What Follow The Summer of Malmo?

malmo, have you ever formally coached anybody, past or present? And if someone were interested in receiving your knowledge year round would that be possible..I'm out of college and frankly interested in the year(s) of malmo

Agree, my mens senior pack baulk at 75-85 miles per week. They have no idea what the likes of Dave Bedford, Brenden Foster and Ian Stewart went through day in day out- but look at theie results. Hard work never killed any athlete. Its fasionable now to put in quality not quantity and spend more time talking not always about running. Those glory day men of the 70's and 80's must think todays youngsters are lazy and frightened of hard work using the name injuries as an excuse!

Having been in Malmo, Sweden in summer it's delightful. That's part of the appeal of "Summer of Malmo". Just the name. It evokes pine forests, dirt trails, and fartlek and Haag and Andersen chasing the 4 minute mile while World War II raged across the Baltic. Good times.

I'd wager that if you had the same idea and called it "Summer of Gainesville" it wouldn't be so popular.

"Winter of Daws" would not be as appealing either, but if you read Self Made Olympian you'll see that the same ideas can be applied to winter as well as summer quite easily.

not to be picky, but seen as though he is a good personal friend I thought I would point it out.

15th was WKU freshman Sean Dollman, not Stan Dollman.

Pretty stacked group back then.

flightless wrote:

"Winter of Daws" would not be as appealing either, but if you read Self Made Olympian you'll see that the same ideas can be applied to winter as well as summer quite easily.

A blast from the past. He was at a running camp in Colorado, in the mid 70s, when I was. A real nice guy, from Minnesota, I believe. A fine marathoner. Olympian from '68 I believe? Talk about a self made runner who got the most out of limited God given ability.

-cr wrote:

start with light doubles, 2 or 3 miles, enough so that you've done something but not so much as to impact the main workout.

for me, it started HS senior year of HS. 3 miles in the morning of non-meet days, 2 miles otherwise. (ugh, 2-3 meets per week).

Actually, the little bit of experimenting I've done with HS runners doing doubles, we did easy runs on the days of meets and the day before with very good results for awhile. We usually had Thursday XC meets, and we did a morning 20-30 min run on Tues, Wed and Thurs.

I don't know about others, but out of 8 runners who committed to AM runs the year I did this experiment, seven of them got sick during mid-season to the point where it was a serious set back in their training. Most of these guys were working 10-20 hours per week in addition to school and running, and they also seemed to sacrifice very little in terms of their social life. They weren't going out drinking or anything like that (I have asked them since they reached adulthood), but it they were part of a social circle that seemingly had to go to every dance, every football or volleyball game, etc.

I came away from this experiment thinking it would work very well if you can convince a group of runners to manage their time so that running's needs were respected. My conclusion is that most high schoolers I was familiar with are going to center their lives around their social life and their jobs, and that running would get shoe-horned in between.

That is what's different about runners these days than in the 60s and 70s, IMHO.

CoachB wrote:

. Coaches, especially h.s. coaches, don't generally want to hear that training should be fun. How can their frustrated military/ authoritarian mindset show it's power over the athletes if they're having fun?

I'd love for my athletes to get together and run and have fun doing it. I have no desire to be authoritarian and militaristic (even though I was an Army NCO). I want my kids to have longevity in the sport and I realize that having it be fun is one way to achieve that.

Having said that, let me explain that not all high school kids are the same. I have coached teams that gelled and I would never have to tell them to do their weekend runs. They would get together and run and in their common effort, found all sorts of fun and enjoyment. 3 of the 6 from that team went on to run collegiately and 2 are still doing well ther (one dropped out to enter seminary). I never had to talk tough with that group.

Currently, I have a team where there are few self starters and many slackers. I try to make it fun by building games into the workout (recently we did a scavenger hunt around town where they had to go on foot the whole way). Unfortunately, many of the "runners" will still walk once they are away from campus. I finally had to take a hard line approach and tell them that if I caught any of them walking on runs, that they would get a strike (3 strikes and you are off the team. Other things that could earn strikes are unexcused absences from practice, missed meets, detentions, suspensions from school...)

I fully believe in the summer of malmo, however, athletes need to be motivated and have team chemistry for it to work. Coaches cannot force the summer of malmo on anyone. That would just cause it to be the summer that coach made us run a shitload of miles. I don't think that would lead to any kind of good race results because it would be a chore to the kids and they would be mentally stale by the beginning of the season.[/quote]

Funny you say that, Coach B. I'm also a "Coach B" and I could have written the exact thing based on my experiences over the last 5-6 years.

were all these mythological blue collar runners from better days past putting up 2:08 and change in their debut marathons too?

Hall trains like an "old school runner"; as do many others at the TOP of the pecking order. We're talking about your average to good college runner who DOES NOT.

Bump?

Hey Malmo, do you think this would work for an older guy preparing for a fall marathon too? I just did Boston and am running Chicago this fall. After my recovery could I do this before doing specific marathon pace stuff late in the summer. Thanks in advance if you read this.

All runs should be based on effort. What else would they be based on, heartrate? LOL.

You should feel fatigued to some degree, that's all part of training. It will pass as your fitness improves. But if you're struggling, then take it easy. If you are tired to the point that your training is suffering and you don't know what to do, then you haven't read the thread at all.

TRNR wrote:

Hey Malmo, do you think this would work for an older guy preparing for a fall marathon too? I just did Boston and am running Chicago this fall. After my recovery could I do this before doing specific marathon pace stuff late in the summer. Thanks in advance if you read this.

It might, it might not. It all depends on what you've been currently doing. If what you are suggesting, "Summer of TRNR" until August, then switch to marathon training from then on, I'd be willing to bet you'd feel invigorated, not beaten down, in August.

malmo wrote:

TRNR wrote:

Hey Malmo, do you think this would work for an older guy preparing for a fall marathon too? I just did Boston and am running Chicago this fall. After my recovery could I do this before doing specific marathon pace stuff late in the summer. Thanks in advance if you read this.

It might, it might not. It all depends on what you've been currently doing. If what you are suggesting, "Summer of TRNR" until August, then switch to marathon training from then on, I'd be willing to bet you'd feel invigorated, not beaten down, in August.

That's what I was thinking. I was coming of an injury and took your advice on the two a days training for Boston and it worked great with the Phitzinger less than 70 program. I was thinking of doing a less structured progam til August, but keep the weekend long run in the marathon training schedule. Thanks Malmo.

Malmo, for the workouts of 16-24 x 150-300, how much jog recovery do you recommend? 200m? 400m? Thanks.

200 Question wrote:

Malmo, for the workouts of 16-24 x 150-300, how much jog recovery do you recommend? 200m? 400m? Thanks.

As much as you need. Go really slow. Walk if you have to. This is one time that Gallowalking is OK.

If you are running 150s accelerate the first 50, so that you are almost top-end for the 2nd 50, then stride out the last 50, always concentrating on maintaining form. For the 200s accelerate for a 100, hit it for 50, stride out the remainder. 300s gives you 100 acceleration, 100 at just below top, 100 stride.

The point here is not to have your eyeballs rolling back in your head. You should feel great after these workouts. No more than every other week.

He, fair enough. Thanks for the response.

I'm finding myself really looking forward to this summer. Hope I can get a job...

What would you want one of those for?

The best soccer season of my life came after a summer in which I couldn't get a job. I just said "screw it" and played/trained 4-6 hrs/day.

800 dude wrote:

What would you want one of those for?

The best soccer season of my life came after a summer in which I couldn't get a job. I just said "screw it" and played/trained 4-6 hrs/day.

In skill sports it works that way. Remember, Michael Jordan got cut from his basketball team, the next Summer he played 8 hours a day every day and the rest is history.