Stember Artiicle and loss of drive after college

I've always liked Stember. He loves the sport and does a great job at it.

Let reach for the stars, but a gold medal or an American record seems highly unlikely....but more power to ya....

It would be interesting to find out what he does. He is correct with regard to the lack of improvement. I am not sure that sandwich making is the problem. A 1:49/3:42 double at the Invite seems subpar, as did his effort indoors. Does anyone know if the volume of his work is enough to get him where he wants to be? What do you more knowledgeable guys think?

He's at about 80 miles a week.

That's probably a good number for him right now.

It will be interesting to see what he does, although I fear that Walt Lange may have intervaled him into the ground.

Look at early season times for McMullen in his best years and you'll see that a 1:49 or a 3:42 unpushed is nothing to get worried about. If his training is going as well as he says, he'll be running fast when it counts, in June, July, and August.

Trackhead, by what knowledge are you speaking of Walt Lange's "intervalling Stember into the ground"?

I heard Lange speak at a clinic; he gave examples of one of the Mastalirs' training logs and I didn't think his use of intervals was all that extreme, noticably less than Joe Newton at York. I don't think Lange has had that much influence on Stember's training since Sydney, and his HS background didn't seem to hurt him too much in 2000.

Lange's program at Jesuit (to my knowledge) bases improvement on track intervals and does not concentrate on aerobic development thorugh mileage and the like.

The key difference between Newton and Lange is that Newton would have the kids put in insane volumes of mileage, which is not necessarily a good thing. Huge volumes AND high intensity can very easily kill a kid.

I was not suggesting that Lange has had any influence on Stember's training during or since his college years. What I am suggesting is that the proportion of qulaity work to volume that Stember did in high school was high (by my standards) and that an excess of anaerobic work can damage an athlete's aerobic system. And that is probably still affecting him.

As for the affect in 2000, why didn't Stember make it to the final? Why did he finish 9th in the semi-finals in 3:42? It's not because he lacks any speed with respect to hsi competition -- I'll bet that he could have easily hung with all of those 1500m guys in a 400m. Stember is severely lacking on background for his level. I'll bet he averaged 1500 miles a year in his time at Jesuit, and 2000 miles a year at Stanford. He's 25 years old and has around 14,000 miles -- the company he wishes to compete against has twice that volume.

This is not to say his high school program is the sole reason for his performances. He ran a ton of races in 2000 -- racing indoor season; NCAA indoors; racing college outdoors, NCAA outdoors; Olympic Trials; racing in Europe to get a qualifying time. Then going to Sydney and racing there.

I wish Stember all the luck in the world and hope that the volume he is doing know will lead to the level he wishes to compete at. But, as I discussed last night, Stember has not been running sub-par because he was making sandwiches. That's BS. He's been running sub-par because of a lack of background and because an excess of quality, which started in high school.

Feel free to disagree.

Stember's talk may seem farfetched...but then again how many of us would have thought two years ago that this year's world indoor champion in the 800m would have been David Krummenacker?

Probly none of us. So how can we say Stember will be any different?

Best of luck Michael!

From what I saw at Walt's clinic, Stember's annual mileage in HS would have been higher than 1500 miles. The training log of one of the Mastalir twins (whose careers were ruined by the great Brooks Johnson, not Lange) included a lot of 6 to 10 mile runs which started easy and finished at a threshold pace. I didn't think the intervals were extreme, and the weekly milage was usually in the 50s and 60s. Not many jogigng days, though, and no runs over 10 miles from what I remember. Stember may have trained with more emphasis on quality, but the impression I got from the clinic was that this log was typical of the training of a good runner at Jesuit.

The reason that Stember failed to make it out of the semi's in Sydney was because he led the race from the gun. But this was OK wasn't it trackhead, since "HE WAS ONLY DIPPING HIS FEET IN THE WATER" at his first world competition and had NO chance anyway.

Why don't you all ask for people who went to Jesuit HS to post on how many miles they ran and their training instead of guessing about what Mike has done. I know there are lots of Jesuit grads who read this board and who are doing and have done amazing things in college.

I myself do not feel that Coach Lange's program in anyway did anything to damage my development in college. As a matter of fact, I think it prepared me for going into the high intensity program that I chose-Arkansas. It was a perfect fit actually. I have often wondered what would have become of Eric and Mark had they been able to stay with Coach Lange throughout their college years. With H.S. times like 4:04/8:07/8:48/14:01, the future at one time looked bright, and one thing that could be said about Walt is that he has to have been doing something right to have the amount of success that he has had with so many different athletes over such a long period of time-early 70's-present.

David Welsh

Jesuit High School 89'