I trained under Mark for 5 years, from that nascent period of his [un-paid] assistant-ship at CU, into my post-collegiate career.
I know that a lot of the training has changed and evolved from what we were doing in the early to mid 90's. From what I've heard, the mileage has decreased from what we were doing back then (I don't know, forgive me, I've been way out of the loop for a long time).
Anyway, for what it's worth, in our era, Mark was always very concerned with both the injured and those most vulnerable to injury. During my years, Mark was constantly backing the injury-prone off from the training and conservatively guiding them back to health and fitness.
I've always had a hard time with this idea that the program is a machine-like, meat-grinder that chews and spits out the majority of the athletes, with only a few uber-runners surviving when the smoke cleared.
Through the years it seems as though the majority of those who got hurt from the training were runners who had more of an impatient or restless temperment, almost like they found the training to not be enough of a challenge. We even used to joke about how many visitors would come and run with us during the summer and outright mock the training (that it was way too easy, or way too slow).
It is a very patient, and very long-term focused system. There may be a few notable injuries, never-bloomers, and burn-outs, but the list of those CU products who indeed "survived" to have a post-collegiate career is much longer.
And if you look at that list, what people always fail to miss, is how many CU alumni have gone on to have long post collegiate careers (qualifying for multiple Olympic trials).
Just look at all the recent, frankly assinine bashing of Adam Goucher. For all the [indeed significant] injuries, he still had a post-collegiate career that spanned 4 OT periods. Despite the later coaching changes, a decade of foundation built under Mark made this possible . . .
. . . but you guys already knew all of this.
PAX