HRE wrote:
Saying that Timmons burned Ryun out is an opinion and not necessarliy an invalid one...
But you keep overlooking the fact that in those years being done or close to it in your early 20s was not uncommon, e.g. my reference to Elliott's retirement at 22.
What does this article accomplish other than dumping on an old man?
I agree that the tone of the article, including the focus on Timmons's current health, crossed the line. I've never claimed otherwise.
You make a good point in comparing Ryun to Elliott. At the age of 22, they both left the sport. Elliott has said that he wanted to get on with his life and that he had no urge to submit to the rigors of training at that point. So he left on his own terms. Ryun had no choice but to take a break when he did.
One thing that no one has mentioned is the psychological pressure that Ryun was under in 1968. He had been so successful in breaking all sorts of records that the general public came to expect it. It's important to remember just how big a sports figure Ryun was at the time. I think his 3:37 in Mexico City was a terrific achievement considering the hand he was dealt with the mononucleosis and the altitude. But he might have felt that he had let people down by not winning gold. The weight of the public's unrealistic expectations is not something that a college athlete is equipped to deal with.
When the 1968 Olympics were over, Ryun likely had little or no opportunity to take a break from running, since cross country season was already under way. The lack of a little down time to decompress might help explain why he was sometimes struggling to beat inferior competition in the spring of 1969. So it probably wasn't just the intensity of the training that caused him to go stale.
Another factor working against Ryun, the athlete, was that he had a young family and a newly deepened Christian faith. Serving God might have taken away some of his focus on track. He also faced the challenge of training outside of a structured program after graduation.
As Jack Daniels and others have pointed out, the relativley low intensity of Ryun's track training was well suited for middle-distance running, since much of it was performed at threshold. The only drawback is that there was so little recovery time between workouts. And it's not unreasonable to think that that could have had a cumulative effect over the years
Jack has also pointed out that Ryun tested as highly in 1972 as he did in 1968. That's certainly not surprising considering that Ryun ran 3:52.8 in 1972.
What remains unexplained is why, during the '71-72 seasons, he would race so well one week and then so poorly the next. Maybe it had nothing to do with his earlier training and more to do with his current circumstances. As you've said, HRE, all I have is an opinion.
And you are right to point out that Timmons was a product of his era, albeit perhaps an extreme case of it. Any judgment about his coaching has to be placed in that context. But as someone else pointed out earlier, discussing the effectiveness of the training is totally appropriate. I don't think it's too controversial to say that Lydiard and Bowerman were greater at coaching than Timmons was. One can only speculate on whether Bowerman would have handled Ryun any differently in his senior year than Timmons did. I think he would have, but again it's only an opinion.
To Jayhawk, I didn't really mean that your production was mediocre. I actually enjoyed it and recall that you went into the psychological pressures that Ryun faced. It's just that I thought one sarcastic comment deserved another. I regret it now. And I apologize to you for it.