JIM RYUNS STORY!!!! 5:30 MILE TO 4:10 MILE

Living in the past wrote:

All of the runners who set world records after Ryun were older than 19. Let's look at their ages when they first set their records. The point is that you can train sensibly and peak out later than 19 or 20. (For most of these guys, their ultimate personal bests came later than their ages listed below):

Filbert Bayi 23

John Walker 23

Sebastian Coe 22

Steve Ovett 24

Steve Cram 24

Nourredine Morceli 23

Hicham el Gerouj 24

Notice anything else about them, "Living in the past?" All of them ran in an age where they could make money off of the sport. In Ryun's time after college was over, unless you wanted to live in poverty, your career was over.

up all night wrote:

I can vouch for Rink. I got the DVD, very reasonable & great footage.

You would be buying it from the guy who actually produced the documentary.

Support local artists.

agreed.....I bought mine from him, direct too, at a track meet....4-5 years ago or so...vhs. A must-have for your library.

Apparently, you forget that Ryun competed until he was 26.

Jayhawk wrote:

Anyone interested in buying a copy of Jim Ryun, America's Greatest Miler can email me at

johnrink@comcast.net

I can provide a dvd copy at a very reasonable cost.

Rink

John, Please post the information here so that others can order a copy, I know that I'm not the only one interested.

Living in the past wrote:

Apparently, you forget that Ryun competed until he was 26.

can you please let this 'line of questioning' die?

Someone on here mentioned Lundberg, MacDonald, Mason, etc. We must have been at KU at the same time. I ran for Timmie for 18 months before I fully came to the realization that I sucked. Was his training hard? Damn straight. I would talk to my friends back East who were running (at UPENN and UMASS - remember, this was the mid-70's and both of the schools were very solid distance schools at the time) and they didn't believe me when I told them the workouts we were doing.

I even had the opportunity to do a few of those workouts with Ryun while he was back at KU training. Tell me that isn't one of the cooler things that can happen to a 19-20 year old track slug? I never did have the chance to take a dump while sitting next to him (that story does crack me up), but I did get several chances to watch him haul ass down the road in front of me.

With that in mind, there was talk at times that Ryun had sometimes done two of those type sessions a day. Probably lends some credence to the idea that he was over-trained, but it does beg the question of whether he ever would have become the "Jim Ryun" had he not done Timmie's training.

You know what? I don't care. Ryun was my hero. He was singularly outstanding. Hell, he was awesome. There were a few years in there when he stepped to the line that guys knew, absolutely knew, that they were running for second place (and, often, a distant second). So, maybe he could have gone on for a few more years and maybe he could have run sub-3:50. Maybe he could have run 13:15 for 5000. All he did do was 1:44.9 and 3:51.1. Who, right now, reading my rantings, wouldn't take those times and keep them as PR's?

The guy is a legend. Shoulda/woulda/coulda. I'm pretty sure that he did, huh? And from what I have read written about him and by him over the last several years, I believe he feels that everything he went through and did back then made him who he is today. And from what I can tell, he is a happy man.

And, enough of the slamming of Timmie. Did he overtrain folks? Yeah, I do believe that he did. But he too, like Cerrutty, bought into the Stotan philosophy. He worked you because he expected you to improve through the training and to run until your legs got rubbery and your tongue got road rash from dragging behind you. All I know is that I was a pretty lousy runner and he frequently gave me way more than the time of day. As a big fat slob now, I can still remember the XC workouts we did on the dirt roads around Lawrence and it does make me feel proud. And truthfully, I did them as much for Timmie's approval as much as anything else.

Drew - John Horton says hello.

Hey, I am just responding to comments directed my way. I'm happy to drop the subject. It's these other guys who can't let go of it. lol

As a scientist and a coach I would like to get a definition of "overtrained" -- probably as many of those as there are people reading this thing

Jag vist, det kan jag gora en lite. Jag laste ett ar pa GIH in Stockholm, med PO Astrand. Det var bra

Yeah... I was there for a very short stint in 1974 before Timmie gave me the boot. I made the mistake of crawling into the back of the pickup (I had been sick with diarrhea) in the midst of a 2 mile repeat working and the next day he invited me to come back when I was in shape. Anyway it was great having Ryun around in those workouts because his ability just took your breath away. Plus he wasn't afraid to share some pretty good stories.

Mr. Daniels. You might ask Coach Timmons for his definition of overtraining in the case of Ryun, as he has already stated that he overtrained him.

As for my own definition, there are three types that come immediately to mind.

First, I would say that it boils down to a lack of adequate recovery, which increases the risk of injuries and illness. A very famous coach once said that it's better to terminate a workout feeling that you could have done a little more than to push yourself to the limit.

In Ryun's case, in the spring of 1968 he was getting a lot of "junk injuries" and was doing a lot of training without getting results. This is what he himself was quoted as saying in an article written after the Olympics. (I think it was by Cordner Nelson.) Ryun got mononucleosis before the 1968 Olympics, which could have been the result of overtraining. He might have gotten mono anyway, but young runners seem to be more susceptible to it than their nonathletic peers. The susceptibility comes from a compromised immune system due to intense training. If the excercise contributes to the mono, I think it's fair to say that the athlete was overtrained.

From what I recall, part of the falling out between Ryun and Timmons was that Timmons thought Ryun was making excuses, including the mono. That kind of pressure from the coach to "suck it up" is another aspect of "overtraining," which has to do with cutting short the recovery from physical setbacks.

Overtraining can also mean doing too much of the wrong type of training for too long. An overemphasis on interval work can lead to the failure to develop capillary density and mitochondria in the running-specific tissue.

Isn't Tim Noakes a scientist? I have found his analysis of Ron Hill's career persuasive, the same as Clayton's. "Ovetrained" seems to be a very real condition.

Regarding Ryun- wasn't he later diagnosed (well after the fact) to have asthma? and that was why he had such problems with allergies? Perhaps that is what limited him in his early 20's?

Re: his 5:30 to 4:10 transformation in one year- Wasn't he sick most of that winter, and able to do little to no running? Perhaps there was some super-compensation going on due to the extended rest?

Good examples of Ron Hill and Derek Clayton. I think Alberto Salazar might have overtrained a little bit, too.

why are you so hung up on hanging the 'overtrained-burned out early' tag on everyone? Are you a one-trick pony? Let's talk about something else. How about other topics. You seem to know alot about running and its history. Tell us about a great race you saw or ran in, etc.

I was just responding to Mr. Daniels's question, which was probably directed at me as much as to anyone else.

I don't think Dr Daniels disbelieves in the existence of overtraining (but he can correct me if I'm wrong). I think he just defines it differently than most other people: as doing more work than necessary to achieve a certain level of fitness. In other words, you can only say definitively that Ryun was only overtrained if you are prepared to prove that he could have achieved the same results with less volume or intensity or whatever. Quite frankly, you can't. You can point to what generally works for the majority of the population, but as someone already pointed out, Ryun was already a statistical outlier, even among the outliers. Even the most thick headed poster here would agree that every athlete is individual, and that what works for one might destroy another. Timmons found a cocktail that seemed to work for Jim. Would another one have worked better? Maybe. You can speculate that with more economical training Jim might have avoided the injuries and illnesses that plagued his later career, but who can say that with such training he would still have reached the hights that he did with the workload he had? Jim Ryun was spectacular, even if only for a relatively short time, and I imagine that if he knew the cost of a few years of brilliance was an early end to his career, he might still choose to go with Timmons.

All that said, I agree that Timmons probably did work Jim harder than was absolutely necessary. But you have to admit, for those two or three years, Jim was invincible - so mentally and phisically outstanding that no one could touch him. And thats good enough for me.

I don't see how anyone can say that Timmons wasn\'t a remarkable coach.

Why?

He coached the first sub 4:10 high school miler ever, in 1959. Then, 5 years later, he just happened to coach the first sub-4 high school miler. That's not a coincidence, since there were about 16,000 high schools in the USA at the time. It's hard to fathom those dual accomplishments from the same program.

What it is is amazing. Timmons must be regarded as one of the best coaches of all time.

Ok, It's obvious I've been talking out of my rear & Coach Timmons didn't recruit me back in the day. I've been looking at getting back at him all these years & I can't take it anymore.

Living in the past wrote:

I may be unfair to Timmons, but I still think he took the greatest middle-distance talent this country has ever known and burned him out at the age of 21. Timmons was great at getting short-term results. How many of his athletes had long, successful careers? If you think Ryun's high school mile record was more important than Ryun reaching his ultimate potential, then you're right that Timmons did a great job on Ryun.

Ryun held the World Record for 9 years! That's longer than anyone else in history. What more can you ask for? How is that not reaching his potential? He was waaaay ahead of his time. Yes, he could have run 3:49, but he would have needed races in his prime where he wasn't all alone, and that wasn't gonna happen. He was just too good compared to everyone else.