Nate Jenkins will be world champ

That blog is ridiculous. My favorite parts:

1. Four slow runs with a girl; one where she dropped him.

2. Complaining about lack of sleep. The guy doesn't have a job. Why doesn't he get enough sleep?

3. Three runs Saturday. Impressive, but not when they're essentially junk miles. Although the middle run was somewhat quick.

4. Achilles and SI pain. So what do you do to fix those problems? Run 15 times in a week with four workouts. Brilliant. If you're hurt, then get yourself healed.

moemoney wrote:

proof that he runs too slow..I read his previous blogs and here is a recent one so I know Im not pulling this crap out of my ass.

http://www.runningtimes.com/blogs/?m=200906

you can not be serious if you run more then two runs a week with your girlfriend..or who ever that migh be.

So in that interview with Shawn Forrest, when he says he does his morning runs with his fiance, he was basically saying he's not a serious runner? Man I wish he would get serious, because 27:50 isn't half bad for such a joke of an athlete.

I never questioned Nate’s personality as I know he is more than a class act and more than a dedicated athlete. I am not questioning his ability to run fast in workouts.. Although 5:10-505 for 8-12 miles tempo are not what I call fast for a guy who is trying to run 2:10. 210 is 4:58 pace..unless you can run 15-18 miles at that pace I highly doubt that you are able to run 2:10. My point is not that he runs slow on workout days..which he shouldn’t. I think you misunderstood me… his global volume is slow. Anyone can run easy 5 days a week and run hard on 2 days a week on workout days. Nate is one of very rare athletes that were not elite in high school or college but with hard work and dedication climbed to the top. Again, I am not questioning his dedication or personality, I just believe that he needs to deviate away from the old ways of long slow running. Believe me, it’s not all about workouts..it’s about your global volume and what you do during the other 5 days.

Derderian wrote:

I'm a coach. I've known Nate and watched him train. He doesn't do anything stupid.

We all agree, he's a mileage whore, but more for the distance he covers during failed booty calls

Come on, let's be honest here, no offense to nate, but he can't run 2:10. The 2:14:5* was his breakthrough.

He runs his mileage fairly quick. I was running an easy 8 one day at around 8 minute pace with a friend and I saw Nate ahead. I ran up and asked his pace for the run, he said 8 min per mile. I said great, that what we're doing. After 2 blocks my teammate was pretty far back, I again asked Nate about the pace because we were moving fast. He said, " well, 8 min per mile, 7, 6 min per mile, it's kinda all the same for me". I had to peel off after 3 miles or so as I desperately needed an easy run. I think he understates his mileage assuming it's all 8 minute pace.

Harry... wrote:

He may not have the fastest pr, but based on his training and his recent improvements, there is no way he can be beaten in August.

How educated is this guy????????.....sorry, not gonna happen.

And from what I can understand, Canova says that once you're more than 10% away from race pace, you're no longer doing specific training for your event. If I'm understanding Canova correctly, that would mean that for a 2:12 marathoner (~5 minute pace) 6:00 and 8:00 per mile don't really have a different aerobic effect. So if you're doing a recovery run, since you're going slower than 10% of marathon pace, it doesn't matter how slow it is as long as you recover.

And, as I and now someone else has mentioned, Nate is probably a little overly cautious with estimating the pace of his runs.

I'm not saying he trains perfectly, because no one does, but this is a guy who wasn't even a DII All-American in college and now he's down to 2:15. Yes, he's having a lot of trouble right now- but to claim Nate isn't serious about the sport is ludicrous. Also, what he's doing NOW shouldn't be taken as what he does when he's totally healthy- right now he's got several injury issues, his health isn't great, his fitness isn't where he wants it to be, and in 6 or 7 weeks he's representing the US for the first time in international competition in an insanely competitive marathon.

Read some of the comments Nate has left on the blogs in answer to questions people have- he clearly knows what he's doing, it's just that real life will, on occasion, interfere with what we would like to ideally do in training. Well, real life- getting sick, getting hurt, having a crappy night sleep, doing a run with your girlfriend, etc- gets in the way for some of us. Clearly, Nate's many 2:08-marathon detractors on this thread are always perfectly within the parameters of the paces formulae predict for them and never have rough patches.

Wasn't his gf flne champ like 10 years ago

There's no such thing as a bad mile. Ask any top Japanese runner.

fawn lebowitz wrote:

There's no such thing as a bad mile. Ask any top Japanese runner.

HRE and Nobby can confirm that.

Yeah, the Japs and Kenyans are really having quite a duel in distance events in the last couple of years :/

I agree, Jenkins needs to lower his mileage and crank up the pace of his runs and workouts.

I think Oxford Hills and CraigMac need to relax and get off of Nate Jenkins D. You guys would probably be better runners if you stopped worrying about what hes doing. grow up

?? wrote:

I think Oxford Hills and CraigMac need to relax and get off of Nate Jenkins D. You guys would probably be better runners if you stopped worrying about what hes doing. grow up

Right, criticize the guys using facts and logic to defend him, but say nothing about all the retards that were hopping all over this thread saying anyone who runs slower than 6 min pace is a jogger. You're a moron.

Why do people need to defend him? He is his own man and will do what he needs to do. Especially since Nate Jenkins is about a million times better runner then every peson making comments about this, including myself. I bet hes capable of figure things out for himself

?? wrote:

Why do people need to defend him? He is his own man and will do what he needs to do. Especially since Nate Jenkins is about a million times better runner then every peson making comments about this, including myself. I bet hes capable of figure things out for himself

Fair enough, I just don't know why you equate people's reasonable arguments with "needing to get off Nate's D". Do you see why you came off as a bit of a jackass? And no, no one NEEDS to defend him, they just feel like it, so they do. Nobody NEEDS to speculate as to whether Alan Webb's racing problems are caused by hair growth, but wouldn't you know they just speculate away.

The problem is not his training or his talent. It's refusing to take time off to recover from his injuries. Just give me 1 day off! Please!

Nate Jenkins had this to say about our thread:

"Chris,

I haven’t been online as much as usual and had missed that. so thanks, I guess, for pointing it out. I don’t think much about the doubters/nah sayers. I mean I guess it is a nice thing to be lets face it this is a sport of failures. Only one or two people in a generation get to be world beaters and the rest fail more often then not. So if you say someone will fail your going to be right a lot more often. But to be honest I don’t run to prove anything to anyone else. I sometimes wish I did, I wish I had less selfish motivations, but I don’t. I run to find out just what I can do, to learn about my own physical, mental and emotional limits.

But as far as letsrun stuff effecting my thought or motivation process, no it doesn’t. I enjoying reading it, very entertaining. But the problem is that 99% of those people don’t have a clue what there talking about. I think we have a problem in our generation with reading comprehension. I’m not sure if it is that our reading skills suck or if we just don’t pay attention long enough to read a full statement. But its epidemic. There is one post on Canova training on that thread that was just painful. He caught a couple of canova points, correctly, but then extrapalted and mixed them painfully.

Now that said it is obvious from what I’ve been posting that things are not going well here and so it is the time to jump on board and take your swings while I’m down and I understand that, and it is fine.

The last bit I’ll add is my theory of letsrun posting law. The reason I’m getting ripped on letsrun right now isn’t that I’m running shitty (which I am) or because I’ve not been able to follow my training plan(which I haven’t been able to do) I”m getting ripped because the original poster posted something positive. Go ahead and try it, today start a thread saying Alan Webb is the greatest american miler ever, you’ll get a 100 negative posts and 10 positive posts about alan. Tomorrow start a thread that says Alan Webb is a washed up peice of shit and you’ll get 100 posts about how great alan is annd 10 negative posts about him. In the end it is that predictability that ruins letsrun for me.

nate"

You know what the funny thing is?!?!?! HE'S RIGHT!!! You letsrun dorks crack me up sometimes.