thebigquestions wrote:
high mileage, low intensity is their mantra
that's why a multitude of schools dominate Cornell's mid D program. It's middle of the pack in heps
My general philosophy is to ignore the critics but when people are so off, sometimes it's hard so here goes.
To me, one of the bad parts about the sport of running in general is often times the followers of the sport, even fellow coaches/athletes, are so ignorant they don't even know when good coaching is going on.
For example, the person above has no idea what they are talking about. Every year at the end of the year, I re-score the conference meets 800 on up. I also score the mid-d events (800, 1k, 1500, mile, 4 x 800 and DMR) separately.
Here are the mid-d scores for the last 6 years (2005-2011)
Cornell 342
Columbia 333
Princeton 283
Penn 212
Yale 148
Dartmouth 145
Brown 44
Harvard 43
I'm not sure exactly how that means we are getting dominated (although we certainly got dominated two weeks ago).
Since it looks like one of the kids on the team (or JK?? if it sounds like JK it probably is JK) has already posted about our training thread, I'm not sure if I need to explain our training (Nor am I sure I really want to and I may delete that post).
But what I will say is one of the things I'm proudest of is the success our mid-d UNIT (i capitalize unit as there have been a lot of guys in a lot of events and far too often people focus on one or two stars) has had here. The fact is that when I got hired there were detractors who said I would be a good distance coach but terrible mid-d coach (including the Columbia grad Conto - who has since been man enough to email me an apology).
What most people don't seem to understand is that if you truly understand running, you should be able to coach all events. The last thing I did before driving up to Cornell was have lunch with my friend, Rich Kenah of 1:43 800 fame. I had trained a little for a marathon with Rich after he stopped running the 800.
I said, "Rich, I'm really confident my training will work for the long stuff but don't have a lot of experience with the 800." He said, "You've got nothing to worry about. Your stuff will work great with the mid-d, it's the same philosphy I used. Trust me."
He was right and it ironically was the mid-d unit that put us on the map.
The previous coach left mainly because he wasn't doing much in recruiting and there was little to work with when I got here. Thankfully, when I showed up, there were three sophomores who had some mid-d talent despite having very limited success in the mile in HS - Oliver Tassinari (4:16), Bruce Hyde (4:20), and Sam Mackenzie (4:22).
Those guys improved A TON - the smallest improvement was 12 seconds - and really put us on the map (Oliver ran 4:04, Bruce ran 4:00 (3:42), Sam ran 4:08 (3:50).
Their senior year - 2005 - is when we really busted out as program. I've always felt that the 2005 Heps indoor meet at Harvard is when we really arrived as we went 1-2 in the 1k and 1-2 in the mile. Later that year, we got 3rd at Penn Relays in the DMR - beating the likes of Gtown with Lukezic, Oregon, Providence, etc. That year, we also won the 1st of 5 straight Eastern IC4a crowns in the 4 x 800 (we won a 6th this year indoors and 3 times have had the #1 indoor time in the country in the 4 x 800).
But to me, if we're going to talk training philosophy, then I think my 1st three conference champs in Oliver (mile champ) Bruce (xc champ) and Sam (1k) are the perfect guys to be talking about as they represent what we are all about.
They all improved a ton but in different ways. You just have to know your runners and what is best for them. In track, they all were milers but they were three totally different runners. Bruce was amazing at xc, Oliver could barely do it and Sam couldn't do it at all.
The guy who says I don't call recruits is incorrect, but I do think the huge improvements we had early on may have spoiled me a bit. Most guys don't improve that much so it helps to get some studs out of HS.
So many college programs are maniacal in terms of recruiting -with 2 people working non stop to land people - and I've certainly haven't been like that. I think John Kellogg told me I've brought in 19 sub 9:30 guys here and I'm in my 10th year. I bet some of our rivals do that in 2-3 years. I've never had a sub-9 or Footlocker finalist.
There are probably a few reasons for that. First of all, most of my time here, I was a part-time coach and worked a lot on LRC. Secondly, I also relate well to underdogs as I was one myself when I ran. Thirdly, I really do philosophically believe that every guy you recruit should be a college runner. Now I know not every runner pans out in college but is shouldn't be a 25% success rate like it seemingly at so many places. If someone is talented, they should progress in their running each year and be good by the time they graduate.
You know the phrase that parents use, "You're only as happy as your least happy child." For me, "I'm only as happy as my least successful recruit." The idea of throwing 8 eggs against a wall and seeing which two survive was abhorrent to me when I started. As I age, i get why it's what happens but still don't love the concept.
Ok i'm starting to sound self-righteous and have written way too much but the ignorant post got me going.
If you truly want to know about my training, give me a call or shoot me an email. Mr. "high mileage and low intensity" doesn't know what he's talking about.