into the 80s is a huge mental boost. There's a reason FM's guys teams did so well in the 80s and 90s: after doing workouts like this, they knew they were tougher and better than any team they raced.

Physiologists tend to forget about the organ between the ears.

I used to subscribe to this "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" mentality. A few years of injury cured that real quick though. For long term success you need to stay healthy above all else and for someone who is injury prone, doing a workout like this even ONCE would probably mean tweaking something. Whether it's a week long nagging pain that you have to ice a ton, a few days off to heal, or a season ending injury, depends on the person and the workout.

Some people are unbreakable and I say go ahead and try stuff like this; if it doesn't break you maybe you'll get some benefit out of it. But for anyone in the injury prone category things like this are suicide. It's not lack of "toughness" or not being able to "suck it up". It's just that if we do tough it out we'll be sorry later. You can be injury prone and still run 100 mile weeks and run very hard workouts. But when it comes to stuff like this you need durability, and durability is a talent.

Jerry Smith is the man. I was also there as a grad student in '99 - '03 and ran with the team sometimes too. Jerry workouts were great. I remember being on the golf course and doing something like 50 minutes worth of intervals, and thinking he just made up the workout as it went along. Just random stuff, like "okay, run down to that tee and back... Okay, now run around the perimeter of this hole and back." He would also end with some kind of "finisher" and you were wondering the whole time what exactly that would be.

Another poster referred to another low 14's guy there with Max at the time - it was Dan Dombrowski (spelled somethig like that), also known as Danimal.

I never did the 200's workout, but heard about them.

Jerry definitely was instrumental in taking Max to the level he got to when he was there, but Max had a tremendous work ethic also. I remember seeing him there after everybody left practice running back and forth on the straightaway just jumping hurdles. The are many reasons he has been so successful.

Jerry Smith is a popular and seemingly good guy. He is also a terrible coach.

Jerry helped run the Cornell program into the bottom of the ivy league, and into obscurity even at the regional level. This is quite an accomplishment given the academic reputation of the school, its athletic history, and the abundance of financial aid support available.

Jerry even managed to take a national-level talent like King and make him barely relevant on the regional scene and an also-ran nationally. It is telling that Max ran much faster when messing around part-time post college than he did running nearly full time for Jerry.

Any decent coach would bring Cornell to the national stage. Look what has happened at Syracuse in recent years - maybe Cornell should hire that coach.

If I remember correctly, Max arrived to Cornell as a decent freshman, but was not amazing. I think he was a high 15's runner. Jerry was his coach for three years before they let Jerry go. Within those three years, Max made an NCAAq for the steeple.The next year Max qualifed for NCAA's in XC as an individual - that was not the result of one season of good coaching from new staff, but three years of such. He also qualified for NCAAs in the steeple again. So, I think it is tough to call a three time NCAA individual qualifier "barely relevant on the regional level."There was another guy on the team that was decent in high school, something like a 16:20 or 16:30ish 5K runner that Jerry took down to a 14:36 PR.I think the program was on the upswing when they fired him.

carnellian and red wrote:

Jerry Smith is a popular and seemingly good guy. He is also a terrible coach.

Jerry helped run the Cornell program into the bottom of the ivy league, and into obscurity even at the regional level. This is quite an accomplishment given the academic reputation of the school, its athletic history, and the abundance of financial aid support available.

Jerry even managed to take a national-level talent like King and make him barely relevant on the regional scene and an also-ran nationally. It is telling that Max ran much faster when messing around part-time post college than he did running nearly full time for Jerry.

Any decent coach would bring Cornell to the national stage. Look what has happened at Syracuse in recent years - maybe Cornell should hire that coach.

[/quote]

I could understand King needing a break after doing 4 years of three sport seasons (and then using the summer for training). It is rough. And it is hard to transition from training with a team/group to on your own (unless you are lucky enough to find a good running group nearby that have the same goals as you so). But hey, props to him to getting back into racing and doing very well as a result.

After all of the trail success he's had, how well do you think he'll do at the Outdoor championships?

I was there for that workout, among all others....I was injured when Jerry showed up, so I shadowed and helped and got a lot of the backstories and rationale for each of the sessions. Jerry was certainly "old school" but with sound physiological fundamentals. But, his psychological coaching was second to none. He got into your head…and made you believe. If he told you laying in traffic would make your faster, you wouldn’t question it. More coaches need to learn this….

It is important to put this workout (named, "200 Pride" – as it was your pride at stake to outlast your teammates) into the right context. It was NOT done several times per year (which would be insane), but once per year at the end of cross-country season and before Christmas break (hence the story about Max King flopping onto the tables, as the indoor track was set-up with tables for exams). After this workout, all athletes had a serious down/recovery phase during exams and Christmas break. Athletes were instructed NOT to wear spikes, but normal running shoes or flats. To my knowledge no athlete got injured per se from this workout, except massive blisters (running that many 200’s on an indoor track can be hell on the feet). In fact, I remember at the end, when Max pulled off his running flats his entire foot was bloody, and it was starting to soak through his shoe…..another story towards the legend of Max.

Someone else mentioned going to the golf course or arboretum and Jerry apparently making up the workout on the fly. This is not actually true, but would've seemed like the case. He would have 4 or 5 groups and watches going simultaneously. What he understood was that there is a lot of ways to skin a cat, and he had pre-determined quality minutes for each group in his mind, and certain zones of rest. So the A group might target 50min of quality in 3 to 6min intervals over 90min session, while C group (800m runners ) might have been 20min of quality in 1 to 3min pieces over 1 hour of running. He then blended the workout into the terrain of the environment….really like a conductor of an orchestra capturing the art of coaching over the science. (Trust me, 90min would go by so quickly, and it was so much more fun to work hard in workouts like this, than doing the standard mile repeats on the golf course every week etc., which he also would do, but periodically).

Why did Jerry not succeed at Cornell? I think it was probably more an issue of recruiting. He was called “Scary Jerry” for a reason ;)….and to some young high-schooler he probably looked a 1000 years old, and a bit crazy. (picture “Blue” from the movie Old School:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/2ckjK1WHpkrf2a7sRhPkycBJo1_400.jpg

). He probably just did not resonate that well with kids he was trying to recruit….

Anyways, some perspective from someone who was there….

I was a freshman when we did this workout. Max was the captain, Bruce was my freshman teammate, Jerry the coach. This was a strange year because there were, if I remember correctly, like 60 guys trying out for the distance team back in September. There was just so much going on. So if Jerry wasn't recruiting, then he certainly had a magnetic pull attracting people like me and lots of my eventual friends and teammates.

I was just about the worst cross country runner on the Cornell team my freshman year, but for some reason I was really good at "200 Pride". From my log which I just pulled off the shelf: Sat 12/15 "200-Pride 95x200 2:10, 17 (miles), Really good... '99 record was 84... solid job!" So yea some of us ran 60 200's and then ran 30+ at 30 seconds each. The workout sounds insane but for me I was really good at it. I did 95, but ended the year with "only" an 8:28 3000m indoor pb. I think there's a lot more to it than just times.

I remember sitting on the rail of the track with my teammates, listening to Jerry give pre-workout instructions for this workout. "Stay with the peloton! Run with some balls!" Probably sums it up decently. I didn't know what a peloton was before that day. Late in the workout I laid on a table between sets, just one time. I think there were some careers ended and others started in lane 7 of Barton Hall that day. Ran 10 miles with FD the next day.

As often happens when thinking back to freshman year, I feel like I'm reminiscing about a war experience... which probably is a level of intensity not far from what Smith was going for. Some days I probably would have rather faced mortal combat than his workouts. Is this good coaching? I'm not saying it is or isn't. But I will say it was one of the most strange experiences of my life! Of course once Rojo came in the next year, persuaded to Ithaca from Flagstaff by in_ithaca himself, we all knew we finally had a "normal" coach ;)

From what I understand, the reason he was let go was because of recruiting. Thing is, he got some good people there. I get the sense that the administration had too high of expectations in too short of a time period.

I can definitely see high school recruits (and their parents) getting a "dirty old man" vibe from him and being scared away.

We also used to do the 200m Pride at FM back in the Smith days and it was probably only once a year on the outdoor track. We also had plenty of longer workouts over rolling hills and terrain with finishers at the end, but these weren't dying hard. More like your Kenyan type fartlek everyone writes about. Did a lot of it seem made up on the spot? Yes. Was it physiologically optimal? Probably not but it made you tough and gave you the confidence that you were tougher than the competition and it certainly helped in college and after. Jerry was great at motivating you and he could get kids that had no business running anywhere near a 5 minute mile to a sub 5 mile.

Let's face it. In a race, all you should be concerned about is getting to the finish before others and the mental part of running is a big part of racing. Maybe someone doesn't like going out hard and you can put them away in the first few miles by taking it out. Maybe it gives you the confidence that you can hang with others at the end even if you don't have a kick. If you want to win style points or brag about your vo2 max power output numbers then take up the triathlon and try to be the best at excercising. Stuff like this is what makes Kenny Powers a goddamn champion.

Just piecing together some info from this thread:

The workout resulted in most of the runners' feet being covered in blisters.

Max King was bloody afterwards.

One of the worst CC runners on the team was great at this workout.

The CC team as a whole was not good under Smith.

Again, I just don't see the point. Wow, so it made you feel tough. Fine-- then why not walk over hot coals or dive into a frozen lake? You'd probably be able to put in some great mileage the next day, which I doubt was the case for most people after this one, especially if their feet were covered in blisters.

In The Know!!!XXX wrote:

If he told you laying in traffic would make your faster, you wouldn’t question it. More coaches need to learn this….

Wouldn't that be hard to race though?

I mean... after getting run over by a truck??

113 wrote:

Again, I just don't see the point. Wow, so it made you feel tough. Fine-- then why not walk over hot coals or dive into a frozen lake? You'd probably be able to put in some great mileage the next day, which I doubt was the case for most people after this one, especially if their feet were covered in blisters.

Obviously, I agree with you. That being said, whatever Jerry did had a lasting effect on the mentality of the runners that trained under him. I think it's easy to be really academic about coaching and I think thats the way to get youre athletes to 99% of their potential. Training smarter is always the way to go. Knowing when it pays off to do the most work and when its best to back off is the key to running. Max is a total animal and was the toughest guy I knew, he scared me. Personally, i know I'm not naturally like that, I like the easy way out in almost any situation, races included. Jerry was responsible for bringing out the part of my psyche that has that "killer instinct".

I remember finishing as the top frosh in the conference indoors in the mile. I was stoked as I had improved like 11 seconds that year from HS. I was so happy. Right after i finished Jerry grabbed me and let me have it, he was pissed. He screamed at me about how scared I ran during the race, at first i was confused. He went on to tell me that i ran the last 200 faster than anyone in the field and had i put a little effort in early on I could have been in the mix instead of just hoping to score. After about 30 seconds I had an epiphany and realized he was totally right, I wasn't running to win the race, i ran scared and didn't even know it. Changed my life.

Without a doubt I ran faster during my career because I went on to train under a system other than Jerry's. But i also know I never would of run as fast had it not been for Jerry's year-long hell. FWIW, when jerry got canned I was near 100% to transfer to PC. I was really mad that he was let go, I would of gone to war for that dude. The only reason I came back is because i respected Rojo so much.

I've run every day for the last 3 weeks for the first time in years, I still hear Jerry screaming at me when I'm really hurting. I guess you just had to be there, I'm glad i was.

I was an pretty awful local high school runner who walked on under Jerry at Cornell and literally hung to the back of his packs over the ensuing two years with him. Jerry made me believe in myself both in running and outside of running, in a way that literally changed my life. After Rojo arrived, the mileage and intensity were already there, and with some tweaking I was able to run a semi-respectable D1 career. 99/100 lifetimes with my talent level that simply is not a possibility, and I owe most of that amazing experience to Jerry.

I got to 73 on the 200 Pride, Vasanth and Max were the highest finishers. Those years were literally life-changing, some of the best memories anybody could ever ask for, and I thank Jerry and all the guys I was privileged to run with every day.

Guys guys, stop making stuff up about me. Only a little girl would do 100x200. I did 200x200 and all the repeats were at 19.18 or faster.

DHart wrote:

I was an pretty awful local high school runner who walked on under Jerry at Cornell and literally hung to the back of his packs over the ensuing two years with him. Jerry made me believe in myself both in running and outside of running, in a way that literally changed my life. After Rojo arrived, the mileage and intensity were already there, and with some tweaking I was able to run a semi-respectable D1 career. 99/100 lifetimes with my talent level that simply is not a possibility, and I owe most of that amazing experience to Jerry.

I got to 73 on the 200 Pride, Vasanth and Max were the highest finishers. Those years were literally life-changing, some of the best memories anybody could ever ask for, and I thank Jerry and all the guys I was privileged to run with every day.

I really didn't mean to bash Jerry Smith and I'm sorry if it came off that way. Everyone's relationship with their coach is intensely personal and I find it's best not to second guess what people respond to. My own college coach was extremely old school as well-- not 100x200 old school, but get on your ass whenever he thought you were selling yourself short old school-- and I loved it and responded to it.

My posts are all based on the fact that I know a lot of high school kids read these boards, and this workout in conjunction with the thread about the "toughest workouts ever" really sends the wrong idea about training. When I was in high school, I literally thought I needed to destroy myself in every workout. I had some success with that, but I would have never lasted had I not figured out (with my coach's help) how to train, and not race, in workouts. Great workouts are repeatable-- this one, pretty much by definition, is not. You don't have to do this kind of thing to feel tough, or, more to the point, to be tough.