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

The park is still there. Houses surround it, but you can still easily do a 1/2 mile loop. What I read earlier made it sound like the park would have been where I-135 cuts thru (directly west of the school).

jscott, I was there. What a rainy miserable day at the league meet. I had forgotten that Ryun ran that triple. I was also at the twilight meet where Jim was supposed to go for the world record in the two mile. I ran the 800 as well. Those were the day. Say hi to your brother Tom!

Rink

drewr would you mind commenting on some of the pictures on the site, for instance the sand picture and who is running with shirtless? Thanks jtupper for ommenting on effiecincy. I always wondered how is was measured. I have heard frant shorter is very very efficient. Do you have any values from him.

i did find some info myself but if you wouldn't mind commening some more

link

http://www.nytstore.com/ProdDetail.aspx?prodId=1087

No, I never tested Shorter, but heard his max was right at about 70, so he must have been quite economical. The whole issue of VO2max and economy is what brought me to come up with the value and term -- vVO2max, which combines economy and VO2max into a single variable that certainly answers a lot of question about why one runner with a 70 max can run with or beat another with an 80 max. It also tends to explain the reason some labs come up with high VO2max values for many of the people they test -- if the equipment is poorly calibrated and is giving high VO2 values, then the max looks good, but the economy (VO2submax) looks terrible. Of course these same labs hesitate to do submax tests so they can brag about the high max values that the people they test have, without having to explain the poor economy of their subjects. Jeff Wells was one of thos low-max guys (70.4) but the best economy I ever tested, and he ran a pretty fast Boston one year. Salazar and benoit had nearly identical max values (78+ for both), but clearly Alberto ran faster than Joanie, as easily explained by differences in economy. Both also had 4.0 lactate accumulations at 88% of respective maxes.

Hello Letsrun, I ran a 5:30 mile this past track season and wanted to get better at it. Although i'd love to run as quick as Mr. Ryun, that's probably NOT possible. What kind of training did this man do from his freshman to sophomore year? I am a junior now in XC, and I ran the mile in 5:30 the other day without near as much effort as I was putting in during track.

If anyone could give a sample of what Ryun did to drop that much time that would be great. I've been running a lot more, running two-three times a day recently, and I really want to get better at the mile. I don't mind going crazy with the track work, or mileage either.

Thanks,

Drew: Many thanks for responding to my questions. You and Ned obviously had your fair share of leg speed and your PRs are pretty impressive. And yes, your Dad's range was pretty unbelievable; actually legendary.

All the best,

Michael

drewr wrote:

Other PRs-Ned ran 2:59 for 3/4s, I ran 3:02. Ned ran 1:51 for 800, I was 1:53 high. Needless to say, we were no Jim Ryuns. Ned did win state his senior year in the mile in 4:19 and was third in 800 in 1:55 high. The two of us laugh about it all the time as we were running maybe 20-30 miles a week. I was just getting over mono, so my times were not that great our senior year. I split 1:57 high on a two mile relay.

Interesting... Could Ned have dropped 19 seconds in the mile by training like his dad did?

Considering he didn't in college & Drew listed Ned's lifetime PR's as 2:59, 1:51.......

jscott wrote:

Hey, Charlie; remember our senior year, in '72, when they held Sunflower League track meet at KU, in conjunction with a KU/SIU dual meet and Jim Ryun ran 3 races, as fast workouts? That was pretty neat!

And later in mid August, when they had that Pre Olympic track meet at KU for Ryun to run? (I ran the 880 in that one. I remember Powlas in the mile. Did you run that one before heading off to Warrensburg?)

What I remember about the league track meet, other than you beating me in the mile, was going into the locker room at KU and the toilets were all out in this open room, no walls in between. Anyway, I look over to my right and who was taking a dump was Jim Ryun. I'm thinking "Wow, this is pretty cool. Taking a dump beside Jim Ryun."

above post has me laughing pretty good. by the way, falcon thinks quite highly of you charlie. always had good things to say.

Mr. Daniels,

Would the runner you referred to earlier — the one from Harding University (College at the time) who tried to emulate Ryun's workouts — be Jim Crawford?

Slower Miler wrote:

What kind of training did this man do from his freshman to sophomore year?

If anyone could give a sample of what Ryun did to drop that much time that would be great.

The main thing that Ryun did was pick the right grandparents. Not something that you have much control over, at this point. There's ultimately no substitute for innate talent.

The other big thing he did was pick the right high school and coach...also not an option available to most (and he did it by accident). Bob Timmons was one of the truly great high school coaches.

Ryun didn't start high school until his soph year. Freshman year he did junior high track, running maybe a couple miles (total) a week. Ditto the summer between frosh and soph years, when he was training for the 440 in the Junior Olympics. His ambition, entering high school, was to be a 440 man and maybe letter as a senior.

During the course of just his soph year, he went from a 5:38 mile in the first team time trial (in cross-country season) to sub-4:10 in AAU competition the following summer.

As for you, S.M.: try to hook up with a knowledgeable and sympathetic coach--if not through your school, then maybe through clubs in your area. Some examples of JR's high school training are posted earlier in this thread, but without proper coaching and a rationale for the workouts, they could be worse than useless--actually dangerous to you. (And any HS kid who trains himself is coaching an idiot--experience speaks.)

The main thing is to keep your great enthusiasm for running, and to see it as a lifetime thing. That way, you'll make progress for many, many years.

Good luck.

Living in the past wrote:

I was more interested in Viren's biographical details and his rise as a runner. That's what I cared about as a young runner.

When did Viren realize that he had the gift? How did he respond emotionally? Those kinds of detail can be very revealing about the "emotional and philosophical significance of competitive running."

Moore's article about Viren left me colder than a Finnish winter. Viren is a mysterious character, and unfortunately, he remained just as deep a mystery after I finished reading the article. I did know Ken Moore better than ever, though.

I think I see now...Your dislike for Moore is based on his not doing a biography on Lasse...

Did you ever stop to think that maybe he didn't have enough time and interpreters to do that? He wrote the article on Viren in 2 or 3 short visits with him... He used what he had developed in those visits. The article is almost a literary classic. Kenny is as good at using words as Michaelangelo was with granite. Why else do you think a college lit prof would be using it today, 30 years later???

People are allowed to like and dislike whatever writers they want to. Faulkner is acknowledged as a great writer. College professors have used his works in classes for decades now. The same for Shakespeare. I hated both of them.

Most distance runners like Kenny Moore's writing, but that's not a requirement.

chgray wrote:

[

What I remember about the league track meet, other than you beating me in the mile, was going into the locker room at KU and the toilets were all out in this open room, no walls in between. Anyway, I look over to my right and who was taking a dump was Jim Ryun. I'm thinking "Wow, this is pretty cool. Taking a dump beside Jim Ryun."

Charlie,

POST OF THE WEEK honors to you...really really funny (albeit extremely sophomoric) stuff...am still crackin' up over it...thanks

DrewR,

How'd you ever remember LX8500???...I didn't..spot on!

Living In (your own private Idaho) Past,

Sorry that Kenny Moore's writings don't do it for you...YoYo Ma bugs me as does John Updike and Tom Hanks...regardless, I still have great respect for how they have "perfected their craft"...sounds as though you have a little history in our great sport...maybe after you take the time to read his Bowerman book, you'll have a different take on KM...maybe not...regardless, thanks for sharing your definitive opinions...whether I agree with you or otherwise makes no difference...be well man.

MF

dnixon -- Jim Crawford it was, thanks. Worked for Nike when I was with them also. I think he spent some time in Korea with Nike also. Don't know what he is up to now

He's some interesting info i found from Ryun senior years

A several day series of time trials

Wichita High School East

March 8, 1965

1. Jim Ryun 4:06.6

2. Petterson. Mike 4:27.2

3. Boyle, Doug 4:39

4. Kesterson, Craig 4:43.6

5. Mark, Bob 4:49.5

6. Sell, Steve 4:52.5

A total of 68 runners participated

880 yard run

March 9, 1965

1. Jim Ryun 1:57.0

2. Petterson, Mike 2:00.4

3. Boyle, Doug 2:05.2

4. Mark, Bob 2:06

5. Kesterson, Craig 2:07

6. Bearden, Dick 2:08

7. Davis, Harry 2:09

8. Sell, Steve 2:10

Total of 78 runners

Quarter mile

March 10, 1965

1. Jime Ryun 51.4

2. Hart, Dwight 52.9

3. Warren, James 53.5

4. Davis, Harry 54.0

Total of 73 runners

Three Mile run

March 15, 1965

1. Jim Ryun 14:05.5

2. Petterson, 14:39

3. Boyle 15:31

4. Kesterson 15:56

5. Bearden 16:33

These are Ryuns splits from the three mile

69

2:20

3:31

4:44

5:55

7:08

8:20

9:32

10:45

11:53

13:05

14:05.5 finished in a 60.5

I'd also like to point out some stats on timmons as a coach

WIchita east coach from 1955-1964

Six state champion teams outdoor

1 indoor

Athletes earned All-American honors 7 times

Coached athletes to seven school record including

200 M Dash Bob Hanson 20.9y

400 M Dash Bob Hanson 46.8y

800 M Run Jim Ryun 1:49.6y

1600 M Run Jim Ryun 3:56.7y

4x800 M Relay 7:40.1y

Bob Mark

Doug Boyle

Mike Petterson

Jim Ryun

Not to shabby

Mr. Mato. As I said earlier, there's nothing wrong with deeper meaning. I just don't think Moore found it in the Viren article.

I agree that comparing Ryun's biography to Moore's piece is comparing apples to oranges. But I think you missed my main point, which is that a writer can create as much poetry and convey as much meaning through simple details as in obscure observations.

By the way, instead of telling us why Moore is a literary genius, you simply "make an appeal to authority" by citing the college professor. That's a rhetorical ploy that would probably get you a C minus.