I was reading Kyle Merber's newsletter today and read the following:
Maybe this is a hot take – the value of training partners greatly outweighs the benefit of good coaching. Athletes have infinite access to information and training plans, but bodies that can take a rep to block the wind are a finite resource.
I immediately thought to myself. "No, maybe he never had good coaching."
I then called up LetsRun coaching guru John Kellogg looking for affirmation (I always say most people look for affirmation not information). I was surprised that John agreed with Kyle that good training partners can be very beneficial. I was surprised as my brother went from 30:13 in college with training partners to 28:06 as a pro, training alone.
"Fast training partners are often very helpful," said Kellogg as sometimes you can learn to just hang on to them. But i pushed back a little and he admitted sometimes it's detrimental as you go too hard in practice.
John thought Kyle and I have different takes as nowadays most of the coaches are pretty decent, but the reason why I had such a visceral "NO" to it was when I went to HS and college many of the coaches were not good at all. A buddy of mine was a grad assistant at an ACC school in the late 1990s and they didn't do tempo runs at all. Heck, even when I started at Cornell, if you got a guy down to 14:15/29:30 and had them peak right, you'd pretty much dominate the Ivy League. That was true for like 2003-2007 or 8. When I left we had guys running like 29:15 and not even scoring.
I then read another quote to John Kellogg from Kyle's piece;
Ultimately success isn’t generally about doing threshold 1k’s vs. tempo runs. It comes from belief, fostered in an environment where one can flourish.
The first sentence is fine. It doesn't matter too much if you do a 5 mile tempo or 10 x 1k slightly faster with short rest. But the second sentence is absolute garbage.
John Kellogg agreed and responded. "If you want to boil a pot of water, you don't put it on a block of ice and tell it to believe it can start boiling. You just put it on a fire. Running is a physical sport. Confidence comes from fitness. Fitness never comes from confidence...."
It's always blown my mind that so many great runners think they are great because of their mindset. Stop flattering yourself. You are more talented. And the obvious proof of this over the years has been the fluctuating results of the DSD athletes. Semenya goes from world beater to terrible to world beater. Her mindset didn't change.
I'm really stunned that Kyle would think that. This is a guy who ran 3:34 at Swarthmore but then somehow managed not to make NCAAs a week or two later. Does he really think his belief totally changed in two weeks? (Admittedly, someone could turn that on me and say "Well did his fitness really change in two weeks. In some ways).

