2-hour runs.

I wrote to Winrow when I was living and working in Croydon (1980) and expressed interest in coming to the U.S. to run. Despite my advanced age (24 years in 1980) he offered me a partial running scholarship to Mansfield where I had a tuition free waiver.

By the time I got to Mansfield (PA) in September 1980, Winrow had changed some of his running philosophy somewhat, and advocted some faster running, hills and track work for his runners.

I also liked Winrow, because he let me do my own thing in training, as I am a bit of a loner - I liked to do a morning run on my own and then join the lads for the workout in the afternoon. Winrow gave me a lot of autonomy to train how I wanted.

I was always limited as a runner, but managed to nab the Mansfield record in the indoor 3 mile run (14:420 at Bucknell in February 1981. At the time it had been snowing in the area for about 30 days, and I was just doing base training (slow) in the snowy streets, so I was somewhat surprised to run 14:41 for 3 miles, going through mile 1 in just over 4:40.

It has been an interesting life.

Ghost in Korea

My mistake. I meant to say that Ed was mentioned in Tom's book. But like was said by many there are several different routes to success and as George Sheenan said "we are all experiments in one"-- not an exact quote, but close enough.

Much of this is in need to consider the following: age & goal.

If I'm in my late 30's, early 40's I'm not doing more than 70 miles per week at ANY time. I am also assuming this training is for marathon or 1/2 marathon training only.

When in my 20's, a 5 miler before work, and then 8-12 after work for 3-4 days a week was fine. One weekday with an afternoon track workout added in, and one weekend with a long run with tempo or track interval in the middle.

My 90-110 mi per week in my 20's was MUCH more beneficial with the workouts, more-so than the long runs over 90 minutes. All being said,m you just need to be in condition to run hard, or still be able to push when tired.

Thanks. And not to push this too far, but how did you learn about either Winrow or Mansfield in Croydon? It's just that even I had never heard of the place until I went to Shippensburg and started competing against them, and I'm from Pennsylvania.

I'm originally from Britain, and used to read Runner's World with a lot of interest. I read an article about Winrow which mentioned his connection to Mansfield State. I wrote to him, asking him if I could run for his school, despite my age (24 years old!) and he invited me to the Blue Mountain Summer Camp (Tim Johnston/ 2:15 marathoner was there, as was Marc Bossardet/2:21 marathoner) in upstate PA, and from there he helped me get into Mansfield, even though I didn't have SAT's.

I loved my time at Mansfield. Welles Lobb was a graduate of Mansfield, and went on to run a 2:23 marathon. Tom Carter used to come and run there.

After graduating, I came back to PA, 10 years later to get my M.A. in Communications from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. There was a great runner there by the name of Dan Pszeniczky....and others (Tim Thomas...), but I had no time for running then because I was a graduate assistant. I just looked at the meets.

Would you agree that the PSAC is one of the strongest Div 2 conferences in the U.S.?

Ghost in Korea

Could you tell us more about the coaching methods of Steve Spence? I have a lot of admiration for Spence and his running exploits, even as we speak he is training hard as a master, and recently ran 23:41, 5 mile road race as a 41 year old.

But is Spence a good coach, and does he promote the way he trains to his athletes. For example do the Shipp. guys do a lot of weight lifting like Spence?

Ghost in Korea

Yes, I definitely agree that the PSAC is one of the strongest DII conferences in the country. Probably not the strongest, I'd give that to whichever one has Western State and Adams State.

I'm a bit older than you are and was graduated by 1974. When I was at Shippensburg the cross country program was just starting up and the athletic director was constantly trying to kill it. Mansfield, Kutztown, Clarion, and Cheney were the only PSAC teams we were able to beat. We could beat Kutztown because they never had enough runners to field a full team.

Bloomsburg had two good guys, Terry Lee and Tim Waechter but the two best runners in the conference were dave antagnoli from Edinboro who came eighth in the 1972 OT 10,000 and Jeff Bradley from Millersville who was third in the AAU xc championships in 1975 0r 76.

After I left a guy called Paul Kaiser who had coached at Chambersburg High for many years took over and built the program into what it is now. He was the guy who brought both John Doub and Spence to the school. But I don't know much at all about what Spence has them doing now.

At the risk of brining up the touchy subject of the 2 hour run again, if impact is the main limiting factor for not running forever, or being able to run 2 hours a day, wouldn't running on a low impact surface, like trails help. Obviously if you run 2 hours on roads it is going to really take a toll, especially if you are running at a decent pace. However, if you run on trails, that are technical enough that a decent pace becomes 8 minute miles or slower that is going to significantly reduce the strain on your legs.

I only mention this since I had a fair amount of success (I improved a lot at least) running 1:40-2 hours on trails then getting in a faster run on road or dirt.

Yes, low impact on soft surfaces does allow a runner to run 2 hours continuously every day for long periods of time.

I did this for three months one winter, going easy on the flat and hard on the hills. It was always muddy, I ran almost the same course every day, 14-15 miles in 1.55 -2.15

after all that I was in great shape.

Sounds like you found a good system that worked for

you.

Ghost mas made several posts that makes one think and

I wouldn't disagree that most elites do not do daily

two hour runs.

That said, Bob Deines' 2:20 marathon in the late 60's was

an elite time, so the two hour daily runs and 3-4 hour once

a week runs worked for him. I know that it can be argued

that he might have been faster with 1 hour doubles or

some other combination. Joe Henderson quoted Bob as being

happy with his methods and unconcerned if there was a better

way or not.

The point being that mentally that was what Bob wanted to

do.

I think if Bob Deines were training in this era, with more of a focus on balanced training with plenty of double days, he would have run around 2:14-2:16 marathon, and not 2:20.

I knew a guy from Ireland (Gerry Staunton) who was less talented than Deines, but Staunton ran a 2:16 marathon, and around 29:30 for 10.000 track, with balanced training incorporating some double days, fartlek, intervals and a long run.

Ghost in Korea

ghost wrote:

I think if Bob Deines were training in this era, with more of a focus on balanced training with plenty of double days, he would have run around 2:14-2:16 marathon, and not 2:20.

I knew a guy from Ireland (Gerry Staunton) who was less talented than Deines, but Staunton ran a 2:16 marathon, and around 29:30 for 10.000 track, with balanced training incorporating some double days, fartlek, intervals and a long run.

Ghost in Korea

You mentioned before that you ran the school record 14:41 when you were just jogging outside in the snow. Didn't you ever make the correlation that the slow easy volume worked for you? Maybe that's more important than the rest of the things that you consider to be part of a "balanced" program. Why were you not able to improve your time after you started doing "balanced training"?

Hmmmm......

One thing to keep in mind about Deines was he raced very, very often. Doing that will "balance" a program to a significant degree. Not only that, but I'm not at all sure he'd have been faster if he'd stuck an anaerobic session or two into his weeks on top of a race.

I do agree that most people running for two hours a day will do better by breaking it into two runs on all but a day or two. But obviously some people have done wery well on a single two hour run.

So you start at whatever pace you can handle and over time the speed just picks up on its' own?

I've been doing it wrong then. It would appear that for this protocol you need to be PATIENT.

Whoops.

Thanks for the thread & replies, all.

Whoa, hold everything wrote:

So you start at whatever pace you can handle and over time the speed just picks up on its' own?

"its"

Glad we were able to make you feel good about yourself. Now go upstairs and help Mommy with the dishes like a good little cretin, OK?

I cannot cite the study, but George Beinhorn's latest book,

circa September 2007, has a section in which he says he

read that Ingrid Kristiansen stated that there was a lot

of benefits from up to 2 hour runs, but additional time

was more injury risky than the additional benefits would

be worth.

How many 2 hour runs does McDougal do? I know he does 120-130 miles a week in singles, which seems like a lot.

On Kristiansen's website she also argues for doing two shorter runs ina day. She was fond of forty five minute runs, essentially saying that allows you to cover a good bit of distance but ata quicker pace.