van aaken

I do not chart my calories any longer- it would depress me too much. I try to keep my weight around where my racing weight was 55. However I do not check that too often either (do not want to be depressed with what used to be). I will not add my miles until the end of the year- I do not want to get into the "I only need XX more to reach my goal of XX" By not checking until after the fact I will be able to enjoy the running (now that I am back to doing it). I also do not know how to chart my "running" pool workouts, walking and VERY SLOW running is what was my transition to where I now find myself. Hips stopped hurting once I injured the back (or least the back hurt so much I no longer noticed the hips). I view this year as my break out year- not that I will run any great times, but hopefully get out there and use a plan without outside interference. Have a nice holiday for you and yours.

Manfred Steffney,

3,000 is a good dividing line for this HRE. Calories are usually below it and annual miles above it. But I don't look that way.

Oddly, both HREs on this thread seem to have back problems. My hips are ok, I think they've always been. The really bad knee is just moderately bad now but the "good" one is acting up. Maybe we could combine two HREs into one functioning person.

Bob Wildes,

I seem to recall Joan telling me that van Aaken was a meat and potatoes guy, just not too many of them. I also think she told me he was fond of sausage and that Germans in general don't eat all that many vegetables and fruit. Van Aaken thought the American fixation with fruits and vegetables was a result of our being "too concerned about your bowel movements."

He was also supposed to have slept very little. Joan said he did 3-4 hours a night but with catnaps during the day. But his son told me he slept room 3:00am to 9:00am.

Another Runner, or whoever you've become. It looks like you trained under him. Got any specifics on how and how much?

That should have read "slept from 3:00am to 9:00am."

Yes, I did train with him (about a thousand years ago). A quote of "eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are tired and run the rest of the day" would just about sum it up. He was not into counting things (food, calories, or miles). Because of that he usually changed our routes. That way an hour run was an hour run. There was not pressure to run it faster than last time. My normal meal is bread, meat and sometimes potatoes. I do eat some fruits, but I never became a fan of veggies. As to the sleep pattern to this day I still try to get to bed by 9:00 pm and I wake up at 2:00 am. I used to go run at that time, but now I usually just do things around the house (read LETSRUN.COM, etc). Hope this helps. He was a wonderful man and teacher and coach-- he would have referred to himself as a "doctor of the people".

Thanks for the scoop HRE. Another 'Senior Moment' for me. Now I recall you providing that information in an email a few months ago.

There was a national story this past week about some doubts as to the benefits of fruits and vegetables in the prevention of colon cancer and other related problems.

Looking forward to the upcoming story on Doctor van Aaken in Marathon & Beyond.

You must have been "vladmir" on that other thread?

The thing I've been trying to sort out about van Aaken's work, and I think I have it somewhat correct, is that when his ideas hit the US in a major way in the 70s, people assumed that he had everyone going out for very long, slow runs almost all the time. From what I've been able to gather from some very old articles and some e-mails with his son is that there was actually a fair amount of running at race pace or somewhat slower, but that it was done in fairly short segments and with complete recoveries, sometimes done as walks.

If you're vladmir, you mentioned a session of four hours(?) of 100 meter strides with a walk back to the start. Am I remembering correctly and if so, was that sort of a typical session? If he had you do that sort of thing regularly, was it interspersed with days of pure distance running as people do now?

Yes, we did lots of distance, but not usually in one run. By this I mean perhaps three runs in a day of 60-90 minutes, but seldom did we do a 4 hour run. The strides were just that- stride down and walk back. He felt you could to this forever- sometimes it felt like we did. I think the longest we did it was 4 hours (I think his clock was a little off as I do remember a two hour circuit run (around fields that was over 2.5 on my watch). In spite of what is in his books I do not think anything was repeated. Perhaps this is because there were lots of venues to run at and to. He was great on getting things done "on the run" I still try to leave my car for an oil change and run home/work and later pick it up (via foot). These "transportation" miles were great because you did not try to push the pace - you were just getting from one location to another.

Vladimir- Please feel free to post any recollections of training under Doctor Ernst van Aaken's tutelage that you care to share.

vladmir,

Thanks. I once translated an article about Norpoth that mentioned his covering 60 kilometers on an occasional day and I wondered if that was one run or several. I'll take it as several now.

Did you guys pay any attention to pace on those 60-90 minute runs? Were they as low intensity as we'd come to believe they were in the 70s?

We did some long runs of perhaps 60k usually with some walking or other breaks. I remmeber running to a pond and then swimming or at least playing in the water for 20-30 minutes and then finishing the run. Total time was close to five hours so it was at least 60k. Pace was not an issue. I would guess that most of it was around 5:00 pace with some pickups along the way. We used to play blind pickups. In this manner we would all draw a number- for example if there were seven of us there would be seven numbers in a hat. Who ever drew number one would take off on a pickup (after a 20-30 minutes easy warm up run) at a pace he liked for a distance he liked. It may be 200 or 2000- only he knew (you could not vary the pace during your lead). After he made his run he would also be in control of the recovery. At the end of his lead he would say beep and then the next would take his lead. We never knew how far -how fast or how long of a recovery. This only worked because we were all of like ability. It would not serve well with a group that had marathoners from 2:15-4:00. Naturally we had to make a decision before hand on how long the entire run would last- usually 1-3 hours. We had to make sure it did not become a beat up the weakest link. Also made sure there was time to run a recovery end run- 10-20 minutes. Those were the days.

I have his book and read it many times. He recommended 1600 calories a day, 2000 max. 1000 calories for only 7 days at a time, every once in a while. HR 130 average to max aerobic 150. It is very doable to eat 2000 of good calories and train hard up to 7-10 miles a day. It would take 3-4 weeks to adjust your body. Expect a weight lost of up to 20-30 lbs in 8 weeks if you are overweight, 10 lbs if normal weight, believe a runner should be 20% below so called normal weight.

I rememberEvA trying to get Norpoth to slow down to about an 8

min. pace for most of his runs. He finally got him to run about 350 meters and walk 50 meters, in about 2 minutes---and then repeat---and repeat until about 3 hours had elapsed. A very inspirational book, that is still available in used copies.

I'll take it that the 5:00 pace was kilometers. What was the 10-20 recovery end run like?

Yes, it was in km's. I meant to go back and make it known, but forgot- you know holiday & and age. The end runs were really slow 5-6 (minutes per km). It was almost a walk and was used for team bonding- there was always someone who had falled back (quite often me) and we would reform and talk, laugh, and solve the worlds problems. He was truly one of a kind.

Before this thread completely vanishes, I'd like to ask if you know anything about van Aaken's own running. His son told me that they ran together and did 10k every night with walking breaks and the whole business took an hour. Does that sound right? Did he do loger runs?

From what I remember he did very little running. Some transporation travel (running from one point to another). He was so busy with helping others (medically as well as athletically) he had little time, but he used every minute of it. Also many of his courses we just that courses- not measured.

Vladimir - nice of you to come here and share this. Do you recall if Coach Van Aaken changed the way he trained runners as they got into their 2nd and 3rd decades of running? Did you change the way you train as you got older or do you still train the same way Coach Van Aaken had you train?

Thanks very much.

When I worked with him I was a young self centered athlete who was mostly unaware of what was going on around me. I think we all did about the same workouts (by time) and naturally broke up into groups (based on ability). I kept my training very much the same- however the pressures of wanting to race, impress others, etc. I did make some changes. Basically I kept up the running aspect, but I moved away from much of the diet aspects. I moved in and out of the fasting stage and my diet was more based on what was available (easy to fix, cheap, etc). If individuals were to really understand him they would see that his training is the base of most of the systems out there.

If individuals were to really understand him they would see that his training is the base of most of the systems out there.

I agree. I think that's part of my fascination. Thanks for humoring me.