Vigil and Mahon To Present at National Distance Running Summit in Charlotte

scorekeeper is a moron said,

"Right, because losing is the usual result of a quality program and winning consistently is the earmark of a crap program. You make your own luck. If you can't figure out how to bring about improvement in your runners and in your porogram then you can't be much of a coach."

I never said the great coaches I have known didn't improve their athletes. The fact is that they improved all of their athletes. But, that doesn't mean you win state titles. My point was and still is, that you can't simply measure success or the quality of a coach by how many state titles they win.

I am surprised to see your hyper-reaction to someone who simply expressed thier oppinion concerning D.G. I hope you are more open minded to your athletes who express thier oppinion to you which may be in contrast to yours. Or maybe you are just always right.

Have a nice day. I hope you learn great things from D.G.

What is Green's philosophy? I am not the guy busting your balls, I just would like to know, if you can provide please.

"You can't simply measure success or the quality of a coach by how many state titles they win"

Actually, you can. That is the nature of our sport. You want ambiguity? Try coaching band or gymnastics.

The best runner in our sport is the fastest runner. The best team is the fastest team.

I don't see, and I don't see a reason, for a summit like this to ask you to speak.

I do see a reason for Green, Vigil, Simmons and Mahon to speak. And I want to hear what they say! You should too. Pay the entry fee and you might learn something.

I have learned more from Dan Green over the course of a weekend than I would likely ever learn from a disingenuous illiterate such as you over a lifetime.

scorekeeper is a moron wrote:

I have learned more from Dan Green over the course of a weekend than I would likely ever learn from a disingenuous illiterate such as you over a lifetime.

Well then you have learned to disregard everyone, but the cream of the crop on your team. And, Don't do any weight lifting to better yourself, And, Don't try to improve your mechanics. No, just exploit the best of those who are in your program and the hell with everyone else.

I attended the distance summit last year in kansas and heard D.G. say all of the above, so if that is what you want to learn then have at it. That is not my philosophy. Maybe it is because I am a college coach and he is not, I don't know, but I strongly disagree with his approach. Actually, so did all of the other guest speakers such as Vigil and Simmons. In fact, I had to laugh as these highly successful collegiate and olympic coaches contradicted almost all of what DG said except when DG said he buys into Vigil's training methodology. I must say, so do I. Vigil is my god!

If you learn from DG then you have told me all I need to know about you. You are a Jr. High coach who is looking for all the wrong reasons to define success.

Best of luck to you my fellow coach. I hope that you have a tremendous season next year.

Congrats, you have devolved into writing completely unreadable messages.

scorekeeper is a moron wrote:

Congrats, you have devolved into writing completely unreadable messages.

Nice comeback! I really wish I could contribute a readable message. All I have to offer are actual summaries of your man Danny Green. But you being the seeker of "Green" knowlegde already knew that.

See ya!

Scorekeeper... I call B.S.! You didn't see any of those guys at the summit in Kansas last year. The summit has been in Iowa for the past two years so you are just making shit up.

Give it a rest. Maybe if you could motivate your runners like Green does you wouldn't need to seek validation of yourself on an anonymous message board.

You keep missing the point of what coaching is. It isn't all drills and VO2max. It is coaching!

Uh oh! What is this?

http://www.letsgorun.com/MidAmericaDistanceClassic/DistanceCoachingClassic.pdf

I guess I DO know what I am talking about.

Oh, and by the way, I also have been to the summit at Grinnell College. It was an overall worth while event. I love to hear Vigil speak.

I to heard Green speak last year and he did indeed say he does not do any weight training with his team...his biggest explanation is that he has a limited amount of time with his athletes and he would rather be spending it running...he also said if the kenyans start looking like bodybuilders and still winning then maybe he will start lifting...as for saying he pays no attention to his other athletes that couldn't be more wrong...he spent a whole session on how a coach needs to make everyone feel apart of the team from the first runner down to the last...when you have as big as team as he does of course everyone won't get the same amount of one on one time...but he does not completely disregard those not in the top group.

Scorekeeper is probably one of those who hears only what he wants to hear and gets mightily frustrated and blames the speaker when concepts go over his head.

You all crack me up. I simply said that I don't agree with Green's philosophy and all you do is attack me personally. What a sad state of affairs in the running world. If I can quote Joe Vigil, "There are many roads to Rome." Joe said that in regard to the numerous ways there are to coach/train. Notice I never said that Green's approach was wrong, I just said I don't agree with it. I sure would hate to see a world where every coach has to conduct their business the same way. I don't know about you all, but I present about 6 different workouts daily for my athletes. Why? Because each is different. Oh, and so are coaches. I can certainly see Dan being a good motivator. As I stated, he is a great speaker. All that said, to say he doesn't have time to have weightlifting or work on mechanics or develop kids outside of the top 10 is a cop out. All of those things can be addressed on the athlete's own time. As he said, "it is not a priority us." Ironically, at the Grinnel summit when this topic came up, every other coach on the 5 or 6 coach panel felt that weight lifting and mechanics were an important priority and addressed them within their programs. Only Dan Green felt they are "not a priority."

Go to the summit. It is a valuable program, but understand that not everything said is gospel. Find your own way to Rome.

PS. My hearing is fantastic. I hear everything!

scorekeeper...

The difference is coach Green has a team of 100 people. They are in HS. How are you going to supervise 100 HS kids in a weight room?

Secondly, he has his kids running more than most other schools. So, he uses that time that others are doing weight lifting to do more running. It's a tradeoff, he thinks his kids get more out of running than lifting.

Lastly, they are HS kids. They don't have as much time as college or post college athletes. Ever think that maybe adding weightlifting into the mix, in addition to all the running, is a recipe for overtraining.

They don't lift weights, but they do do some body weight/general stuff like ab work and push ups.

I don't agree with his view on mechanics, but once again it's a logistical nightmare. To really improve someones mechanics they have to have a ton of individual attention. No, just giving some kid some stupid drills is not a way to improve mechanics. So, how do you work on 100 kids mechanics when you have limited time? Thus why it's no prioritized I'm guessing.

Curiously, That is the first quality post in regard to this topic. Well done!

Yes, you are correct. Implementing those things with a large team is difficult, but it can be done. It just takes more planning. Dan does have a good staff that can assist with such things. Of course everyone can't fit into the weightroom at once and mechanics can't be addressed all at once. But with good scheduling, they can be achieved. Use the staff, captains and upperclassmen to help out. It just comes down to priorities and from what I have heard, Dan does not place those issues very high on the list.

Ironically, the number one cause of injury for runners is mileage. It could be said that spending a little time in the weightroom might help in injury prevention. From a anatomical approach, lifting is necessary to balance the muscle development that occurs from running. Additional core and opposing group strengthening is important.

JMHO

Lifting weights in the traditional sense is a waste of time and energy for distance runners. It could possibly help significantly undertrained runners but then I'd never coach anyone to be significantly undertrained. As Simmons has shown, there are better ways that are more running-specific to enable strength gains. Squats, dead lifts, bench presses, leg extensions, leg curls, and so on are all second-rate ways, at best, to give distance runners functional strength. 100 kids in the weight room is more apt to produce injury than never having them go into the weight room.

I don't know if I would go so far as to say lifting weights is a waste, but I agree that there are other ways to gain in strength. My point was that resistance training is important to the development of the runner. Heck, Herchel Walker never touched weights and was great. He used only his body weight resistance. You are also right about 100 people in a weightroom being dangerous. There is no way that works. But you can group them and spread out the numbers.

I really want to make one last point. While I have expressed that I didn't get anything out of Danny Green's presentation, that is not to say that you won't. Regardless of your knowledge base, the summit is a great opportunity to visit with other coaches and get some wonderful ideas. Sometimes it is just a new way of doing what you already do. I encourage everyone to attend. I appologize if I came off harsh on Danny. He is a good guy and I do appreciate that he takes the time to promote a fantastic sport.

saywhat?!?! wrote:

I don't think I'm going to be able to make it this year. Is there any word on a dvd of the summit being made or I think I read someone writing about a possible webcast in another thread.

Anybody know if this is going to be on a dvd or webcast? I can't make the summit and don't want to miss anything!

did green's team make it to nike team nationals? how are they looking?