JK is brilliant

the guy (jk) can write well. it just that pepole go apeshit and declare him as the second coming of jesus christ. it is cultish.

may be i just disagree with JK cause i dont find this "i dont kiss girls but run 150mpw" attitude not very cool.

I've tried to do it in JK-Style for some weeks and yes i got the impression that it makes you stiff(er)(intellect, how you deal with emotions, less energetic, less social).

I more of a fan of the Baumann-attitude(i know about the toothpaste):"Running must be passion, running must be fun, when if dont feel like doing a distance run or track-session, i simply dont run."

Forest Gump ran high miles and he was no genius.

Wello, you obviously completely missed the section of that article I just posted about 4 times. The very last thing JK says in his training guide is: "Oh yes, and don't forget the most important criterion of all: LOVE running."

You seemingly COMPLETELY missed that. Honestly, how do you extrapolate: "Have no social life" from "10-15x3 minutes@ LTV, 40 sec. recovery jog"?

Can you read anf process information? It would appear otherwise based on that last crock of illogic.

Wow, I am now convinced that some people on this board really ARE as pathetically stupid as they appear.

Who dared compare JK with Christ? Answer: Your own feeble mental circuitry, which apparently fizzes out quite often like a flat can of Coca-Cola.

I'm guessing no one else has found this yet...

Very cool, thanks.

ok lets say i feel fresh and good and want to hammer 8miles cause i LOVE running fast, the next day i feel trashed so i just jog some miles or otherwise i will not recover and then it wouldnt be fun the next couple of days too.

For me its not fun running 15miles almost every day and i dont know anyone(and i know some professional runners who have the whole day time to run) who would enjoy that or would consider doing that.

some good training here:

http://www.letsrun.com/2004/ritzentry.php

looks like typical training of a world-class distance runner.

wello, just to bludgeon you with more JK:

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~galebach/jk.html

FLG RUN:

Can't you tell on your own how you might feel at 130 mpw? You say you have been running 100 mpw regularly, so don't you have a better feel than we do if you will be OK at 130?

After all, you are asking us to determine if you will get injured by going from 100 -> 130. If you made it all the way to 100 mpw you must remember how it was to ramp up from 50 to 80, and from 70 to 100.

It will be the same as that was.

Ah, Hodgie-san, you reappear in good form. Was in NE this summer and picked up a copy of THE RAT with coverage of Clinton race and your long streak,of course spurred on by my thrown gauntlet win of '88 !

Anyway, to original poster, etc, yes, you can handle high aerobic mileage, but don't be afraid of taking one day per week COMPLETELY off. Ovett's coach told us that our glycogen stores -no matter how easy we run- slowly deplete during the week, so one day off, with proper eating, tops the glyco-tank up to full again. Having said that about one day flat off, I would suggest (as maybe JK hints at in his saying that we don't need to be wedded to 7 day week/cycles)that many runners should create an 8 day cycle. Heck, if Paula Radcliffe can take every 8th day off (and she does, throwing the day out in her log), the mere mortals might consider doing the same. Personally, I like taking the day off when I need to anywhere within an 8 day period. It certainly has worked for me, as I can handle upwards of 100-120 mile weeks at age 46. As you adapt, much of your mileage (after an easy couple of miles) can be done at a pretty high-end aerobic pace if you are feeling good on the day or into the run.

Thanks to everyone for posting the older JK links again. I always find it useful for my HS team.

wello, they are about to drink the jk kool aid!

vut? wrote:

Look at Wejo, injuries surely played a role in him not fullfilling his potential. Who knows how fast he could have gone if healthy? We will never know. Yes, he improved a ton, very quickly (few years) but then injuries and essential stagnation.

No magic bullets in this sport. But just beware, most coaches conveniently leave out the injury riddled mess associated with the "gentle" and "limitless" mileage when praising mileage.

Vut,

I don't know if others have ripped you to shreds but here we go.

People who use weldon as an example of how JK's system has failed or how it leads to injuries just simply don't know the facts. I assume you're just being lazy and don't know weldon's history.

Here's weldon's history.

sophomore in college-5th in the Ivy league in the 10k pr of 30:30 or 39. not sure exactly.

JR- same PR i believe. 5th in conference again.

SR - PR of 30:19 5th yet again. So he's still got another of eligibility and thinks maybe another coach can get me to improve. Runs a 5th year at UTexas (not when vig was there) and runs 30:14 and doesn't score.

So basically from his sophomore year, 3 years of very little improvement.

That takes us to the spring of 1997.

Then he gets on the JK plan. He finally breaks 30 and runs like 2949in 1998 - one year later. He improved more in that year (25 seconds) than in the previous 3 combined.

2000-28:27.58 5r2 MSR Walnut CA 14 Apr

2001 28:10.14 1 McGill Montréal 10 Jul

2003 28:06.58 4 NC Stanford CA 19 Jun.

So who knows how fast he could have gone if healthy? Are you crazy? He was healthy for 5 years doing the shit that other coaches espouse and ran 30:14. 3 years under JK and he's at 28:27, 4 and he's at 28:10 and 6 at 28:06. It wasn't a sudden improvement. It takes time.

Please don't mouth off about things you don't know the facts about.

Why would the improvemetn under a high mileage program be sudden anyway? The one thing JK always says is he doesn't know if he'd want to take on a big name as they'd want improvement in year 1 and it likely would take longer than that.

Can anyone explain to me just which of JK's ideas are original, daring, and innovative enough to warrant the "genius" and "brilliant" labels? Not a full post of his articles, not an argument about whether his training principles are correct or not, but an actual justification of the idolatry.

why should the improvement only have come from the high mileage and not from the tempo-runs, running slower on the easy days or moving to altitude, doing drills and alactic strides? May be he would have run even faster when he did just 8 instead of 15-20miles on his easy days.

As i wrote, there is a lot of good advice in the JK-Articles but i dont agree with the get the miles in.

When i want to learn about training i try to find out how the best train or how the best europeans or the best with a similar social/physiological/environmental background runners train.

So i take Baumann,Kennedy,Moorcroft and Carroll in the 5k as my role-models or in the 10k Barrios,Pinto,Mamede,Lopes or Lopes,Jones and Baldini in the Marathon and all of them didn train 120-150miles per week.But all of them did frequently most of the year 3k-10k pace intervals, high quality distance training(may be with the exception of Baumann who did the training of masters 60+ runners in terms of volume and intensity).

So did they all train wrong?

All their coaches were wrong?

Rojo, some are indeed crazy, but your synopsis is clear and proves, if the irate fools will for once accept logic, that Wejo has improved because of and not despite JK.

Wild hare wrote:

Can anyone explain to me just which of JK's ideas are original, daring, and innovative enough to warrant the "genius" and "brilliant" labels? Not a full post of his articles, not an argument about whether his training principles are correct or not, but an actual justification of the idolatry.

Every day I become further astounded at the level of tomfoolery and idiocy that so permeates this board. Here we have an example from Mr. "Wild Hare." First, allow me to query Wild Hare; what innovation or genius have you brought to the world of distance running? What have you contributed? Or is your brain wounded from those hours spent maligning people you do not know with useless invective?

Idolatry is it? And what shall we say of your idol worship of saying stupid things on the Internet? Applying lessons learned from a top coach to improve at a sport flies far from idolatry indeed. Try the phrase "common sense." That fits like a glove.

As to your question, here is an article that describes, showing JK's ability to make his athletes better, why JK is brilliant:

If you have surpassed the fourth grade reading level, you might make it through.

The articles are an integral part to showing why his ideas are original, so scratching those from the equation eliminates the point of asking the question in the first place. Should we ask of Einstein's genius and request that no discussion of math and physics be included?

Or maybe we could chat about Michael Jordan's great scoring records, but let's just leave out the part about basketball.

Idiot. Please, return to your job licking the floor clean at McDonald's of discarded hamburger meat filled with shards of glass, rat poison, and spare hair filled with lice escaped from employee hairnets.

One of our sport's great hidden minds speaks his thoughts on JK's article. I will not reveal who he is, but probably many of you know who he is or have read about him or heard of him in your cult circles:

The article that you directed me to has some critical inaccuracies regarding physiology of exercise regarding aerobic and anaerobic metabolic processes and muscle fiber type relationships the energy system activation, and also misses the primary objectives of sub-maximal, lower intensity endurance training:

1) the development of localized capillarization for O@ saturation/CO2 removal and reduction in lactate production at same levels of muscular output,

2) the increased concentration and efficiency of red blood cells and hemoglobin enzmatic activity,

3) the balancing of fat/glycogen metabolism and efficiency with blood glucose utilization both at the muscle cell level and at the serum level,

4) the developement of localized connective tissue/joint structure fitness and capillarization since connective tissues will only be trained for adaptation at loads below 65% intensity

5) the psychological perceived exertion index that is developed through increased workloads completed in training.

Not to be critical, but most of what he discusses regarding O2 expenditure and running economy is so fundamental or basic that anyone associated with the sport is well aware of this principle.

As for his rationale regarding the "golden age" of American high school, collegiate and post-collegiate distance running during the period from the 1960's through the 1980's, a few sociological factors are paramount:

1) this was the height of the post-war baby boom with the largest "pool" of home-grown talent coming of age during this generation,

2) the pool of developing domestic athletes was not depleted by the presence of other sport options at the elementary, junior high and high school and club level along with the introduction of personal computers, electronic gadgetry, VHS/DVD entertainment etc.

3) the collegiate development system reducing scholarships and programs available to men for track and cross country first as a cost savings measure in the 1980's and later in response to the "gender equity movement," and this fueling the drive to pursue the recruitment of foreign talent that comes "ready-made from overseas,"

4) American life and school-age athletes reflects a post-industrial character--Ever since the elementary and secondary public school acts and child labor laws of 1964 and 1965, every kid in the United States rides in a subsidized bus or parental car to school, takes minimal if no physical education/recess throughout their early developmental years and is exposed to more "arm-chair" academic and personal entertainment activities daily, both in school and at home.

American distance running has suffered over the last 25 years for many reasons, and the physical training program emphasis is an old argument that, in my opinion, had only a minimal influence on this decline--For example, an elite prep or collegiate athlete over the last 25 years has become elite because he had the raw potential and the guidance of a holistic coach that knew how to develop the capacities needed to be elite--The talent pool, character of the athletes and American sociological factors have greatly reduced the sport while developing nations have used the sport to move their societies to join the 20th and 21st centuries.

"But Who Am I?" Just a dumb...

Dude,

Where does this level of virulence come from? You're acting as if I'm calling JK an idiot (as you called me) or even that I'm saying all his ideas are full of shit. If anything, I am asking a question of the people who tossed the words "brilliant" or "genius" into this post. Those are terms of idolatry. Please provide examples of idiotic statements I have made. In your reply you state "The articles are an integral part to showing why his ideas are original" but don't give an example of which ideas you are referring to. I think JK does an excellent job of creating analogies to explain some of his principles. That makes him a good writer, but not a genius. There are a lot of coaches in this country, and the world over, who are more accomplished than JK. I don't hear many of them described as geniuses.

I know enough science to critique the mechanistic explanations he tosses into his articles, but I'm not even doing that here. If you wish to discuss my qualifications to do so, I'll give you my email address and you can do it directly.

I would not reveal his identity for the sake of saving embarassment. Great mind? His analysis is crap. Read on.

Yet no mention of the inaccuracies. I do so enjoy it when people say "Oh, but there are so many things wrong with this" and then go on to offer no further explanation whatsoever. This guy must be a really great mind indeed.

From JK himself: "The main purposes of continuous easy runs are to build capillary beds, increase the size and number of mitochondria in the muscle cells, improve fuel metabolism, increase aerobic metabolites, and train fast twitch (FT) muscle fibers to become oxidative. "

That would be a submachine shot to the foot of this "great mind" and a point for the other team.

From JK: "Balancing fat and glycogen utilization is essential for marathon races, obviously, but it also is important for training purposes."

This guy is absolutely murdering himself. What have great minds come to when they cannot even read?

From JK: "The ideal training zone for the purpose of recovering from hard workouts is between 60% and 65% of max effort. Effort level is ascertained by subtracting resting HR from maximum HR to obtain the range. 60% effort refers to 60% of the way up the range from resting HR to max HR. For a runner with a resting HR of 40 beats per min. and a max of 200 bpm, the range is 160. 60% of 160 is 96, so 60% effort for this runner would be 40 + 96 = 136 bpm. The HR can be kept under strict control by use of a telemetric heart rate monitor, but it is also necessary and much more effective to learn to run by perceived effort."

If this guy were a pitcher he would have been unceremoniously removed from the game long ago.

I suppose you can translate this last as "You feel less tired over time if you run more." That this is obvious beyond discussion should not, if you wish, harm his reputation as a "great mind."

But he is beig critical, and further, he does not know what the hell he is talking about.

Far from bein basic, if you read through this thread, you will also find that "anyone associated with this sport" hasn't a dog's chance in algebra class of understanding what the hell JK is talking about. Basic? I think not.

This is absurd. The United States population today approaches 300 million, 10 times as large as Kenya. There are plenty of good athletes in their 20's at this time. This explanation offers nothing.

Dead wrong. Baseball has always been the national pastime, and kids have never flocked to running as the sport of choice.

This would have no bearing whatsoever on today's distance runners. U.S. runners were WORSE in the 90's. Today, when there are more lazy entertainment options available then EVER BEFORE, the runners should be the worst. And this is not the case.

Really? So changes in training have MINIMAL effect on performance? You might want to notify those poor, misinformed fools over in Ethiopia and Kenya. I am sure, twixt the sub-12:50 5K's and 53 second last laps, they would really express interest in this idiotically constructed idea.

You confuse national attitude changes and attitude towards exercise with being representative of the small pool of people who have CHOSEN to dedicate themselves to training.

I really have not the slightest idea who this guy is, but I implore you to keep his identity concealed so people will not pop their internal organs vacillating between defecating in their pants and laughing.

then why don't you write something then monographic...