Can someone post a biography of John Kellogg?

Couldn't have said it better myself, Cole. Dead solid perfect. He can also run the beer mile in under 7 min.

John K coached wejo in high school, correct? and if so, why was wejo so avg. in high school at best, but then going back to work with JK after college, suddenly blossomed into a strong runner with a huge PR in the 10000m. why wouldn�t wejo have blossomed earlier during high school under JK�s tutelage? What was different in working with him post collegiately?

Wow, first off, I can't believe Jeff Cole is posting on here. He was my first coach ever, in 7th grade cross country. JK was wondering what he was up to a few weeks ago. I'll never forget in 7th or 8th grade walking with them, and thinking I had gotten pretty decent at running and wondering what more I could do. I said something like "I guess I could run more mileage" thinking I trained seriously. They laughed. It's strange I would remember this exchange as I have a horrible memory for non-important stuff, but I guess aeorbic endurance is pretty important.

I am the runner I am today because of JK. 14:30 and 30:14 in college to now 4th in the country twice behind the big 3 (meb, abdi, and alan, actually in 2003 I beat abdi but Dan Browne beat me) at 10k. If kind of like watching Forrest Gump, there he is superimposed in the old football footage competing with the greats. You know he shouldn't be in the picture, but there he is.

Anyway, I wasn't that great in high school becasue I didn't run year round. I never did track until my senior year. I ran a few months a year and thought I took the sport seriously. My senior year I got a lot, lot better as for the first time I did what JK wanted me to do for the entire year once the school year started. JK also has always had a long term approach. My senior year he probably could have cut a few corners, hammered a few more intervals, but he was thinking down the road.

You might argue he should have gotten me to run more year round but as he says its not his job to motivate the athlete. I still contend he could have made it clear I needed to run more and it was essential if I wanted to be any good at the sport, but I enjoyed playing other sports and things worked out well.

Jeff Cole knows Kellogg pretty well so that post is pretty accurate. JK is very thorough and wants to coach people who are 100% commmited to being the best. I always tell him I could get him 100 people to coach but he's interested in coaching people who are serious about it. I've been trying to get him to write more articles on the website and to post under the name JK, but maybe I'll have to put a little more pressure on him. Maybe a JK blog.

As for contacting JK, he's right here next to me. I guess it must be some sort of secret that I've moved to Ithaca, as everyone at NCAAs was asking me about Flagstaff (on a side note about Flagstaff, if you ever go to Flagstaff and don't go to the Grand Canyon something is wrong with you. It's 1:15 away. But I was talking to someone at NCAAs about Flagstaff and they said they didn't go to the Grand Canyon and it made me mad). JK and I moved out here to Ithaca last fall.

JK (and I) is truly committed to my brother's Cornell team achieving success. He plays a much, much more active role as he from the get go has been involved with Robert in constructing nearly every workout the guys do. He may not go to many of the meets or be an official coach but that doesn't mean he's not a huge huge part of the success of what my brother's guys have been doing. Robert and I have always said that everything we do in distance running can be attributed to JK and that includes Robert's coaching as well.

Anything related to running we've done so far wouldn't be possible without JK. As for me, I'm more just Robert's twin brother who is around. But twins have a unique relationship so I take very seriously the success of the team. If Robert accomplishes something, I take is seriously and vice versa. I know my running success would not be possible without Robert so I hope he almost considers it his own.

Who knows maybe we'll get a post-collegiate group going (we've got space in our house for a few more people) but Flagstaff is probably best for that. In the meantime, I hope to get healthy and really train properly again.

That was right on, Innocent bystander.

Yeah, Weldon was in middle school when John and I were coaching him. I was an official faculty member, while John just did it all on his own, without pay, for years. Well-dog, as we called him, trotted through a 5:33 or so (mile) in middle school. Weldon and his twin brother Robert often divided their allegiances, playing a lot of tennis, for example. They were also extremely bright kids and were involved in all sorts of extra-curricular activities. Furthermore, John wasn't a permanent fixture at the school, and the head coaches had more to say about what was done in training than John, for the most part. I left the school when Weldon was still a youngster and so don't know exactly what happened.

In response to mention of the obsessive-compulsive side of John, and his detached attitude and poorly developed people skills (responding to someone else's post): Innocent bystander is completey right about John's disappearing acts and inability to handle what he sees as failures in his athletes; they get over it long before John does. It's part of what all of us have had to tolerate in John. I didn't think we were critiquing his social adeptness, but rather his knowledge of running and training. Listen: I can imitate exactly how John inserts money into a Dr. Pepper machine, extracts the product, opens it and takes the first sip -- because it's exactly the same, every time. So what? The fact that his personal history didn't allow him to develop certain norms of behavior (many of which in the case of us, the "socially adjusted," are pretentious and disingenuous anyway) has no bearing on the topic, nor, as a matter of fact, with his true character. Those of us who know him well know his honesty, and where his heart really is. He is incapable of doing intentional harm to anyone, which is a personal quality the people badmouthing him in cyberspace obviously don't yet possess. So Innocent bystander and I concur exactly: he's a pretty amazing man. (We probably know each other, too, IB, but I was the dingbat who actually gave a name!) PS: to Americans are Wimps: Kellogg was saying just that, probably a long time before you got into the sport, and had all the stats and theoretical reasoning behind it. But if any athlete, from any country, were to call John's self-sacrifice and gruelling efforts to maximize his genetic potential "wimpy," I'd challenge him to a few weeks of trackwork with John. The emerging "wimpdom" would not be American.

thanks for the response wejo...and my question was in no way a knock on you or JK, just was curious what the big difference between now and high school was for you in working with him.

you are right about the grand canyon.

enjoy Ithaca...it is a beautiful place, especially when it isn't blanketed by snow. my old man is an Ithaca College alum was a blue bomber hockey player...i think he was disappointed none of his children went there or Cornell so he'd have excuses to go back and visit.

Holy Moses! It's Well-dog and Kell-dog! I hope I didn't anger anyone. Keith Dowland the aging kiwi emailed me this link; I guess he thought I could add a good bio of the Logg monster. Hope you guys are doing O.K. I am a non-runner now, because that SI joint and left-side syndrome are just too much. I can go for a while without having to stop, and I'm sure my endurance is fine after all those 85 mile weeks we used to do. One last comment: Weef wuf woof wurf.

I was a couple of grades ahead of JK at his high school. One of the things that always impressed my about JK was his success despite having an incompetent egomaniac for a head track coach, who was really a football coach and pole vault coach. I always hated the way the coach would waste 45 minutes jabbering in "team meetings" before every workout, how he would schedule a dual meet every Wednesday, and how his favorite workout for the distance guys was to have the run 110 repeats with five minutes rest in between. Not to make any excuses, but the guy was a serious hindrance to the athletes, and in my year the only senior on the track team was a pole vaulter (who was actually one of the best in the state).

John was saddled with this same coach two years later, but he overcame it by coaching himself. He was one of the best runners in the state in the 2 mile (9:24 or something). In fact, he might have been the best runner in the nation to have no real coaching. Everyone knows that high school runners need a great coach to provide the disciplined system for athletic development. John had a dithering idiot who died at a relatively young age of Alzheimers. I shudder to think what John could have done with a decent high school coach. At least he developed his own expertise early on, which he generously shares with runners of all levels.

Dave Bedford wannabe

wejo wrote:

Maybe a JK blog.

I for one would pay to read that. Out of curiosity, why doesn't he go to the meets?

innocent bystander wrote:

After Weldon lost a major race, John went missing for a few days - they found him 20 miles from home living under a bridge.

Is this true?

If the only negative personality trait John has is an addiction to running, consider me (and about 85% of this board) in the same boat. This guy is clearly a genius and a real positive for the sport, and I wish he would contribute more and have his efforts recognized for pay. How does he feed himself if he even coached high school track for free? Geez...

well... wrote:

innocent bystander wrote:

After Weldon lost a major race, John went missing for a few days - they found him 20 miles from home living under a bridge.

Is this true?

If the only negative personality trait John has is an addiction to running, consider me (and about 85% of this board) in the same boat. This guy is clearly a genius and a real positive for the sport, and I wish he would contribute more and have his efforts recognized for pay. How does he feed himself if he even coached high school track for free? Geez...

Partly true and partly not...he did disappear for a bit but was not "living under a bridge." Previous posters are correct; he definitely has OCD that affects many areas of his life, but he is truly one of the most knowledgeable coaches the running community has ever seen.

I remember when Rojo mentioned that Josh Cox called JK before Edmonton 2001 to ask about tapering for the marathon. Cox had really, for lack of a better phrase, screwed himself with about a 184 mile week just 3 weeks out.

JK knew he was going to be fried for Edmonton, but didn't want to ruin his spirit and so gave him a plan to taper anyay. OF course, Cox was fried, but it shows that JK really does have a big heart.

wejo wrote:

[quote](on a side note about Flagstaff, if you ever go to Flagstaff and don't go to the Grand Canyon something is wrong with you. It's 1:15 away. But I was talking to someone at NCAAs about Flagstaff and they said they didn't go to the Grand Canyon and it made me mad).

i was in flagstaff last summer visiting nau as a possible grad school. it was similarly recommended to me to go see the grand canyon. / it was the first time i understood in a non-abstract way precisely why the federal government claims something as a national treasure to be preserved for all to witness and experience. ... my sister and i drove back to flagstaff. walked around. explored. had dinner. then walked out of the restaurant and saw this gorgeous full moon.

naturally we hopped in the car and drove the 1h45m (it's slower at night ... watch the deer, the hares, etc.) back. absolutely no one around. breathy wind. an entirely supernatural experience. // i recommend that as well as just simply visiting. go there at night. and, if you're a guy, pissing of the edge is primally fulfilling as all get-out. ;)

Interesting Thread

juicy miler wrote:

Interesting Thread

+1

nice