Yeah--some people apparently do not like Mark Wetmore while others think the world of him, and this might even extend to some of his athletes. He's a pretty misunderstood, albeit charismatic, Paganish-intellectual sort of guy. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. If most folks got to know him they might actually like him, while others would find they dislike him even more than they thought.
I remember Mike's Wetmore-ripping post on RWOL a while back and that captured the anti-Wetmore camp perfectly. Maybe they have some personal justification or axe to grind in doing so but that's their business. Still, fellas, you're supporting your argument(s) with a weak grasp of the facts. Maybe Chris Lear's "Running With the Buffs" has lent credence to that perspective.
I remember reading on here Wetmore has his guys do 110+ mile weeks. Huh? Try 90 at max. Aaron Blondeau had to do 30-40 and cross-train because he couldn't handle mileage. Why do they do mostly singles at CU? So they can attend school and do well in classes, not necessarily Wetmore's ideal choice of coaching method. He makes do with ther time constraints imposed on being a full-time student.
And where do folks get that one-third of Wetmore's guys are ALWAYS injured?? Name the others who are injured THIS season. Slattery--healthy; Jorge Torres--healthy; Edwardo Torres--healthy; Jon Severy--healthy; Brett Schoolmeester--healthy; Billy Nelson--healthy; Jared Scott--healthy...the rest--healthy. ALL of the CU women--healthy. The top seven men last year were all healthy at nationals, not even a cold. Ritz and Colorado caught a bad break for sure, but it wasn't from Wetmore and his stopwatch yelling at his prodigy to push 22-milers.
One-third. During Chris Lear's penning of "Running With the Buffs" 1998 cross country season, 1/3 of the men's team had injuries of various sorts (including Chris Severy---who died in a freakin' bike accident). This was a bad jag in the program, but not a microcosm. People weren't able to sleep well or eat well after that. Sevdog was the heart and soul of the CU team.
RWTB author Chris Lear, with all due respect, tended to overstate how hard the guys trained, probably for narrative effect more than anything. And Adam Goucher, though he might not be better, pushes himself harder than any runner out there, including Pre or Kennedy. Goucher is a pitbull in a strong but somewhat fragile body. And remember, Chris Lear was thinking Hollywood and big dollars when he wrote that thing. Funny thing is, Wetmore said at a speaking engagement that he has never even read RWTB. 'Too much like listening to yourself on an answering machine.' Hmmm...
Wetmore's mentor Arthur Lydiard visited Boulder a few years back. When the legend spoke, hundreds of local runners crammed into the Broker Inn to listen. In effect Lydiard said Mark Wetmore is the only disciple (Wetmore worked with Lydiard for five years in Europe) who understands his coaching methodology and is able to apply it in his coaching practice. He is the only guy he had worked with who really 'gets' it.
CU's hard days are solid hard days but they're not supoosed to be races. Their easy days are not that easy (sub-7s maybe), but I was able to run a few miles with Ritz and Torres on an easy day and it was something like 6:30s per mile. That is not that hard for guys who are potentially running sea-level 10Ks at 4:30s.
Ritz got hurt doing base work. This may have been a long time coming. A fair number of collegiate and post-collegiate runners were able to train and stay with those guys (big CU and non-CU group in the summers) during their mid-1990s summer base-building period, including myself. I ran on some of thoses summer runs; some of the runs were solid, even really tough at times (Goucher, Pepper, Wells et al), but they weren't trying to hand me my ass and I wasn't a standout by any means. Wetmore also maintains that the guys who led the early-season workouts were always cooked by NCAAs so he tended to try and reign them in.