T- repeat miles, up to 8, usually 6 at max VO2 velocity
F- recovery of 10+
S- race or 10-12more miles of training pace, usually around 6flat
and there it is. the above is/was usually his CC stuff but more time than not, it went into the track season as well. one of the greatest motivators ever.
yeah, he's in Tuscon.
Your classic “those who survive will thrive” training program. The rest will be injured or just too damn beat up to race well.
What Legends of the past said.
I remember reading about a Brenda Martinez workout of 1000m repeats under 3 minutes each with a hard 400m at the very end. But Nick Symmonds did almost the same workout, without the 400, but with similar times and rests for the 1000s. I wondered is Brenda working too hard or is Nick not working hard enough?
Your classic “those who survive will thrive” training program. The rest will be injured or just too damn beat up to race well.
"No risk it...no biscuit". Running is not for everybody mentally, physically or anatomically possible. Coaches to contact who were successful offshoots of the Vigial model in CA. Steve Chavez and his great Murrieta Valley teams in the early 2000s. Hung out with Vigil and really integrated it to high school athletes and the heat of Temecula, CA. He shared it with someone named Doug Soles who started a school down the road from him called Great Oak. DS modified the program to minimize injuries and how it would work best for his athletes with what he had to work with terrain wise. Say what you want, if you say Doug just beat up athletes....his teams were incredibly deep. Their boys and girls B teams would've qualified at least to Southern Section CIF finals many years and in some the state meet. I remember one year he had 32 girls under 5:30 in the mile. Then there's this other coach who Chavez help to coach near the end of his coaching career name Coach O'Brien at Arcadia HS. Once again, incredibly deep team. So his principles can work for all levels, but it takes A LOT of time to modify andget it to work for everyone. I remember Soles tiered his squads to this years team, next year's team, and the futures team. These 3 coaches deserve a lot of credit for the attention they put into everyone and not just the studs. But this programs works. One thing I remember Ian Dobson telling me about Vigil was he predicted Deena Kastor's marathon time within a second. It really does help you predict what should happen.
T- repeat miles, up to 8, usually 6 at max VO2 velocity
F- recovery of 10+
S- race or 10-12more miles of training pace, usually around 6flat
and there it is. the above is/was usually his CC stuff but more time than not, it went into the track season as well. one of the greatest motivators ever.
yeah, he's in Tuscon.
Your classic “those who survive will thrive” training program. The rest will be injured or just too damn beat up to race well.
As someone who ran for Coach Vigil, I wholeheartedly disagree. There were some injuries, of course, but I don't remember that many athletes who lost seasons due to injuries. The program certainly didn't work for all, but the reality is we were deep as hell. Guys were sitting home from nationals who would have made the top 7 at many of the D1 schools in our area... CSU, AFA, UNM, Wyoming, etc.
Regarding the XC training, there has always been some exaggerations, even by alums. I don't think intentionally, but with rose-colored glasses. The "one lappers" on Mondays were probably about 600m. We ran 16 of them with short rest and the top group got down to low 1:40s late in the year. No way in hell were they 700m. Six one mile repeats were the Thursday norm. The only people I remember doing more were marathoners. Heck, I don't remember Porter doing more than 6. And the rest was 3 minutes, maybe inching closer to 2 later in the fall, but definitely never only 90 seconds. The 2 mile "weekly" time trials were only during the peaking phase. The other often repeated myth was that all of our recovery miles were 6:00 pace or faster. For Porter, absolutely. He was a beast. Six minute miles or faster for 10-12 mile "recovery" runs happened on occasion, but most of those runs were more like a 6:10-:30 average. We did a lot of strides and some of the "lappers" became half-lappers (~300m) late in the year. Track was VERY different. Even the 5k-10k group rarely got to run intervals at the park in the winter/spring. And, of course, the mid-distance crew was doing their own very specific training. Like any good coach, Vigil's training evolved greatly over this lifetime. The 70s era runners, despite their immense loyalty to Coach, often bemoaned that they were guinea pigs compared to our generation ('80s). Even what I witnessed late in his collegiate coaching (early 90s) was somewhat different than my own just a few years earlier.
Finally, none of this matters. Running was simply the mechanism to teach young people. He was preparing young men (and women) for life. The successes (national titles at Adams State, Porter, Deena, Brenda) were secondary. It was the avenue to help people be better humans. Better sons and daughters, better spouses, better parents, better workers, better members of society.
On the thread about his passing, it's great to read anecdotes from other people, who never ran for him, that were so positively impacted. Now take that x100 for those of us fortunate to spend 4 or more years with him. And Coach wasn't perfect, but he led by example. He strived for excellence his entire life and led many others to attempt the same. Sometimes we swing and miss, but we keep trying because of people like Coach Vigil. There are very few people like him in this world and he'll be greatly missed by those of us fortunate to know him well. RIP, Coach. You've earned it.
Your classic “those who survive will thrive” training program. The rest will be injured or just too damn beat up to race well.
As someone who ran for Coach Vigil, I wholeheartedly disagree. There were some injuries, of course, but I don't remember that many athletes who lost seasons due to injuries. The program certainly didn't work for all, but the reality is we were deep as hell. Guys were sitting home from nationals who would have made the top 7 at many of the D1 schools in our area... CSU, AFA, UNM, Wyoming, etc.
Regarding the XC training, there has always been some exaggerations, even by alums. I don't think intentionally, but with rose-colored glasses. The "one lappers" on Mondays were probably about 600m. We ran 16 of them with short rest and the top group got down to low 1:40s late in the year. No way in hell were they 700m. Six one mile repeats were the Thursday norm. The only people I remember doing more were marathoners. Heck, I don't remember Porter doing more than 6. And the rest was 3 minutes, maybe inching closer to 2 later in the fall, but definitely never only 90 seconds. The 2 mile "weekly" time trials were only during the peaking phase. The other often repeated myth was that all of our recovery miles were 6:00 pace or faster. For Porter, absolutely. He was a beast. Six minute miles or faster for 10-12 mile "recovery" runs happened on occasion, but most of those runs were more like a 6:10-:30 average. We did a lot of strides and some of the "lappers" became half-lappers (~300m) late in the year. Track was VERY different. Even the 5k-10k group rarely got to run intervals at the park in the winter/spring. And, of course, the mid-distance crew was doing their own very specific training. Like any good coach, Vigil's training evolved greatly over this lifetime. The 70s era runners, despite their immense loyalty to Coach, often bemoaned that they were guinea pigs compared to our generation ('80s). Even what I witnessed late in his collegiate coaching (early 90s) was somewhat different than my own just a few years earlier.
Finally, none of this matters. Running was simply the mechanism to teach young people. He was preparing young men (and women) for life. The successes (national titles at Adams State, Porter, Deena, Brenda) were secondary. It was the avenue to help people be better humans. Better sons and daughters, better spouses, better parents, better workers, better members of society.
On the thread about his passing, it's great to read anecdotes from other people, who never ran for him, that were so positively impacted. Now take that x100 for those of us fortunate to spend 4 or more years with him. And Coach wasn't perfect, but he led by example. He strived for excellence his entire life and led many others to attempt the same. Sometimes we swing and miss, but we keep trying because of people like Coach Vigil. There are very few people like him in this world and he'll be greatly missed by those of us fortunate to know him well. RIP, Coach. You've earned it.
My college coach's training was Vigil styled as he ran under him, and I can say that the training was tough, old fashioned. Definitely harder than what modern training theory would advise in terms of the total emphasis on workouts faster than threshold. However, if you took your easy days easy, by feel as you should, and stayed within yourself on the workouts, then you'd get really fit. He took undertrained HS guys like me and got us to run our HS 3200 pace for 8K in XC within two seasons.
I learned to love the mile repeat days, grueling as they were. 6 x mile with 2 min recovery was an honest predictor of 8K fitness. 16 x ~550m lappers on grass with only 100m jog built the mental strength. We were told to take our long runs easy, which I always had to as they often followed races in weeks packed with hard quality work every other day. Surprisingly we managed to peak very well for championship season as long as we maintained our mileage, with some down weeks.
I haven't run as well since graduating from the program despite training 'smarter' and more controlled, though partially due to lacking the same consistency and support system of being on a college team.
One thing we were told is that the most important quality of a coach wasn't their training plan [as most training in running was 90% the same], but the ability to earn the athlete's trust and make an impact on them as human beings. The running was great, but it was moreso about teaching values and giving experiences to everyone. As an aspiring coach, I still try to live by those words.
One thing we were told is that the most important quality of a coach wasn't their training plan [as most training in running was 90% the same], but the ability to earn the athlete's trust and make an impact on them as human beings. The running was great, but it was moreso about teaching values and giving experiences to everyone. As an aspiring coach, I still try to live by those words.
Thanks. I'm glad to be reminded of this, as I look ahead to another season.