So I just read a little bit about Pat Porter in the book "Run with the Champions." Apparently his high school times were 4:29 and 9:51 in the mile and 2-mile, respectively. Does anyone know how he went from that to a 13:33 5k runner and a world class athlete? Where was the switch and what made the difference? Was it a slow progression, or did he just hit explode at some point?
He had Joe Vigil for his coach.
Others say that his soul merged with that of a panther. Which resulted in a tattoo and a new attitude. That is the story which I believe to be true.
The Joe Vigil answer is the right one.
There have been a lot of examples of 4:30/9:50 guys and similar "slow high school to elite" stories. Brian Sell is one. I think Dick Beardsley was another.
Alan
Porter is from Evergreen, Colorado, above 7000' elevation. His PRs were probably run somewhere near Denver above 5200' of elevation. So his times are misleading. A general rule of thumb is to allow two seconds per lap for a conversion to sea level. I know that at one of the elite prep track meets in Salt Lake City about two years ago, they were using a conversion factor of 0.97. Salt Lake City is 1000' below Denver, so the difference would be even greater than the two seconds per lap, though I think that's too generous. Nevertheless, if he ran those times off of the 40 or 50 miles per week that all of us used to run, not the 90-100 mile weeks that kids are doing nowadays, it's not as impressive as it seems. Put Porter at sea level in high school, make him train 80 miles per week, and I bet he's a 9:00-9:10 guy or close to it. Then throw Vigil into the mix, and there you have it.
A couple of the guys I used to run against went to Adams State and ran 13:48 5k and 28:23 10k. Their PRs in high school were around 9:35 and 9:43, respectively. One of the guys from that era ran a 9:12 down in Arizona, despite never breaking 9:30 in Denver, and yet another, who held the state record in his division for a time at 9:29 went on to run a 28:38 10k. Throw in guys like Brent Vaughn and Bret Schoolmeester, guys that went sub-8:50 in California but could come nowhere close to breaking 9:00 in Colorado, and there's your answer. I always said that I would recruit the kid from elevation who ran a 9:30-9:40 off of negligible training over the sea level guys who run near 9:00-9:20, but require 90-100 miles per week to do it. Way more upside in my opinion.
That is true but even still, just taking elevation into account, you can give him at most 6 seconds in the mile and 13-14 seconds in the 3200 and that is being very generous (I based off of NCAA altitude adjustment marks for those distances around 5500 feet). So that makes his time 4:23 and 9:36, still not times of your run-of-the-mill elite runners in high school. And it's hard to say what he would have done if he had done more mileage because there are just too many variables with that. Also, there are plenty of runners who increase their mileage from 40-50 to 90-100 and don't become elite athletes. I'd still say it is pretty impressive.
I was hoping someone would at least know a place to find more information on this guy. Being one of the greatest American distance runners of all time, you would think there would be information readily available but I didn't see much out there on the internet.
Actually, I'm far more impressed that site-founder Wejo went from about the same high school PRs as Porter, but actually run at sea level more or less, to a 28:06 10k. Ask him how he trained.
... he ran those times at altitude. so, subtract a bit each on both of those time, still - very impressive though.
also, pat was kinda fat back when he ran for AW/Nike, probably could have gone faster had he shed a few pounds.
B00ger wrote:
... he ran those times at altitude. so, subtract a bit each on both of those time, still - very impressive though.
also, pat was kinda fat back when he ran for AW/Nike, probably could have gone faster had he shed a few pounds.
I did subtract times in my 2nd post. Also, I don't think 6 feet 135 lbs is all that fat.
And the other guy said Wejo's improvement is "more impressive"... I won't take anything away from Wejo because that is amazing and I would LOVE Wejo to share his story with everyone but I think "more" impressive is a bit strong considering Porter went from 4:23, 9:36 adjusted times to winning US XC championships 8 years in a row.
The conversions to mid 9:30s and 4:20s are about right.
It didn't just happen overnight, but he probably transformed pretty quickly once he got into their system.
I think he went to jr. college (maybe Metro State in Denver) for a year--before going to Adams. Is that right?
The story goes that he didn't train a lick, or hardly, the summer before going ASU, and arrived at campus out of shape. They had a 10 mile time trial the first day and he "about died."
I do recall seeing his name in the early 80s, primarily as a miler (sub 4:10 indoors and at or near the top of DII) and 5000 runner. He won some DII championships but was relatively unknown outside of Colorado until (I think) the 1984 Olympic Trials.
Rick Robirds was another one, who was even slower in high school. He went to Sterling, CO (elev 3000 something) in the mid 80s and had PRs like 4:50 and 10:10. By the end of summer before college he was running sub 16 for 5k on the roads (I remember getting outkicked by him at one race) at 5000'. He went on to win some DII championships and was a 28:20 or a little faster in the 10000.
Vigil developed dozens of runners from obscurity to become really good.
His initials were PP. As in PP!
oops, I take that back -- Porter was unknown until 1982 when he won xc nationals.
Mario Macias, Delano HS, Delano, California
high school 3200m pr: 9:22 (3rd in the central valley section finals in 2000 behind fernando cabada and either jj duke or daniel avila)
peyton jordan 10k 2006: 28:02
Mario Macias, Delano HS, Delano, California
high school 3200m pr: 9:22 (3rd in the central valley section finals in 2000 behind fernando cabada and either jj duke or daniel avila)
peyton jordan 10k 2006: 28:02
5k pr ran the same season: 13:38
mile pr: 4:02?
AK-50 wrote:
Rick Robirds was another one, who was even slower in high school. He went to Sterling, CO (elev 3000 something) in the mid 80s and had PRs like 4:50 and 10:10. By the end of summer before college he was running sub 16 for 5k on the roads (I remember getting outkicked by him at one race) at 5000'. He went on to win some DII championships and was a 28:20 or a little faster in the 10000.
Robirds was one of the guys I was referring to. He ran a 9:43 at the state meet in Denver @ 5400 feet. I was in the race and had never heard of the guy until that day. Still, impressive improvement to a 28:23 10k, within three years I think. I was told that he trained like a mad man. Porter was always said to have trained like a man possessed as well.
I believe the conversions are a little soft based on the anecdotes I've personally seen, but the spirit of the argument is the same. One of the advantages I believe low elevation guys have is that they can train every day of the year (I took at least one and usually two days off every week in the Winter, often due to inclement weather) and they can train faster with quicker recovery. The rest days are faster, the intervals are faster, etc, etc. It prepares them for fast racing and probably improves running economy at a given tempo. But, growing up at altitude likely conveys advantages as well.
Vigil's book (I don't remember the name) probably has a ton on Pat Porter. Just do a search here. I think Dave Martin's book with Seb Coe's dad on training distance runners had some info. on Pat as well from what I remember.
fishillini wrote:
He had Joe Vigil for his coach.
Who are some of the other top runners that Joe Vigil coached while Porter was training under him in Alamosa?
I wonder wrote:
And the other guy said Wejo's improvement is "more impressive"... I won't take anything away from Wejo because that is amazing and I would LOVE Wejo to share his story with everyone but I think "more" impressive is a bit strong considering Porter went from 4:23, 9:36 adjusted times to winning US XC championships 8 years in a row.
Actually, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Pat Porter. I don't think he gets enough credit. Craig Virgin is certainly more accomplished than Porter, but I think if you put Pat in world cross just five years before he starting factoring, he would have challenged Virgin for a world cross title. The depth of the fields just go so much greater in the decade after Virgin ran them, admittedly not in the first few years of the Porter era, but certainly in the middle and toward the end. Two exceptional cross-country runners with more than one Olympic 10k team made for each of them.
I searched Joe Vigil at barnes and noble and found "Road to the Top," is that the book you're talking about? Thanks for the great stories guys, keep 'em coming if you have them.
Here's an interview with Joe Vigil. It says he also coached Deena Kastor for the 2004 Olympics. It's interesting that they don't mention Porter in the "highlights" box. Impressive guy though.