Galen Rupp's high school training?

The Animal Within wrote:

So High Schools don't do tempos or speed development?

Again, I am not seeing the differences between the "win now" vs. "devolop later" training you all speak of.

Yeah, I'm with you. Someone please explain what the difference is. This makes no sense to me

Ace in the Troll wrote: You can't take 18 minute talent and produce 14 minute talent.

But you can take 18 minute talent and produce a 14 minute 5k.

Anyhow, the talk about long term development vs short term results is basically about the use of high intensity interval workouts. Lower mileage and harder workouts, in general, will produce better results short-term (weeks/months), but at the expense of long-term development. Neglecting aerobic development, which is fostered by higher mileage and occasional high-end aerobic workouts, leads to an inability to improve long-term and a diminished lifetime best. This was evident with the training styles popular in the '90s.

fdsf gdfgdsfghgcv wrote:

Ace in the Troll wrote: You can't take 18 minute talent and produce 14 minute talent.

But you can take 18 minute talent and produce a 14 minute 5k.

Anyhow, the talk about long term development vs short term results is basically about the use of high intensity interval workouts. Lower mileage and harder workouts, in general, will produce better results short-term (weeks/months), but at the expense of long-term development. Neglecting aerobic development, which is fostered by higher mileage and occasional high-end aerobic workouts, leads to an inability to improve long-term and a diminished lifetime best. This was evident with the training styles popular in the '90s.

So Rupp ran 13:37 and 4:01 in high school with no high intensity interval work? He ran high mileage with occasional high end aerobic workouts?

Ace in the Troll wrote:

You can't take 18 minute talent and produce 14 minute talent.

Umm...what does this even mean?

hdhsh wrote:

So Rupp ran 13:37 and 4:01 in high school with no high intensity interval work? He ran high mileage with occasional high end aerobic workouts?

Oh no, definitely not. I'm sure Rupp did a decent amount of high intensity work. His HS training is shrouded in secrecy, but since he worked with Salazar through most of it, you can bet he was on a long-term program whose goal was hitting 100-130mpw at ages 24-28, and developing both aerobic fitness and mechanical efficiency early on. I would bet his high school training was mostly long moderate repeats with short recovery and short repeats with long recovery, and relatively little hard medium-distance interals (400-1000m). Just a guess, though. A few people have indeed worked to the top with a hard-all-the-time philosophy, but it doesn't work for the masses.

I didn't mean to imply that one should NEVER do ANY fast or hard running (and remember, those two are different). And my own philosophy on long-term development probably differs somewhat from that of Salazar's. But he and I probably have more in common than, say, Frank Horwill.

I'm curious what people think of the benefits of a soccer background. I played soccer from age 7-11. At that age we really did no running training (a couple laps of the field at the end of practice, sometimes). The first couple years I was dead last running, then I grew and was destroying everyone for the running the last couple of years. But we never did any real running development other than what playing actual games would do for you. Running at the end of practice at that age was more of an indicator of pure natural ability (I later became the best middle distance runner in the area).

I did not do any real sports from 11-15 (PE, neighborhood baseball or football, golf, skiing a few times a year, and riding a bike around the neighborhood).

When I was 15, I started running, and with basically no training ran 5:10 and could do a few 200s in 33 or so. After a year of light training (25-35mpw and the typical few weeks of repeat 400s, and not running out of the track season), I was running 4:40 and 10:00 for 1mi/2mi and could easily run repeat 200s in the 30-31 range.

When I read about Rupp impressing his soccer coach with repeat 200s in 30s, I didn't find that impressive. It doesn't seem like an indicator of top talent to me. Don't middle school soccer guys do a fair amount of running? If the soccer coach had them doing 200m intervals, is that much different than what I did in my first year of running? Several middle school soccer guys I knew (they came along a few years after I did) were running 4:40 for the mile at the same age I ran 5:10, and could run 30s for 200s like I could after my first year of running. None of these guys ended up running faster than I did (low 4:20 mile). I always assumed their soccer training was equivalent to my first year of running.

I certainly don't think that with Salazar's coaching I could have become world class or have run 13:37 in high school. I didn't end up running very well but did think that I could have run sub 14 in my career had things gone better (two of my teammates with similar HS PRs did, the best of which ran 15:10 in high school). We ran about 40mpw at the most (a few weeks over 50 but rarely). The 15:10 guy was over 50mpw more often. We were very evenly matched, PRs within a second at all distances but I was consistently faster in everything under the mile. I don't think I was geared for middle distance though, since I was the lightest of us 5-7, 105 lbs.

My question is...isn't Rupp's soccer stuff pretty typical? I suspect if I had played soccer in middle school I'd have been able to do that, and while I was the best miler in my area at the time, there were some soccer guys I'd have been afraid of if they'd have come out for track. I don't think I was any kind of special talent.

Is there something I'm missing here? Was Rupp doing 15-20 x 200m in soccer? Was his rest a diagonal jog back? I just don't see 30 seconds as that impressive. After two years of running, only in the track/CC season, I did 200s in 27-28, and 300s in 43s. I knew a soccer guy who I recruited away to track who was much faster than I was, and he never beat my high school time and only went on to run 4:13 in college.

Do you think Rupp's 200 times in soccer mean anything? Was Rupp just an above average talent trained to perfection?

I'd always thought that Rupp was doing more distance in high school. I just don't see how someone can run 13:37 without the distance. But when you see where he is now, it seems more believable.

Last thought, I think Salazar should do USA distance running a favor and publish every tidbit of information about Rupp's development at the end of his career. I actually think he should publish the high school part now, so high school coaches can get a sense of how to begin developing talent with a long term approach.

Back when Rupp was still in high school, a book came out with the training of a lot of the top high schoolers of the time. Solinsky is in there as well if I recall correctly.

hdhsh wrote:

The Animal Within wrote:

So High Schools don't do tempos or speed development?

Again, I am not seeing the differences between the "win now" vs. "devolop later" training you all speak of.

Yeah, I'm with you. Someone please explain what the difference is. This makes no sense to me

I already answered this question earlier. You do less of everything. Most importantly, you take fewer risks. For example, if you were out with an injury for a few weeks then you don't try to get back in shape as quickly as possible.

This is all useless talk though. A lot of coaches train their runners that way in high school. The big huge ultimate DIFFERENCE that the idiotic original poster is looking for is NATURAL TALENT.

I have wondered the same things. I imagine there are some pretty amazing anecdotes that got Rupp 'discovered' besides Salazar just 'noticing' Rupp at soccer practice and thinking, "Yeaaaaa, I think I'll train him to be world-class." I hope Salazar and/or Rupp write a book some day, because it will probably be pretty interesting.

Rupp was hand-picked by Salazar. His vision, after the failure of the original Oregon Project, was to find the most supremely talented natural runners and train them with a heavy focus on high-tech stuff (Rupp has had an altitude tent since high school). It's not too surprising to see his success now. He has pretty much had everything perfectly set up for him for the last 10 years.

Salazar had picked some girl too. Also a supremely talented runner who was a soccer player, but apparently she was a head case (or just wasn't that interested in being a walking physiology experiment) and went back to soccer after a few years.

You guys are out of your mind if you think there is NO difference between training a high school runner to peak for the race of his life at States versus developing an athlete for the long term.

In Rupp's case the guy is talented. He was developed for the long term, but was also genetically blessed. He ran that fast in high school based on solid training AND talent.

clipmoarder wrote:

Rupp was hand-picked by Salazar. His vision, after the failure of the original Oregon Project, was to find the most supremely talented natural runners and train them with a heavy focus on high-tech stuff (Rupp has had an altitude tent since high school). It's not too surprising to see his success now. He has pretty much had everything perfectly set up for him for the last 10 years.

Salazar had picked some girl too. Also a supremely talented runner who was a soccer player, but apparently she was a head case (or just wasn't that interested in being a walking physiology experiment) and went back to soccer after a few years.

Caitlin Chock. The problem there was an eating disorder. AlSal tried to both fix the eating disorder and have her training well but it didn't work out so she stopped running competitively. Good decision.

table wrote:

You guys are out of your mind if you think there is NO difference between training a high school runner to peak for the race of his life at States versus developing an athlete for the long term.

In Rupp's case the guy is talented. He was developed for the long term, but was also genetically blessed. He ran that fast in high school based on solid training AND talent.

Well why don't you explain the difference.

Yep, Verzbicas did some cross-training. His actual running mileage though was fairly low, a bit less than Cheserek's.

It is important to realize many triathlon athletes go the same hours/day or more, cycling and swimming and can't run worth a damn.

It is also important to realize that a talented kid can set HS distance records on moderate mileage. Last time a 100 miles/week kid got a US HS record it was the late 70s.

I am willing to bet there were some short repeats with short recovery too...

I don't know if this has been said because I am at the office and I am to lazy to read all of this.

Galen is a freak of nature. That is why he ran that fast.

Do core work, Do your strides, Do your mileage, Recover your body as best as humanly possible... That is what you have to do to get what you can out of your body. I worked my ass off in college and it got me too a 14:40... that was as fast as I could be at 22 years old. I feel as if I had continued to train like that for another 4 years then I could have been a sub 14:10 guy. But life gets in the way.

Car Payments, insurance, health insurance (cause Obama says I have to have it), cell phone, rent, bills, beer money, food, dog food...

Take advantage of free ice baths whenever you have the chance. It sucks for the first two minutes but do it everyday if you can. You will recover so much faster.

Teenage training is not a scaled down version of adult training. If you want long term improvement you should do moderate milage as a teenager, while working a lot on your sprint speed. You will also need to work on all those things that will make you a well rounded athlete: form drills, strength, flexibility etc. What you shouldn´t do is a lot of speed endurance, like sessions of 10x400.

Read "Optimales Training" by J Weineck.

I see the difference between Rupps training and a lot of high schoolers is the not amount or intensity but just being smart. Rupp was definitely doing at least 60-70 mpw in high school. He also was definitely doing very intense workouts. Most coaches will have their athletes doing the exact same workouts but alot dont know when its time to hammer their kids and when its time to take it easy. Additionally have a personal coach forces Rupp to always be doing the little things throughout the year that most kids just ignore.

eh.. wrote:

Teenage training is not a scaled down version of adult training. If you want long term improvement you should do moderate milage as a teenager, while working a lot on your sprint speed. You will also need to work on all those things that will make you a well rounded athlete: form drills, strength, flexibility etc. What you shouldn´t do is a lot of speed endurance, like sessions of 10x400.

Read "Optimales Training" by J Weineck.

There's nothing wrong with a 10x400m workout. The thing that can make it wrong is having the wrong amount of rest in between repeats or doing the repeats too quickly.