Craig Virgin: High School training?

CVFC wrote:

I object to your characterization of your HS training as crude, naive or simplistic. On the contrary, it was pretty smart, whether due to dumb luck or inner genius.

In particular, the bulk of your fartlek and interval workouts were done by effort, without a watch with distances mostly guesstimated. The effect was to ensure that you learned to judge the right effort during workouts, and, perhaps more importantly for a HS runner, not limited by the watch.

You're doing all of the HS runners who come to letsrun a great service with your posts.

Thank you, CVFC! But, when you attend clinics or read about what Alberto Salazar or Jerry Schumacher are doing with their Nike funded clubs....or other recognized HS or college coaches today....everything that I did in H.S.... and maybe even my training program from '79 - '84 that yielded such remarkable results..... almost has to look "crude, naïve, and simplistic" in comparison. But, the whole point of this thread is to show you readers/runners that you don't have to have a "perfect scenario" with "ideal circumstances/resources" to be a successful distance runner. it can be done as crudely as I was doing... as long as there are basic training elements adhered to and you develop both your physical and mental skills in training/racing. I have long been a proponent that all coaches at any level have to be training their pupils body AND mind to advence them in their career. There were fewer sources to turn to for training/racing info back then. I did take RW and TFNews....but that was about it. Didn't read any books. Most of my training theories were developed from talking to other coaches/athletes as well as personal experimentation and using basic common sense. That and being committed to a consistent half way intelligent training program that pushed me further both mentally and physically with each passing month. Some days, I really think that today's coaches are making it way to complicated.... at almost all levels.

Craig Virgin wrote:

I think I reached more of my absolute potential in HS than in college. The key was always consistency and gradual improvement as the year went on.... from week to week... or certainly month to month. Gradual measured progress in training and racing was my constant goal.

Why do you think you didn't reach your full potential in college? Just the different training and life in general? I love reading about all of your training and would love to hear the main differences between high school, college, and pro running if you have time to keep writing :)

details wrote:

In the NXN thread Craig Virgin said he would answer questions about his high school career, and I decided I would start the thread. So Craig, what did you do differently in training compared to kids today? What do you see as the key to your early success? I'd love to hear any details about your training or school that you think are important or worth mentioning!

Thank you, details, for inviting me to share this. Never did it before and glad that some of this is finally out of my head and written down for someone else to see and analyze for any accidental nuggets of wisdom. Smarter minds than me! It may have been 40+ years ago but I think that at least some of it still has merit for coaches and young athletes of today. If I could do it back then... surely, some of today's runners can do it, too!

If some of you are thinking that this could only work with me....and my own individual physical and psychological attributes... I would invite you to read this story about the adventure I had for 4 years with Bob Nichols who hired me to consult with him to coach his sons' private school X-C team in CO and how we won a state championship with Regis Jesuit H.S. in just 4 years. Bob was a former successful runner in an Illinois HS but worked in the private sector....and only volunteer coached the team for 4-5 years. But, he was a smart pupil and very smart. We had a successful collaboration using much of what I talked about above in this thread. It was a total team effort but this experiment showed that many of my theories could be used with other kids today with some success:

If any of you are interested in the authorized biography that Randy Sharer is putting the final touches on now... please reach out to him at

to get on the mailing list or to ask questions of him. He has done a fantastic job over the past 6-8 years to properly research my story and almost knows me better than I do. It is not a "how to" training book but it details my background story... for better or worse... and talks some of my development in training and racing but not in great detail. But, it is a starting point just like the first couple posts on this thread. The next book should probably be a training guide for middle school and high school runners in much the same vein as what I wrote about above. Thanks to all for your time to read through all this.... if you are still reading now. Craig

When you were in HS I followed every single race you ran beginning with the 9:31 World age 14 record since I lived only about 10 miles away. I'm sure you had another 5-10 seconds left if you had gotten into the fast heat at state.

Today there would have been a lot more press about your urological issues today. Despite reading all of your press clippings at the time, I barely knew about them.

Two things stand out to me in trying to place my teenage memories to your own recollections: The AAU race was to me your most impressive effort in HS, even better than the Keebler race at Prospect and that the US didn't compete in the initial World XC races where your aerobic strength would have perhaps led you to an even earlier World Cross championship in the Junior ranks. I have also always wondered why your freshman track season at Illinois wasn't up to the level that you ran in fall (Although I felt you probably peaked at Big Tens during your Freshman XC campaign). I thought that I had read about pericarditis as the cause.

I don't see how your training was naïve etc. Perhaps some would consider your hard training sessions being a bit close together and your recovery runs too brisk but on the whole it seems like solid stuff.

A lot of the modern principles are just to make the training seem more evolved while it really just does the same thing.

Craig, are you willing to say what your opinion is on the idea high schoolers shouldn't do high mileage like say keep it under 35 miles a week?

Craig; Great stuff. I am a couple of years older than you but did race Mike Durkin a few times in college. I was going to make the facetious remark along the lines of think how good you could have been if you trained right and did core, but you actually mentioned it (even though the word didn't exist back then!) We all did some push ups and sit ups.

Once again, I think the point you make that is lost on the current generation is that training is hard and needs to be hard if you want to excel. I am still coaching but it is hard to get kids to go to the wall more than once or twice a season, let alone very week.

best wishes.

Great recall and detail, Craig! Considering all the features of your lifestyle and training, you were the archetype of The American Kenyan.

You are too modest in your assessment of your 8:40. In my mind, it is a superior effort to LV's 8:29, no disrespect to that performance.

Also, you were in the "awkward" transition generation to full professional running. That, added on to all the racing "for free" in HS and college, plus the '80 boycott, I think really circumscribed your later career, impressive as it was and still is.

Great thread, one of those that makes Letsrun worth the hassles.

another canuck wrote:

Craig; Great stuff. I am a couple of years older than you but did race Mike Durkin a few times in college. I was going to make the facetious remark along the lines of think how good you could have been if you trained right and did core, but you actually mentioned it (even though the word didn't exist back then!) We all did some push ups and sit ups.

Once again, I think the point you make that is lost on the current generation is that training is hard and needs to be hard if you want to excel. I am still coaching but it is hard to get kids to go to the wall more than once or twice a season, let alone very week.

best wishes.

I can confirm that if you pick up hay or build fence all day, you get plenty of core work.

I have seen this list before, but it never ceases to amaze me. Craig says that it is missing some races, probably some shorter races at less important meets.

But what is so amazing is there are ten 2M races contested in HS competition (before June 10th) and he ran NINE sub-9:00 2-miles. Only ONE race over 9:00-flat. SIX of those sub-9:00s were accompanied by a mile double and every one of them was sub-4:18. Just unbelievable. I doubt anyone (even the many top Californians over the years) did this many.

Runners of today probably only do about 9 races per season at any distance, and avoid nearly all low-level HS races altogether.

I have been anticipating your biography for a while now. I wish it had some examples of training for different phases of your career, but I appreciate you typing out all that you did today, that is very generous of you.

If you have time it would be very interesting to see a complete listing of your competitions over Junior/ Senior years and a sample training week from each season of those years.

Years ago, Chris Lear gave me photo-copied training logs from Greg Meyer to type into an electronic copy in WORD. They were his logs from '82-83 leading up to Boston '83. The logs were subsequently published in various places but they can be seen on Bob Hodge's website.

I suppose you can scan old logs, but it would be illuminating to put those old logs into a digital format for many to enjoy.

Thanks again for providing such insight into How the Race was WON!!

Accidental nuggets of wisdom. Got to remember that Craig. So true in distance training. IMHO.

Craig Virgin wrote:

murna wrote:

Would just like to say LV jogged it in the last 300 and waved to the crowd the whole time.

With all due respect, muma, I was riding in the lead truck in front of Lukas and nothing that you wrote was true at all. He gave it his best shot or you don't know Lukas. His problem was that he ran his first mile too slow and his second mile too fast and saved nothing in the tank for the last mile and the critical last 600 meters uphill to the finish line. End of story unless you care to ask Lukas yourself.

Yes, I was going to say the same thing and I wasn't on the lead truck. Posters on here always say things like that. He wasn't jogging the last 300. Yes, he waved, so what? His effort was all out and he was hanging on as he was hurting. Jogging??? Unbelievable what some people will post on here.

bump

one of the best threads for young runners

I was just reading this thread yesterday!

you're psychic.

One of the most versatile distance runners the US for a long time. I would argue very under appreciated historically. Off hand while there may be others that I am forgetting, Shorter is the only one I can think of off the top who had the equivalent range.

I was at the meet, and what I remember is that the track did not have a rail or curb and many of the runners were running on the line.

900 acres! That's enough for more than five 18-hole golf courses assuming 160 acres for the average golf course. Wow.

900 acres / 160 acres per avg. golf course = 5.625 golf courses