JIM RYUNS STORY!!!! 5:30 MILE TO 4:10 MILE

I've already mentioned this race. Snell was on the outs with Lydiard and was not being coached by him. He wasn't running all that well. He certainly failed to live up to his potential on that tour. Could it have been the lack of coaching?

Now it's my turn to ask you a question. If Ryun indeed was preordained by God or by genetics to peak at the age of 20, wouldn't that also mean that he would be physically over the hill at 21 due to old age or some disease? (We know in hindsight that it wasn't disease.)

I never said he peaked at 20 years of age. I don't equate setting a PR with peaking. Could he have run a faster time than his best? Sure he could have. I am sure he would tell you the same thing. Who can honestly tell you that they reached their ultimate potential?

Heck, I can tell you that all my PR's are not the fastest I could have run.

Times are drastically different today than they were back in those days. With shoe contracts and prize money and appearnace fees, runners experience a longer racing career post collegiately in general. But even today we have runners that run their fastest in college and then lose focus or drive or something. But then that's life.

By the way, I didn't intend to smear Timmons. Some have pointed out that he was a much better college coach than I give him credit for. That's fair enough. Although I will point out that Ryun was Timmons's best athlete, and his disappointing senior year at KU was the result of Timmons pushing him past the breaking point. Ryun's disappointing performances at the NCAAs in 1969 were the result of Timmons's coaching. So how great of a coach can he be?

Ryun was overtrained, period, and you cannot blame him for that. The athlete is on a scholarship, and the coach is in the position of authority. Timmons's loyalties ran to KU. I'm not saying that it was morally reprehensible to put KU ahead of Ryun's career.

I'm just saying that overtraining and pressure were harmful to Ryun and caused him to hang up his spikes after the NCAAs.

But since KU was in a tight battle with San Jose State for the NCAA title in 1969 (Ryun's senior year), I can see how it would have been difficult for Timmons to hold Ryun out of the championships. But this situation would not have come up at all if Ryun hadn't been badly overtrained for years.

Ryun was in a position of being "Jim Ryun" and having to live up to the world's expectations, which no doubt made things worse for him. But that pressure came from early success, and he wouldn't have run so fast so young had he not been pushed by Timmons.

Living in the past wrote:

and he wouldn\'t have run so fast so young had he not been pushed by Timmons.

Exactly.

Nobody is perfect and I\'m sure Timmons would agree that in hindsight, Ryun at times \"overtrained\". BUT, when you set the WORLD RECORD and are dominant, you have largely succeeded. Have you reached your \"ultimate potential\"? Does anyone really know if they\'ve maxed out? The answer is an emphatic NO. However, I\'m willing to bet that Jim Ryun came closer to his \"ultimate potential\" than 95% of those of us reading this thread. He put in the massive amount of work necessary to be the greatest miler in the world. Any overtraining mistakes were made in the direct effort of trying to reach the \"ultimate potential\" of which you speak.

Remember that it was typical for athletes to retire early in the 1960s. Most track athletes hung up the spikes shortly after college. Post-collegiate racing was less common then.

Living in the past wrote:

After all, if he were really that devoted to your dad, he would have stayed at Wichita East and coached him during your senior year. But his career advancement took priority.

Perhaps Timmons was looking at the long term. Perhaps Timmons knew that Ryun would be interested in going to KU, especially with Timmons as coach. So it may be that Timmons took the job to continue coaching Ryun after HS. This continued the coach/athlete relationship as opposed to letting another college coach step in and break up their continuity. Isn't this the angle Alan Webb/Scott Razcko take to this?

Mike Fanelli,

I pulled out the Bix 7 results from 1985 that I had stashed away in a box. Really looking for clarity that I'm sure you can help me with. I remember GARY Fanelli running at the Bix, all dressed up in a suit or whatever crazy gear he could find to keep it fun. And he'd still roll out. Finished 15th that year in 35:06. I'm guessing you guys were brothers and maybe you just didn't run that year?! Just curious.

Here are the top 15 runners from the '85 Bix: Mark Curp, Bill Rodgers, Phil Coppess, Ed Sheehan, Joseph Kipsang, Krk Pfeffer, Craig Young, Paul Gompers (basing out of Kansas City at the time), John Wellerding, Kevin Sturman, Juan Zedina, Manny Bautista, Dexter Lehman, Brad Little, and then Gary Fanelli. Curp beat Rodgers by two seconds, with Coppess back another 33 seconds from Rodgers. An interesting name to note is Carey Pinkowski (Hammond, IN) finishing in a very respectable 36:03. And ChGray, I don't remember you ever running the Bix, despite being relatively close in Kansas City. Any particular reason?

Maybe I'm wrong, but didn't they just train as hard as possible to be as good as possible & then the next year just train harder & so on? They didn't know any better back then. Here you have a kid who runs 4:07 in his first year as a track athlete. Breaks 4 (which makes him world class)& qualifies for the Olympics as a 17 yr old. They had no option but to train to be the best.

& finally someone chimed in on the difference in career length back then compared to today.

great thread. you gotta love the ryun mystique. it's a shame that all of us have never put everything all out on the line and gone balls out or bust- that applied regarding training, racing, life, or whatever.

Holy Crow. Enough.

Again, you keep telling us you're not here to smear anyone, yet you won't let it go. You got what you initially wanted when Drew admitted that both Coach Timmons and Ryun himself admitted that Timmons overtrained Ryun. I've heard Timmons make the same admission not only about Ryun, but about other KU athletes.

Do you feel it necessary to enumerate all of the ways in which YOU feel Timmons failed Ryun (on his way to helping him set WRs in 3 standard events) for reasons other than dragging the man down?

Mike-my apologies. It was Gary at the Bix 7. Were you ever at the Trivira Twosome in NYC? That was a great event.

ok, living in my ass, while you finish up writing your manifesto, i think you are seeing the intervals and not the speed that Ryun was running. I think Timmons hit it about right on in the 60s. At first glance, Ryun's training looks stupid but if you look at the high volume and moderate speeds, he was trained right. Ryun was incredibly fast and those speeds, like jtupper touched on, were moderate in relation to Jim amazing leg speed.

And never mind all his running exploits. What made Jim great and makes him great is his heart and who he is. I don't think you can find a better person than Jim Ryun.

7th grader running a 15:47 is not superhuman unless he was a she.

KevinM. Jim Ryun is a national treasure. That's why we are discussing his career more than 30 years after he retired. And any discussion of his career has to involve his relationship with Timmons. I've obviously hit a nerve in discussing this relationship. So be it. If you see any factual errors that I've made, please point them out.

As for the guy who pointed out that careers were short back in the day, what about Jim Grelle and George Young? They competed well into their thirties. Also, Ryun did compete until he was 26, but he peaked out at 20, which was too early. The problem isn't that Ryun retired too young. It's that Ryun was ruined before he ever reached his prime, and for that you have to point the finger at the coach.

Timmons was limited by the conventional wisdom of his era. He didn't recognize Lydiard's genius, even though Lydiard was already world famous for his successes at the Rome and Tokyo Olympics.

Jim Ryun was a man for the ages, and anyone who is a true fan of Ryun has to lament the tragedy of his career. The world will never know how great this magnificent athlete ultimately would have been had his coach not burned him out at a ridiculously early age.

Charlie... this doesn't fit this thread, but I heard a great story about a trip you took many years ago down to Mississippi for a 10k & I think a Marathon in New Orleans the next day. Does that ring a bell?

Red Eye. Why do aerobic intervals? What are you trying to achieve by doing that type of workout? What's the purpose behind the frequent rest stops? Wouldn't it have been better to have Ryun run continuously at subthreshold? By the way, Arthur Lydiard's book "Run To The Top" was available in 1962.

And Red Eye, I agree with you that you won't find a better person than Jim Ryun.

finally wrote:

living in the past - you have a lot of gaul,

Caesar had a lot of Gaul too.

[ By the way, Arthur Lydiard's book "Run To The Top" was available in 1962.

So?

So, the most successful track coach in the world was offering up his wisdom to other coaches. This is in reply to those who say that the knowledge wasn't available back in the mid-sixties. The information was there as long as you were open to it and had the curiosity. You didn't HAVE to learn about track coaching from a swim coach.

Yes, Timmons was an old school coach. An ex marine. It was his way or the highway. But, that doesn't make him unique or stand out from alot of coaches in the 60's.

I've read both of Ryun's books. As a kid, I must have read the first book, hundreds of times. I can tell you the times of the participants in the various races..lol

I thought Kenny Moore unfairly took a shot at Ryun's one and out heat at the 64 Olympis in Tokyo. Yes, maybe he was too young to crack the top 6 in the final; but if I recall, he was sick with a flu/cold that had been going around Tokyo. Moore never mentions that.