Is this legit on Marius Bakken's high school training?

I totally believe Marius did that training in high school. There are some incredible runners out there and someone who runs 13:09 probably has more talent than 99% of the people reading this thread. Since that's probably the case, I would expect Marius Bakken to be capable of training at unheard of levels.

I trained so hard with two of my classmates and my spanish teacher for the ROTC fitness test which includes a 2mile run. We had some pretty good runners training to run 2miles. We would get up every morning at 5am and run together. A friend of mine who always drinks and chews decided to run with us once at 5am. This friend doesn't run at all and can just easily run 6minute miles. So, after a few months of training we have our 2mile race as a part of the ROTC test. So, this friend of mine just shows up for the race and runs 2miles in 11:09 without any training at all.

The point: no matter how hard you train, there will always be someone way better than you unless you hold a world record. I think some people have difficulty accepting that fact.

Greenliner wrote:

In 47 years as a coach, Newton has won 22 state titles and finished 2nd an additional 19 times. He has never finished lower than 5th and IL is a very tough running state. Find me any other coach like that.

It sounds impressive, but with 130 runners, how can you lose? Like someone else said, there is sure to be some naturally talented runners in there. Coaching or not, people like Gase are going to succeed. It would be like putting a 4A football team with 120 players in 1A against teams with 27 players. The 4A team would win the state title every year, but does that mean they are SO good? No, they just have a much greater talent pool from which to choose. The coach may be great or he may be awful, but the team is going to win consistently either way. With that large of a team, I would EXPECT more than 22 titles in 47 years. I'm sure if every HS in Illinois had 130 runners, York would not win half as many titles. Want something impressive? A team won the state title this past year with only 7 runners on the team. Placed 1,2,3,4,16,22, and 43. Granted this was 1A, but with only 7 runners total they took the top 4 spots. That takes more than raw talent. That takes coaching.

Perhaps Newton's greatest accomplishment as a coach is that he has elevated cross country/track to such a position that 130 kids want to run. I don't know what the size of the school is, but that is truly an amazing number. That being said, his reliance on speedwork seems a bit excessive. As Lydiard states, the lowering of blood pH (from too much anaerobic work) in young athletes can hinder their development.

I found these comments made by Marius about his HS-training at his website:

"The interview posted will also be published in a book about top US high school runners.

It was done in a written form so what you read there is actually what I wrote myself.

All the times and workouts are 100 % correct. Remember, I came from running VERY low mileage in Norway to the US and in the course of about 8 weeks over there I actually did that 12x800 meter session with the last one 1 sec faster than my PR. I won 24 boxes of Fanta on that one last run from Mr. Newton so I should remember.. I did a time trial that fall also, in 13.54 for the 3 miles. That was an improvement of over 1 minute from 8 weeks before I started with Newton.

As you can see I have tried the traditional "go hard" system. It works to some extent but will not take you all the way to the top. I did it until I reached 20 years of age then changed it all around to a much more aerobic system. To work on speed is fine but it will not help you without the proper endurance.

Marius"

Newton is a master motivator, that to me is his greatest talent. I've never met the man but did a telephone interview with him a couple years ago and his enthusiasm came across loud and clear. He just loves what he does and loves the kids. They perform so well because he believes in them and gives them -- every one of them who is working hard -- attention. I think the reason some (many?) York runners don't achieve at an equivalent level in college vis-a-vis the competition is that few of them move on to coaches who can do for them what Newton did. I don't think Newton "ruins" any of his athletes -- I don't see any real evidence of that. There are many knowledgeable college coaches out there, at all types of schools, but not many who possesses Newton's motivational skills and are as outwardly excited about coaching. He told me straight out that he isn't overly concerned with how his athletes perform in college, but I don't think this is because he only cares about his record. He knows that for many of these kids high school is the best opportunity they'll have to focus on a sport and compete on a team. I have an old college buddy who despises Newton, but then he ran at Paletine so it's sour grapes all the way! And this guy was a mid-4:20s miler in high school but only improved to 4:21 or 4:22 in college (Div. III) and ran that fast only a few times. I think he had good coaching in high school but then in college had three different coaches in four years and, being at an academically rigorous private school, couldn't make running as high a priority he had before.

About Bakken -- Jim Spivey credits him with turning around high school distance running in Illinois. Championship times were getting slower and slower during the 80s and early 90s, but when Marius came on the scene the other top kids saw they'd have to step it up to be competitive with him. So as Spivey likes to say he "raised the bar," and that's all it took. Same sort of thing with Webb. And Bakken has always credited Joe Newton with being a key to his success every step of the way since that year at York.

Sorry about the Mead, OR gaffe; I know it is in Spokane and I write faster than I think. I talk about my sons because they are my sons and I have great respect for how hard they worked, and about Donald because he is a personal friend who I think is both a great runner and a great person. I'm not on top of what the other 5900 runners have done, though I have provided some information as to what some of the runners who I know have done.

York High School has 1900 students. The boy's xc team has around 130 kids per year and the girl's team has another 80 or so runners. The last few years the girls have also done very well, winning and finishing 2nd at state several times and turning out top runner Maria Cicero, now at Boston College. York also had 2 other top track and field athletes recently with Jim Costello in throws at IA and Kyle Erickson in the hurdles for UCLA.

As for the comment about York having so many runners and that is why they win, I disagree. There is nothing in the water in Elmhurst that turns out good runners, and Newton usually wins state meets without elite runners such as Sage. This past season he won with over 100 points, and with only 2 people in the top 25. He wins because he motivates better than anyone else. IL has other traditionally fine teams, such as Palatine, and Schaumburg and Lockport. They also have large teams but cannot beat York. In fact, at the AA level, all the schools are larger than York, many have large teams (ie. Morceli can tell you about Lyon Township) but they do not do as well as York. Why? Because Newton works kids harder than anyone and he builds them for meets and he motivates like a MF. You just have to experience it for yourself.

I think Jim Spivey has it right. Right before Marius, we did also have Tim Broe, from the Peoria area, who won state xc 2 years in a row, so that got some big notice. But Marius got everyone's notice, and Jorge Torres was just a frosh at the time. That got people excited. There was hope Marius could break 14 min at the state meet but an unfortunate episode of hypoglycemia hit him and he could only finish 4th before he had to be carted off to the medical area after passing out. Neither Sage nor Torres broke 14 either.

Thanks, JK!

There was a time when I was openly critical of Newton and York, but since that time I have met the man and quite a few former runners from the York team. Not one of the former runners I've met has anything negative to say about their experience at York. That says it all right there.

I agree 100% with JohnK about Newton's ability as a motivator as the real key to his success, and it definitely must be a bit of a let-down to go from "the master motivator" to a typical college program where it is pretty much left up to the athlete.

I think just about every decent high school program / coach has borrowed something from the York program. The training is super intense, and we don't use that, but you can still learn a ton from reading his books....all four of which I have read multiple times.

I remember being incredulous the first time reading the workouts in "Running to the top of the mountain." I seriously thought he wrote those workouts thinking...hey maybe someone will read this, and believe this is what our secret is, then will try to mimic the training and end up burned out or injured, and we won't have to worry about beating them. It was just too much to believe. We're not doing 100 mile weeks, nor will we, but we definitely raised our training level a great deal and the kids are better for it.

Our school is similar in size, though certainly not similar in socio-economic levels. The fact that he can recruit that many kids to run, and keep them that motivated year after year is unreal. 140 kids out of 1900? Wow!! I mean roughly only half that number are boys, so we are saying that about one out of every seven kids are running cross country at York! I mean how do you keep #96 motivated to try his best when only 7 make the varsity!

Newton's secret is that he gets 100% out of what he has. His job is to prepare his boys for a high school meet in November, and he does it, year in and year out better than anyone.

For the record, here's what Spivey said in an interview I did with him in May of 1999. (And I was wrong, his phrase is "elevate their game" not "raise the bar.") I'm posting this because I think it's a great bit of commentary and also because of the references to Torres and Sage which I think you'll find interesting. Furthermore, I like what he says about foreign exchange students.

Jim Spivey, May 1999:

When we have kids in high school who run a lot faster than everybody else -- when a Gabe Jennings comes out and runs 4:02 or whatever he ran -- other kids across the country say "Well, if I'm going to be the best high school kid I've got to beat Gabe Jennings." Where if next year the best high school kid is 4:12 -- and a couple of years ago there weren=t that many kids who even broke 4:10 -- then everyone says "Well, if I'm going to be state champion I only have to run 4:11." Or you take Indiana for example. I think last year in Indiana the state 2-mile champion was 9:22. Well, if you are a senior in high school right now and the state meet is this Saturday, what were you thinking about the last three or four weeks? Right. What it's going to take to win. Are you thinking "I gotta run 8:55 because some kid in California ran that fast." Or are you thinking "I gotta run 9:21 because that's what won last year." You know, how did you prepare over the winter months? Granted they're all going to say they want to run fast, but 9:21 is going to cut the mustard for this meet. Now if you get a Rudy Chapa or some kid running great everyone else elevates their game.

In Illinois that happened. We were really slow for a while and then we had a foreign exchange student named Marius Bakken come in -- he went to York High School for one year. The previous few years 14:48, 14:52 had won the cross country state meet for three miles. I ran 14-flat there and got second when I was a senior in high school, so we're talking almost 20 years later and they're running almost a minute slower than when I ran. And Marius comes in and he runs down on the state championship course in September in an early-bird meet and he runs 14:40 and everyone says "Whoa. This guys going win the state meet." Well, guess what. Everybody else elevated their game and Marius didn't win state and it took a faster time to win. I think there were even mothers saying Illinois medals should go to Illinois students, not Norwegian exchange students. And my statement to them is, he elevated everybody's game. And the next year 14:20 won it, and the next year 14:16, and this year 14-flat won it. They said the guy who won it this year ran the fastest since I ran it in 1978, so twenty-one years ago and they equaled the time that I ran. I think that elevates everybody's game. They've got a kid now at York High School named Don Sage who's running about 9:05 as a junior. Well, I guarantee this fall he's going to try to run faster than I did and maybe get Craig Virgin's record of 13:50. And everybody else in the state says "If I want to beat Don Sage I've got to run around 14-flat."

Hey, did something happen to this thread? I posted a lengthy response but it has not showed up.

"He ran 14:27 5k and 8:15 3k at age 17."

I would say if he wasn't running any faster than that, his training was wrong. I know scores of low 14:00 5k runners who would find a week like the one he reported in HS nearly impossible to pull off. The reported training week is far more impressive than the races it produced.

That was kind of my point..running 4:40's then a 4:18 ..I actually though his two mile time should have been scary..able to run 4:18 already fatigued is incredible for a HS'er..

Well, let's see if I can reconstruct any of what I apparently lost. First, Newton manages to keep #96 interested by encouring him to improve from wherever his talents are. So, the coach will note the kid's time at season start and then work with him to show constant improvement all season long. I mean, the team has had runners with physical impairment, such as Eric Zigmund, who had lost use of his arm and part of his lower body, but who still ran every meet and made every practice. And at the end of the season, Newton holds an award ceremony in which he calls each and every runner up one by one and goes over his season, where he started and how much he improved, and he does it all from memory for all 130 runners. Each kid gets a nickname as well- my kids were, unfortunately, Twin 1 and Twin 2, but hey, the other twins were Sick and Hurt (their choice, by the way). The best was Srinu Hanumadas, who was called Hambone.

Newton also does other things. At state meet time, he rents a limo to bring the runners to the meet, and he also rents them formal wear for the award ceremony, which they go to regardless of how they did. So you can see York runners wearing top hat and tails, or white tuxes. When they return from state, they get a police escort into town, and the entire town shows up at the school at 930pm to cheer the teams. Most of them were at the meet anyway- you should see the York contingent at state- how many xc teams send their marching band to a cross country race? IL state meet is madness- there can be 15000 people at state. Lots of tradition, and who wouldn''t want to be a part of that?

Before Marius, Tim Broe had been a 2 time state xc winner, but got only modest notice since he was not from the meet, which is run in Peoria. Then Marius came and he was such a phenom. We all thought he would break 14 minutes, but he just suffered too much medical problems in the race. Jorge Torres was 2nd in that race as a frosh, behind Matt Macevic. After Marius, Mark Pilja got a lot of notice before he went off to U Michigan. Then we had the Torres twins and Sage. Jorge was a monster, going 2-1-1-1 at state over 4 years. But Don had run 9.15/4.18 as a frosh, and only got better, but Newton kept him hidden away until his senior year when he ran 8.45 and 8.42 for 3200 in a 2-week period. Sage also ran 4.07 and 4.04 1600s before his 4.00.29 mile Now, IL has Steven Pifer, who has run 1.53, 4.05, 8.58 this year.

Next year will be Newton's 48th season as a coach. He has said he will stay until he has 25 state titles; he has 22 now. And he looks good for the next year; the team lost only 2 runners from its winning top 7 and those two were the #2 and #7 runners. And a super frosh is supposedly coming in.

You can go on and on about all the non-training things Newton does, but these are entirely beside the point. I don't think anyone said he wasn't a good motivator - on the contrary, to get 130 kids out he must be excellent at getting kids interested in the sport. Most HS students don't want to run the mile in gym class. It is his training methods that being questioned. For having 6,000 runners over the years, it seems like a small percentage ever go on to achieve much in college. Even Sage is injured now. Chronic overtraining may be starting to catch up with him.

There are other programs that are more successful with a lot less runners. Looking at "The Harrier" rankings, York didn't rank in the top 10 nationally and was only #5 in the Midwest region. In 2001, they didn't even rank in the top 5 in their region. I'm sure that the majority of if not all of these teams train significantly less mileage and with less intensity that York, and yet they rank higher. Now, I agree, these rankings are very subjective, but if York had the "perfect" program, they should do better than 5th in their region. If runners can train less mileage in HS and still achieve success, then this is definately the way to go. It will prolong their careers.

Topic discussed earlier

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=41204&thread=41204

Donald is injured three years after he left York, and this is the first real injury he has ever had. So what has that to do with his York training?

And why should York rank in the top in nation every year? There are tons of great runners, there are many good coaches, there are honest differences of opinion as to how to train. All I know is that York does well year after year, through loss of runners both good and better, and each year they are among the best in xc in the nation. So what if they are only 5th in the midwest area? Harrier is fine, but they get info only from who sends it to Mark Bloom. And Newton is notorius for not sending information out, and for not wanting his team to be high ranked. Everyone looks at York with a cerain kind of envy, for the tradition and the training and the results. This has been going on for over 40 years, for pete's sake.

I think I remember reading comments from Marius where he admitted dissapointment with his HS career in relation to all the work he put in and later disparaged the pointless difficulty of such a thoroughly interval-based program.

I can appreciate Malmo's supportive comments, but I don't think Malmo (judging from the logs he has made available) ran too many weeks that were so damn interval intensive (and rather scarce on just plain running the miles). I understand the impulse to want to defend such intense work (as a just reaction to the prevailing cultural bias against hard work) but I would be really curious to know, all hyperbole aside, if Malmo as a coach would give most aspiring talented runners very many weeks in a row that heavily laden with programmed interval workouts.

I've read comments where Marius expressed disappointment in the way he ran during the year he spent at Indiana, but don't recall seeing anything of the sort about his HS performances.

I've never seen, read or heard anything negative Marius has ever said about York. I have seen some critical comments about his time at Indiana (not horribly critical, but for various reasons he was not completely happy there and left as a result, though he still remains positive toward Sam Bell).