Summary of Wejo's Article

I thought it was too preachy for such an inconsistent runner. His success was very short lived. He dropped a huge PR then got wasted in NYC and quickly fell off. You can't call JK's results with Wejo successful.

I won't drink the JK juice.

More points:

-Don't kill yourself by running your intervals too hard, it's better to be consistent than Superman for a day.

-Easy days are meant to be easy, regeneration.

-Run on soft surfaces.

-There is no subsitute for mileage.

I liked the article. Some more would be good.

i thought it was one of the best articles about running i had ever read. I printed out seven copies and am going to give one to each of my teammates. Great work.

man this is a different spin from the letsrun crowd. it's funny, people bad mouth Dan Browne for his 3rd place at the trials saying it was the only good thing he did, but it's ok for WeJo to have two above-average 10000's in his career. huh.

I second that

i run for a d1 team that likes to hammer (almost) every day and the article made me realize i was being smart for not hammering with them every day and not getting into races on our daily runs.

Reducer wrote:

1. Train to Race

2. Be Consistent

3. Believe in Yourself

Could someone post a link to the article in reference? Is it on the Home Page?

There you go..

This is one of the best freakin articles I have read on running. And probably the best from letsrun. Thanks WEJO, you are the man!

I will use your knowledge to help aid my own running.

Best of luck in your future running as well.

teacher

If you're going to criticize me at least use factual evidence.

I pride myself on my consistency. Even when I wasn't that good I was consistent. Out of college when JK started coaching me, I improved every year I ran.

In 1998 I set a 10k pr on the track, and won the Marine Corps Marathon.

In 1999, I made the world half marathon team.

In 2000, I made my first track nationals and lowered my pr to 28:27.

In 2001, I won Mt. Sac and placed 4th at nationals behind Meb, Abdi and Alan. I also won a 10k in Montreal setting a pr.

In 2002, I had a nerve problem in my foot (one injury) and missed the track season as a result, but I paced Paula Radcliffe to her marathon record.

In 2003, I placed 4th at nationals behind Meb, Alan, and Dan Browne but beat Abdi.

In 2004, I developed a foot problem that has continued to bother me until today.

So in 5 of 6 years, I improved. I call that consistent.

You say JK wasn't successful with me, but he took a guy who never came anywhere close to NCAA nationals and had me finish 4th in the country twice at 10k. I would call that very successful coaching.

But i think you are out to just stir up a little trouble.

I'm glad this thread got started. I've received a ton of emails on the article and I guess I'll post some of them here (names removed) and link to it in the article.

Againtocarthage wrote:

http://www.letsrun.com/2006/collegesuck.php

There you go..

This is one of the best freakin articles I have read on running. And probably the best from letsrun. Thanks WEJO, you are the man!

I will use your knowledge to help aid my own running.

Best of luck in your future running as well.

Thanks. By the way wejo, great article. I would love to see more training articles, especially from you on the website. Keep up the good work.

Here we go with the emails:

"Your latest article nails down exactly the philosophy needed to run to one's potential. I too had no real clue in college about how to run fast. Until I started training under ***** ********* (editors note: coach of one of the top 5 teams in the country), I didn't learn much at all. Among the many comments, one comment you made struck home with me. "I was always trying to make sure I hit a certain pace instead of learning how to relax when I was running." Jerry taught me the same thing.

While I still think I improved due to my potential, racing became easier and I pr'd in almost every race over 2 years as a result of ****'s teaching. The only thing to stop that was my "semi-retirement" so I could sustain a family, go to law school, and work full time. I still run, just not nearly the 100's previously. However, I plan to re-assert myself once law school is done. Plenty of time to run fast at 10k on up.

Thanks for the great article, your furtherance of running, and your great website. While I think too many people have too much time on their hands, it provides great humor for the rest of us.

Best regards,

****

I read your article on why you "sucked in college" and about how one should run fast and not hard. I ran in the ****** this morning (editor's note: a half marathon) and I kept repeating "run fast, not hard" whenever I felt like I was dying off. It definitely helped me relax and run better because I dropped my PR from 1:20:** to 1:14:** to finish ***. Thanks again for the advice, it really meant a lot!

Take Care,

*** *****

Weldon,

I really enjoyed your article " Why I sucked in College". I am currently training in *** and running for *** (NCAA ranked team). I take my easy days very easy, in terms of pace, often times running in the back of the pack. I found many of the things you talked about very true. Fortunately for me, I was not a great high school runner, and had only mediocre times coming here from junior college, so the coach is very understanding when I suck ass in a workout. But I do have high goals, and know that if I put in the work, I will achieve them. Articles like yours help remind me of that fact and show me proof that people can do it. Thanks for the article and good luck with future training and races.

From,

*** ***

Here's another one:

Wejo,

Thank you so much for describing your running experiences in such a great piece as your one about the difference in training from college to now. I am a horrible runner at a small school in ***** and a lot of this was actually very inspiring to me. By no means have I ever been as successful as you with running in high school or college. Currently I am a senior captain but am hurt for the millionth time in a career that has never had great consistency or performances. I now have less than a month until our conference meet and the possibility of me even running in that race is very small. However, I have also been giving a lot of thought to doing volunteer work in **** next year and have looked forward to getting in some consistent, relaxed training on soft surfaces (not too many trails in ****).

This article is really useful to me because I have never in 4 years of college felt as fast as I was in high school, which then was mediocre at best. Reading the article was a humbling experience, because I noticed many of your problems in college mirroring some of the mistakes that I have made in training as well. I agree that many college runners do think about how one workout or race will make or break them; I know everyone on my team does for sure. But it is so difficult for all of us to realize the importance of the essnetials in an aerobic sport such as volume and consistency of training, pace, and sleep. Four years has definitely flown by for me, especially regarding cross country, but in the grand scheme of things, at 21 I have tons of years to improve as a runner. Ed Whitlock is great proof of this.

So, in conclusion, it's difficult to possibly accept that i may end college with not much of an impact on my team as a runner, but I wanted to thank you for reminding me to approach running with the mindset that I started it with: that I love to do it. Hopefully with patience, diligency, and good health, I may see some changes in my situation if I can follow your advice.

Again, thank you for sharing your wisdom,

***

Another email:

Hi Guys,

I am sure that you get a thousand emails a day so I'm actually surprised that you're reading this. I am just writing to request that you keep that quote of the day up for a week at least. Wejo's comments and analysis of his own running basically summarizes exactly why Americans were worse in the 1990s and early 2000 than in the late 70s and 80s (just check Boston marathon results from 1983 and 1993 for an excellent example). I was also a 4:30 high school miler and although I never got that good I ran 8:05 for 3km by my fifth year in college. I did this because I realized the same thing Wejo did. Unfortunately for me I only half realized it while in college and running to hard too frequently (while having nagging injuries) ended my running career.

Anyway, please keep that quote on the top of the front page for as long as it takes to get Americans to understand.

Thanks and keep up the good work,

*** ***

A few people wrote asking questions. I'll post their emails and some responses later.

Thanks wejo great article! You and Bob Schul are on the same page concerning intervals

Just a though on the article: Train to Race.

I have observered a number of students at the HS level get involved in the sport for the aspect of running rather than racing. Many kids seem to run a lot as a form of self-medication to escape family problems, school problems, or fill-in-the blank problems. A lot of these kids enjoy competing, but that is not their primary motivation.

Another group of students run in HS because they are not good enough to make the team or star in other sports, i.e. football, basketball, soccer. They are good competitors, but dream of being a star in another sport instead of (or in addition to) running.

To get to my point: very few kids start the sport in H.S. with the intention of "training to race." Whereas, in nearly all other sports, students (especially boys) join sports with the intention of training to win.

The XC experience just seems to be enmeshed with a different mindset than most other sports: participation, involvement and having "fun" is more important than winning. I don't think too many football coaches make this philosophy the cornerstone of their program, but a heck of a lot of XC coaches do.

In conclusion, to improve the grassroots performances in XC and distance running on the track, the sport has to be viewed more like a "sport" than an event. The profile of the sport needs to be raised in the American conscience by the powers-that-be so that youth get involved in the sport to win in front of large crowds in well organized races, rather than run away from their demons in relative obscurity, not caring whether that be in a workout or a sparsely attended running event.