Summary of Wejo's Article

(different "van" than upper case "Van" above...)

Wejo, I'm printing out your article/essay for my xc team. You and have agreed for years on the aerobic base foundation, so this summer I took my untalented team (7th at State last year-wanted to shoot myself) and they ran aerobic mileage all summer and are cotinuing to do so. result? we are monsters in our state, ranked roughly 11th in the Southeast and burying formerly faster rivals.

You expressed yourself entertainingly and elegantly.

Great post lowercase 8)

not many Vans out there...where are you from?

Wejo,

My second post got deleted so here I go again. I'm not a hater, I am a fan. I don't share your love for the mythcal JK.

Your article is good and has alot of merits and good advice BUT I hate the JK infomercial you run everytime you post about your magic training. I personnally think the coach (in this case JK) is to blame for his runner's string of injuries. The coach needs to get you through that. JK didn't.

Answer this: Have you ever thought to yourself maybe things could have gone better for you under a different coach?

"teacher" is trying to rationalize his own failures due to the perceived faults of his own coach.

Hey, take responsibility for yourself. I believe in free will.

String of injuries? I've had one serious injury. John does not give me advice on training at all when I'm injured.

I can't think of one guy running at my level who didn't make NCAAs so I can't really imagine how things would be different without John.

Win I was a 30 minute 10k guy, I told people John Kellogg is a genius. I stand by it today. The results speak for themselves.

im in Ga. near the mtns.

"Once they run a PR, a lot of people start running that time repeatedly."

This is the line I like...and it's true. Once you break that threshold, which is largely mental, and start believing you can and should be up there racing in the lead or with the leaders...you will continue to reach for that level.

We are the product of everything that has come before. How do we know that the hard/fast training that failed to produce immediate results did not lay the physiological groundwork for the success that came years later with a more "relaxed" approach? We don't. Maybe the training that seems to have been "wrong" and "wasted" was an essential component of the success ultimately achieved.

I was thinking the exact same thing. Those years of hard and high volume weren't lost.

you article has some good points but at times seems a bit self indulgent. Sometimess saying less means more.

seeing the positive in all things.

i think Wejo is crazy awesom! Thanks for the website and for sharing, you dont have to do any of it, but you do. good luck with your running and poker. :)

i love JK and he knows it. he is a genius cant say it enough. those who have had the opportunity to be around him and get training from him only understand.

i think the article was great-fantastic!

thanks brojos-

I didn't look into this thread until now, but now that I'm here, I'd also like to express how much I enjoyed the article. I have one year left at a DII school where I feel I have run nowhere near my potential, through fault of my own. I plan to read this article many times, and try to incorporate its advice into my training.

another email:

I am a collegiate cross country coach and know first-hand what you are talking about when it comes to "Why I Sucked in College?" I, too, have been out of college for about as long as you, but continue to improve at the same rate as you (although not at as high a level). My 10K PR has improved by two minutes, and my 5k has improved nearly a minute during that time, enough to have qualified for our national meet. This, despite that fact that I hammered everything in college. I was a workout machine. Now I don't consider myself a "hard" trainer. I've increased mileage averaging 65/week over the course of a year in the past to averaging 85/week with several 100+ weeks grouped together now. I also do a load of tempo work nowadays. Intervals and speedwork are important to my training, although now I basically run them at a pace where I am going fast, but not at my red line! I started doing this only because it became very hard to hit those extremely fast paces I did in college all by myself. I basically began training at a more relaxed intensity to sustain my motivation and to be able to enjoy all my workouts!

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that other coaches do agree with your training thoughts. I am just glad that you have the medium to educate people about this.

However, what are your thoughts about the middle distances. Although I do believe in your thoughts about the 5k and up, where does the 800/1500 fall? There are extreme polar ideas about training those groups (especially the 800 group). Most of the coaches I know give a constant barrage of short interval work and give up on tempo runs once track starts. I believe in training specifically for your event, but what exactly does that mean when it comes to the 800, especially when based off the philosophy you and I both share for training? How does your brother find success with the middle distance runners while using these concepts? Is relaxation the key? Is mileage still very important?

Thanks Wejo!

---

Here's a brief response:

My favorite line in what he wrote is this: "I started doing

this only because it became very hard to hit those extremely fast paces I did in college all by myself. "

I couldn't agree more. Training with a group can be a good thing but oftentimes it can be a bad thing. When you train by yourself, it is much easier to train relaxed. Half

the problem in college is when you're doing intervals there are 10 other people on the track around you and you try and keep up or beat them and don't run the right pace for that day.

I would say there are only like 2 or 3 times a season I feel it is detrimental for me to workout by myself and that is when I am doing something really really hard. (I'm not saying there aren't days i might benefit by having someone else with me but it has to be the right type of workout partner).

As for middistance, when my brother came to Cornell everyone said he would be a good long distance coach but not mid distance. However he had great success in the mid distances. The #1 thing most mid d guys are lacking is endurance. Most of them are all fairly fast to begin with relatively speaking but they severely lack endurance. So you had this endurance component and you get a lot of improvement. Plus mid d guys can take a longer term approach and have more of buildup as they don't have to run XC. Midd guys are obviously going to do different types of intervals but endurance is very important for them as well.

Remember Peter Snell? He used a system that JK's is based on & ran a time that would still be competiteve at the Olympic level in the 800.

ditto to that. It amazes me how many 800 guys will post real quick times indoors when they're doing mostly strength work and then back up early to mid outdoors when the mileage drops and the intensity picks up and end up hitting the same times when they're "peakiing" that they were running indoors

Another email and response:

First of all let me say that I am a big fan of the website and what it promotes in our sport. While I am more of of a fly on the wall in the message board life, I do browse around and get a kick out of some of the topics. I thought I would drop you an email because I read your article, "why I sucked in college" and I felt like I really relate to your situation. I am currently at the University ****, attempting to chase the dream in my fifth year. I transferred from **** University, where I struggled to find any really success (prs, 3:51, 8:25, 25:24xc) and I have started to have that turn around season that I had hoped for. I have to agree that in the attempt to run fast, running hard isnt always the answer. Unfortunatly I only have XC left but things are going pretty well (19:4* 4mi., 24:0* 8k- both on fast courses), but the issue I am having a hard time getting around is the switch from the college ranks to the post-collegiate environment. did you hang around in texas and train with them for a bit while you were running? I know that you moved out to flagstaff for a bit during the marathon training. Anyways I am very interested in coaching as a career but I am unsure how far I should realistically chase the running dream. At what point did you really think that you had a shot at the Olympics? I have noo idea how much potential I have and for the first time I am consistantly running 70mi weeks (my highest ever), and last week I had my VO2 tested at 72.3... kinda gets you thinking crazy thoughts....Anyways Im glad that you wrote that article and just thought Id drop a message of thanks for giving hope us runners who still suck but are striving to get better.

My response:

Post collegiate running is a whole different ball-game. Runners in

college don't know how good they have it. They have tons of free time

during which they can run, a coach, free transportation to meets, and

tons of people to train with. It's the perfect environment for

running.

Post collegiately unless you get on a good club team, a lot of stuff

is on your own. The biggest difference you may notice is that you

have to pick what races to go to and what you are training for. This

is even more the case if you get out of school and don't expect to

make USATFs or to make that your number #1 goal. I trained for 4

years out of school before I ever made track nationals. Fortunately

for me, there was stuff I could focus on (I trained my first two years

trying to make an Ivy League Ekiden team that went to Japan).

But the #1 thing I think most people find about running

post-collegiately is that they'll quit running if they don't really

enjoy running in itself. Unless you are running full-time as a job

(and then you are really really good to begin with) running while

working full time is a sacrifice. But if you really enjoy it, it is a

sacrifice really worth taking.

I'm not sure when I really first though I had a shot of making the

Olympics. It might not have been until 2000 when I first really got

noticed on the national scene. In the back of my mind, I believed that

I could be a really good runner and had dreams of the Olympics before

then, but it was a long way off. But I would urge you to not focus

that far down the line. When I got out of school, I focused on

enjoying what I was doing and continuing to improve. As long as I was

doing that I kept running. Deep down I believed I could be a really

good runner but even if it didn't pan out how it did I don't think I

would have regretted the time I put into it as long as I enjoyed the

process and was continuing to improve. If my goal had been to make the

Olympics and 3 years out of school I wasn't even going to nationals, I

might have become frustrated and quit.

I hope this helps. You clearly have a lot of room for improvement. 70

miles a week is not a ton but be smart in increasing you mileage. My

coach erred on the side of caution but I didn't run consistent 100

miles weeks really until I moved to Flagstaff.

and then I added this on my training after my 5th year:

After my fifth year at Texas (1997) I moved to Washington DC. My

roommates were in the Reebok Enclave. I trained on my own. Perhaps I

could have gotten into the Enclave but everyone in it was a better

runner than me. However, i knew how I wanted to train and felt I would

be best suited to training under JK. So I trained on my own and did

some easy runs with my roommates. In 1998, I ran 29:49 and won the

Marine Corps Marathon. In 1999, I made the world half marathon team

and qualified for the Olympic Trials in the Marathon. In 2000, I made

the jump and moved to Flagstaff to tran full time. I had made nice

improvements in the 2 years training under JK before that.

Wejo, I ran the same kinds of times that you did in college (maybe a little slower) but never came close to what you have done since then, both on the track or on the roads. So I enjoyed your story tremendously and thought you made a ton of important points about running and training. But you can't just write off your injury problems like they've never happened. You haven't run a decent race in years and you need to talk about whether JK's training has contributed to your injury problems.

Yawn!