Kenny Moore Marathon Training

I did it his way

A little personal history: In the early years of my marathoning, I used to think I hit the wall at the 20 mile mark because I didn’t run enough miles. So I kept increasing my weekly total. Over two years in particular (I remember them well), my mileage went from 100 to 120 to 140 miles a week. Even with all that training, I still hit the wall at around 20 miles. (Even at 140 miles week, 20 miles was the longest run I would do in training.) After finishing 11th in the 1971 Pan-American Marathon Trials, I was talking about my 140-mile weeks at a postrace party.

That evening, I overheard Kenny Moore (who had finished second) saying he’d never run a 100-mile week in his life. The key to his program: a slow 30-miler every two to three weeks leading up to the marathon.

In my training for the Munich Olympic Trials the following year, I tried Kenny’s plan of running less overall mileage but with a 30-miler every two to three weeks. Result: I tied for third at the U.S. Trials in much tougher competition than the year before. And I’m proud to day, that in the 60 marathons I’ve run since, I never hit the wall again (exept in a couple of marathons when I went out way to fast.)

Which is why I believer you should work up to a long run equal to the marathon race distance or evey a little farther. This gives you the endurance and confidence necessary to finish the marathon. Keep in mind that you should do these long training runs at least 2 minutes per miles slower than you could run that distance on that day. In general, the slower you run, the faster you’ll recover. Yet, it is my belief that you receive the same endurance benefit as when you go fast.

http://www.trinewbies.com/Article2.asp?ArticleID=14

If you search him here, you'll find it all. From what I remember, he did a LR, 6X1M and a short rep workout = to about 3 miles worth each cycle. In between, he did two days of 20 minute jogs (one in am and one in pm). His LR was longer than most, 30 or so miles.

Cottonwood Trail wrote:

If you search him here, you'll find it all. From what I remember, he did a LR, 6X1M and a short rep workout = to about 3 miles worth each cycle. In between, he did two days of 20 minute jogs (one in am and one in pm). His LR was longer than most, 30 or so miles.

I did a "Kenny Moore" seach for the last year and came up with 1315 result(s). Any idea on how I can narrow it down? Links appreciated.

Here you go.

Her you go again.

Thanks for the links Old Merv...Interesting stuff. I cannot think of any current runners off the top of my head which run overdistance like that...

Your post is interesting gallowalk...

I agree with much of what you said. My experience is that many of us trained far too hard. It was in the early 1970s that I began to run 25 to 28 miles a couple of times a month and found it effective training. I have always maintained that there is no wall as long as the runner runs in accordance with the training that the runner has undergone If you have done the mileage and run at the pace you are trained for the distance should be no problem.

By the way, Jeff Galloway was 11th in the Boston Marathon (on April 21, 1971) not in the Pan-American Trials. Galloway was then 6th at the combined National AAU Marathon/Pan-Am Trials in Eugene on Sunday June 6th,1971. I ran in both races also. By the way Jim Ryun and Steve Prefontaine are on the cover of the program for that event since both were entered in the mile in the Twilight Meet held that evening at Hayward Field.

Does Kenny ever post on these forums?

I am not aware of him posting.

By the way, in that AAU Marathon Championship, Kenny Moore was first in 2:16:48.6 and Frank Shorter was second in 2:17:44.5. I do not believe Shorter lost a marathon for 5 years after that.

TRAINING: Ken trains at 9AM and 3PM 6 days per week and one long run on the 7th day beginning in late AM. His longest ever run is 43 miles. Preferred racing frequency is once a month and dwindling. Ken's easy days are 3-5 mile jog in the morning and sometimes and easy three mile jog in the afternoon on Pre's Trail. The following workouts were done prior to the 1978 New York Marathon.

Sun--Sept.25--write Bill Rodgers profile.

Mon--Easy day.

Tues--Brainstorm Eric Heiden, embellish notes,--run 6 x mile on Pre's Trail in 4:40-4:44.

Wed--Easy day and garden work.

Thurs--Easy day.

Fri--32-mile run.

Sat--Easy day.

Sun--Easy day.

Mon--6x330 on grass(last 6 45.5-46), easy 6 miles.

Tues--Easy day.

Wed--Easy day.

Thurs--6 x mile @ 4:40.

Fri--Easy day.

Sat--Easy day.

Sun--28-mile run.

Mon--Easy day.

Tues--Easy day.

Wed--3x660(1:42), 440(66), 330(48), 220(32), 110(15), jog 10 miles.

Thurs--Easy day.

Fri--Easy day.

Sat--6 x mile @4:36

Sun--Easy day, fly to Washington D.C.

Mon--15 miles easy.

Tues--Easy day.

Wed--10 mile run, 1st five at 7:00 pace and second five at 5:00 pace.

Thurs--Easy day.

Fri--Easy day.

Sat--Easy day.

Sun--New York City Marathon, 2:16:29. Ken did not run for the next 8 days but on the 27th of October won a pumpkin carving contest at Bob Newland's house.

n the 1970's, in my quest for faster times, I averaged about 140 miles of running per week. I maxed out, believe it or not, at an exhausting 210 weekly miles-which led to a series of breakdowns. If there had been a magazine called Injured Runner back then, I would have been on the cover month after month.

Slowly I realized that sheer volume wasn't the key to success. At the 1971 Pan Am Games Trials, as a group of us mileage junkies compared notes, Kenny Moore confessed that he had never run a 100-mile week in his life. A year later, he finished fourth in the Olympic Marathon.

Kenny wasn't the only world-class marathoner to embrace lower mileage. When Tony Sandoval won the 1980 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, he was running a lot-about 120 miles per week. During his medical residency the following year, however, Tony's mileage dipped to about 40 per week-and he still ran a 2:14 marathon.

http://www.jeffgalloway.com/resources/rw_archives/jun_2000.html

Thank you Gallowalk.

What about doing a 30 at about 2 minutes slower, but running the last 8k at about marathon pace?

gallowalk... wrote:

Kenny wasn't the only world-class marathoner to embrace lower mileage. When Tony Sandoval won the 1980 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, he was running a lot-about 120 miles per week. During his medical residency the following year, however, Tony's mileage dipped to about 40 per week-and he still ran a 2:14 marathon.

Let's see . . . Tony ran 2:10 and won the Olympic trials off of 120 mpw, then ran 2:14 the next year off of 40 mpw, and you're saying that he "embraced" lower mileage? Why? Was he looking for ways to get slower?

when was YOUR last 2:14?

just asking.

$$$$$$ wrote:

when was YOUR last 2:14?

just asking.

Outstanding question! It's funny (sort of) when people rip on 2:14 marathon times (hell, even when they rip on 2:30 marathon times) as not "elite" or not "XXXX ".

word up, bruddah wrote:

Outstanding question! It's funny (sort of) when people rip on 2:14 marathon times (hell, even when they rip on 2:30 marathon times) as not "elite" or not "XXXX ".

Obviously, you both missed my point, which was that Sandoval didn't "embrace" low mileage training for marathon racing. He clearly ran much better on higher mileage. His relatively low mileage during medical school in the late 70s, and during his residency in the early 80s was a constraint imposed by his work schedule, not a decision about optimal marathon training. In fact, one of the reasons that guys like Frank Shorter picked him to make the 1980 Olympic team was that, having run well off of low mileage during med school, he was likely to run even better when he ramped up his mileage leading into the Olympic trials. That was, in fact, what happened.

I can't think of any really top guys who used the hard/easy thing to the extent Kenny did. Benji Durden might have come closest or maybe Brian Maxwell. Both of them alternated really big mileage days with short, easy days.

Steve Hoag hangs out here and might comment. I know after he came second at Boston he said in a Runner's World interview that he had two days a week where he ran 5-6 miles and that Ron Daws had gotten him to do 30 mile runs.

I had a friend who ran 2:17 on three or four runs a week with three or four off days, he'd do a 20 and two or three 10's.

If you can find some of the old "How They Train" books, Moore is profiled several times. Actually, he may be in all of them. He's in both of Joe Henderson's, he's in Ted Brock's and he's in Fred Wilt's.

I do know that Kenny recently told a mutual friend that he did some fast running at the end of his four mile runs on his second easy days so some of the easy days may not have been quite as easy as he'd lead people to believe.

Yes, Benji immediately comes to mind as another hard/easy, <100mpw runner who achieved excellent results. People should be careful about drawing conclusions from these examples, however. Benji had long stretches during which he did very high mileage. Jeff did very high mileage for a long time leading up to the 1972 Olympic trials. As I recall, Brian Maxwell also ran some 140 mile weeks. The fact that some runners may have achieved good results after a stretch of relatively low mileage should be seen in the context of their training over a period of years.

A couple of other points: I don't think that Kenny's long runs were quite what Jeff is advocating these days. Kenny's long runs were not jogs. Also, although I understand why Jeff says that he tied for third at the 1972 Olympic trials marathon (behind Shorter and Moore, who tied for first), he actually finished fourth, and was credited with a fourth-place finish in the official results.

I believe that the reason for Moore and Durden to go to such hard/easy way of thinking was that it kept them healthy. I know that Benji had knee problems and found he could go long/hard every other day with a little in between. I think Bowerman had Moore go to this type schedule for similar reasons?

Point being, if they could do higher/more mileage they both would have kept doing it.