Hobbs Kessler, Mason Ferlic training logs under Ron Warhurst

Very cool and well done. I had considered doing the same thing to get a better idea of how Warhurst currently organizes his guys' training but definitely did not find the motivation to go through it with this level of detail.

Thanks! I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't take me an absurd amount of time to do, but still upwards of a couple of hours. As for organization...it's tough with Warhurst, he's definitely more old school and gives me big "art of training" vibes. I think a lot is done by feel and intuition which makes it a little harder to look at than the regimented college or professional programs and groups.

Pretty cool, seems like they do plenty of hills throughout the year.

Yeah that seems to be their MO, all in on the strength

Shoooo that was a lot of work you put in! That’s awesome! It’s interesting to see how much they focus on hills and shorter hard reps and not nearly as much on Threshold as some pro groups. Clearly he’s got the right balance for his guys though

This is very, very similar to how I trained in high school. Then, I got to college, and of course changed everything up, and was nowhere near as successful.

Like most of us.

I suppose that just putting in easy miles with some high quality mixed in does enough for them. They don’t have a super regimented workout schedule, which I assume is by design. It is very different which is interesting, and I think would be pretty hard to try to replicate. I wonder if the training style has its limitations outside of the middle distances. Ferlic has had some success at the 5k but it seems like the group’s bread and butter is the 1500 with Kessler and Willis and even Ferlic just this past weekend running the Trials standard. I’d be curious to hear any stories about Warhurst’s athletes in the longer distances as I’m not so knowledgeable about his past athletes’ performances.

Tons of 2 mile tempos followed by a lot of hard short intervals.

Do any other coaches do things similar to that?

Brian Diemer?

Olympic medlaiist Steepler.

I think a lot of people forget how successful Kevin Sullivan was, 3:31.71 and 13:19 when that was really really good, was as well as a long and successful career for Nate Brannen 3:34 3:52.x mile, 7:47 3K

I believe they were both XC All Americans as well as John Mortimer who ran 7th at Trials in steeple.

Craig Forys ran 8:24 Steeple and 13:34

Forys went on to become an multiple All-American at the University of Michigan where he won the Big Ten steeplechase in 2012, placed 2nd in the steeplechase at the 2012 NCAA Championships, and he was eighth in the steeplechase at the 2012 Olympic Trials.

The funny thing (and I'm really dating myself), in the 80's and early 90's, Warhurst's reputation was that he could train distance runners but not mid-distance runners. Chris Brewster (NCAA runner up in the 10k), John Scherer (2 time NCAA 10km champion), Brad Barquist (10 km Olympian), Bill Donakowski, Gerard Donakowski, Mike McGuire, Greg Meyer (one of the best marathon runners in the 80's),Todd Snyder, Mike Wisniewski, etc. were all successful distance runners under Warhurst. That's not including the steeplechase with Diemer and Heikkinen.

Early in his coaching career, his success at the mid-distance was not notable compared to the distance events. This all changed with Kevin Sullivan...after his success, Michigan became "known" as a mid-distance school and had great success especially with foreign (mostly Canadian) runners---Brannen, Willis, Webb, Ellerton, Woods, etc.

Run about an hour a day

A weekend long run

Tempos

Hills

Track work

This is all incredibly shocking. Who trains like this?

You are the man. Much appreciated!

My old college coach use to have us do 2-4 mile tempo followed by 300s and 200s fast.

Oh, interesting, do you have any indication as to whether his coaching methods changed at all since then? Or did more middle distance talent just find itself in his program?

yungrunner wrote:

As for organization...it's tough with Warhurst, he's definitely more old school and gives me big "art of training" vibes. I think a lot is done by feel and intuition which makes it a little harder to look at than the regimented college or professional programs and groups.

Seb Coe: “By all means consult scientific tools but as an athlete don’t allow yourself to become a guinea pig at the expense of a sports scientist. There’s a lot to be said for good, intuitive coaching.”

What’s a Harvard? And how does one run we of them?

TomPettyLives wrote:

What’s a Harvard? And how does one run we of them?

"Harvard," "ard," and one other thing I wasn't sure what they meant. Were they hills? Specific mini workouts?

TomPettyLives wrote:

What’s a Harvard? And how does one run we of them?

It's a dead end street on a hill. Perfect for training since there's no through traffic there.

bobinvirginia wrote:

The funny thing (and I'm really dating myself), in the 80's and early 90's, Warhurst's reputation was that he could train distance runners but not mid-distance runners. Chris Brewster (NCAA runner up in the 10k), John Scherer (2 time NCAA 10km champion), Brad Barquist (10 km Olympian), Bill Donakowski, Gerard Donakowski, Mike McGuire, Greg Meyer (one of the best marathon runners in the 80's),Todd Snyder, Mike Wisniewski, etc. were all successful distance runners under Warhurst. That's not including the steeplechase with Diemer and Heikkinen.

Early in his coaching career, his success at the mid-distance was not notable compared to the distance events. This all changed with Kevin Sullivan...after his success, Michigan became "known" as a mid-distance school and had great success especially with foreign (mostly Canadian) runners---Brannen, Willis, Webb, Ellerton, Woods, etc.

That’s a great compelling list! One name that I think gets overlooked from Warhurst’s career is Lisa Weidenbach (now Rainsberger) and her Boston win in ‘85, two years after Meyer’s ‘83 win.

One could argue that the mid-D Canadian invasion started with Scott Macdonald who, if I recall correctly, hit sub-4 his freshman year, one year before Sully arrived. Or perhaps even with Ian Forsyth who came in ‘91 (I think of Ian as more of a distance specialist but he was on the NCAA DMR championship team in ‘95.)

It would be great to hear the history of how Ronnie started recruiting up North.