Rojo's Article

I agree that it was pretty well written article. One of the most motivating things I've seen in years, even as a fairly untalented runner like I am.

Odd how he cites only his runners who have improved, and not those who didn't.

Rojo has had about zero success on the national level in xc and distance running. He had that interview a few years ago when he said he'd be a consistent team to make NC's in XC, and looking at top 10 spots. Half a dozen years later...never a team qualifier.

He's a good coach, who gets good athletes. But there a literally dozens of better college coaches out there.

I guess I'm on rojo's side as far as the intensity of the everyday mileage. I think it's way more important to "learn" to run easy...and include as much of this easy running as you can in a HS program. Obviously, the "easy" pace will get faster as your running economy at "easy pace" gets better, but it always baffles me that there are HS kids doing all of their mileage around 6 min/mile pace...

When you have learned to run easy on the easy days, you are much more consitent, rarely having a "bad" race or workout. Why? Because you're always feeling pretty decent week-to-week, month-to-month and year-to-year. Consistency is what makes good runners great. Awfully hard to train when you're injured, run down or mentally drained from running too hard, too often.

Rojo mentioned it, but thing about coaching HS kids, and it will probably offend people, but about anything "works" with high school kids. A talented kid + crappy training can still equal a good high school runner- maybe even a state champion. Maybe even that 4:10-9:00 type runner rojo mentioned. But where do they go from there? 60, 70, 80 miles a week of hammering every run? Not going to happen.

Basically, if you're concerned about a nice running career with good progression in performances post-HS, I think you need a generous amount of easy running at the HS level. Sure, include a variety of intensity into the workload occassionally (when the time of year calls for it), let them learn the sport and probably of most importance: learn to love racing.

If we look at Cornell's results, are the more repeatable than other schools? Picking the poster child is weak. Lets hear how the rest of his class did. If only 1 guy improved on this training, I would say it isn't that effective.

It is easy to make fun of Alan Webb's inconsistency. But how does it compare to lets say Weldon Johnsons? How many years in a row did Weldon run sub 29 (almost a min off pr) or sub 2:20 ( should be a jog for a 28 min guy)?

It is easy to point out the failures of the train hard camp since that is how a lot of high schools train. It isn't clear that the high mileage groups do much better on average though.

Another great article designed to convince people he, and only he, does things the right way. Robert can talk all he wants, but he can't coach with the big dogs. No Heps xc title, no NCAA qualifying team during his tenure. Don't give me those bullshit responses about how he develops kids. How about you develop an entire team before you tell other people how to coach.

more rojoism wrote:

Another great article designed to convince people he, and only he, does things the right way. Robert can talk all he wants, but he can't coach with the big dogs. No Heps xc title, no NCAA qualifying team during his tenure. Don't give me those bullshit responses about how he develops kids. How about you develop an entire team before you tell other people how to coach.

I really don't understand what your problem is (and people on this message board with similar attitudes). The Johnson brothers provides an outlet for us to discuss running training with this website. Robert is adding to this discussion by informing us what he thinks the best way to train is. He has developed plenty of quality athletes this way, so it is understandable that he believes in it.

He has provided us with an insightful and thoughtful article. Its a shame that your immature response resorted to insults. Why don't you tell us what your ideal training plan is?

Running and training etc wrote:

Robert is adding to this discussion by informing us what he thinks the best way to train is. He has developed plenty of quality athletes this way, so it is understandable that he believes in it.

Please list the "quality athletes", i.e. Cornell men's distance All-Americans, under Rojo.

Thanks.

Rojo appears to be a run of the mill coach. Having said that, it is their site and their forum. Takes what he writes for what you think it is worth.

What do all of you Debbie-Downers disagree upon then, in response to the article? I'd be interested to hear.

Yes, we haven't heard anything from the trolls about the actual content. Obviously they have nothing to say about running but they can criticize. Well, at least they've got one thing going for them.

Having been involved with the sport at all levels since the 1960s and in 3 different countries, I find the running advice these guys put out in articles like this one to be spot on with both my own (long past) running career and in my very extensive association with nearly all runners from recreational to world class during the past few decades.

As for not having teams at the national meet, it's probably more the caliber of incoming recruits and not having a 5th year that makes the biggest difference. Developing the newcomers to the sport and the under-the-radar recruits is mostly what coaching is about, although I wouldn't expect some of these Nancy Negatives to understand that. I've coached quite a few All Americans and I'll tell you right now there have been guys who never had a high school miler break 4:20 that were some of the best coaches I've known. But I wouldn't expect the trolls to understand that either. Some of the older and more battle hardened runners probably do know what I'm talking about and can recognize a coach who develops intelligently.

The article was interesting, although his display of Webb's times was a little disappointing. The 1500m/mile seem close enough to combine into one list; it gives a more accurate picture of Alan's bests year-to-year, rather than skewing the data in two separate lists:

Combined bests per year:

2001 - 3:38.26+, 2002 - 3:41.46, 2003 3:58.84y, 2004 - 3:32.73, 2005 - 3:48.92y, 2006 - 4:00.87y, 2007 - 3:46.91y, 2008 - 3:35.86, 2009 - 3:55.99y

Combined with conversions to 1500m:

2001 - 3:38.26+

2002 - 3:41.46

2003 - 3:41.21c

2004 - 3:32.73

2005 - 3:32.52

2006 - 3:43.09c

2007 - 3:30.54

2008 - 3:35.86

2009 - 3:38.57c

Douchebag Dave wrote:

Odd how he cites only his runners who have improved, and not those who didn't.

Gee, that IS odd! It's the NORM that coaches talk about their guys who didn't amount to much.

For example, you know how Chuck Knox was always talking about the positive aspects of the Seahawks and how they developed their players and how he never failed to point out, "For example, look at Brian Bosworth, who was supposed to be the next Dick Butkus, but was one of the biggest busts in NFL history!"

Running and training etc wrote:I really don't understand what your problem is (and people on this message board with similar attitudes). The Johnson brothers provides an outlet for us to discuss running training with this website. Robert is adding to this discussion by informing us what he thinks the best way to train is. He has developed plenty of quality athletes this way, so it is understandable that he believes in it.

He has provided us with an insightful and thoughtful article. Its a shame that your immature response resorted to insults. Why don't you tell us what your ideal training plan is?

Actually the Rojo's are one of the reasons I rarely come to this site. It's been months, I show back up, and there is another stupid article like this. The Brojos are blatent jerks and call people out in their articles and posts. It's crap. Its high time someone of some sort of integrity made a rival site for people who actually care about running and leave all the Boise State fans/Politicos/Guys looking for date advice for this heap of junk. All it's good for is a laugh nowadays, and even those tired memes have worn their welcome.

nowai wrote:

... I rarely come to this site.

Thank you.

Sure but again what percent of Cornells runner show this repeatability of training? Is it more or less than other programs? I don't know. But if you just pick one guy, then you are looking at pure chance. If you train 100 guys using any methods (Timmons high volume intervals, Lydiard, Daniels, super high mileage, coe multi pace,...), you will have some subset that improve significantly, some that fail, and some that stagnate. He has been at cornell long enough to give us stats (how many people improve year over year, how many regress, how many burn out,...). Is it better than let say old school arkansas (lots of hard fast miles if the training plans I have read are right)?

Tampon Tim wrote:

Douchebag Dave wrote:

Odd how he cites only his runners who have improved, and not those who didn't.

Gee, that IS odd! It's the NORM that coaches talk about their guys who didn't amount to much.

For example, you know how Chuck Knox was always talking about the positive aspects of the Seahawks and how they developed their players and how he never failed to point out, "For example, look at Brian Bosworth, who was supposed to be the next Dick Butkus, but was one of the biggest busts in NFL history!"

So you have SomeBody, Robert Johnson who I have never met or corresponded with, who is widely sharing his coaching experience and methodology (and referring to its origins and sources), asking for contributions for a new objective, catering to the many who come to this site for the running, beginners and veteran alike, and the best you can come up with is a "rival site" run by people with "some sort of integrity"?

Is the concept of "self-awareness" so foreign to you that words like "stupid" and "blatant jerks" risk boomeranging back to your ambiguous patronizing?

Collective intelligence, as it is manifesting elsewhere on the planet, is what this site is about.

It seems to me people like you are just looking to take, and want to give very little in return.

And that would not even be bad - it's people like you that make generosity as important as it is in human relations - were it not for the "arrogant" manner of the taking which is most implausable.

From my own point of view there are some worthy criticism that have come up in this thread (and more that will come), that will be held in consideration as a concrete sign that - like in the coaching style - the athlete/reader has a saying with his coach/author. In some ways an historical breakthrough.

I think many out there confuse the concept of Training with a Forging of sorts. In Italian, it would be the difference between "Allenamento" (Training) and "Addestramento" (Right-ing) where the latter implies a military style forging into shape - the right shape - which either works or fails. Break or Win. Nothing in between.

Without this very important coaching dynamic which is about the process and about the listening. A dynamic which I believe the failures of unquestioned dominance of any kind, from any entity, will eventually make you face.

As you admit to reading an article out of context, after many months of not reading anything else here, hardly gives you the weight for your comment to be taken constructively.

Even if it were to create something as nebulous as a rival running site run by people with some sort of integrity.

gfsdgsdf wrote:

He has been at cornell long enough to give us stats (how many people improve year over year, how many regress, how many burn out,...). Is it better than let say old school arkansas (lots of hard fast miles if the training plans I have read are right)?

To make accurate comparisons would mean looking at scads of incoming freshman runners from across the country each year and determining how far they progressed within 4 years (not 5 years, since Ivy League runners don't normally have a 5th year). You could formulate a regression equation to determine how much a 4:05 high school 1,600 runner would be expected to improve, how much a 4:10 guy could expect to improve, and so on. The slower high school guys would be expected to improve more than the superstars, but the number of 4:25 types in D-1 schools might be lower than the number of 4:15 guys, since 4:25 guys would not usually be recruited by powerhouses. You could still gather data about the 4:25 guys from smaller schools. Then do the same for other events (3,200 to 3k, 5k or 10k, for example).

This regression equation would give you the "national average" for improvement. You might determine that a 9:05 high school 3,200 runner should be expected to run 8:09 for 3,000 and 14:08 for 5,000 after 4 years of college, for example. Then you could measure any selected team's runners against that national average and see who's doing the best relative to it. If, in a period of 8 years (4 developed senior classes - remember, we don't count a redshirt year), a team signs and graduates 30 recruits whose average 3,200 time in high school was 8:55 (not unreasonable for the Oregons or Stanfords of the world) and their average college 5,000 personal best is 13:45 while the expected value based on regression is 13:53, you can compare how far ahead of that expected value those guys ran vs. the average of guys on other teams. The other teams don't have to recruit equally to make the comparison, as long as the sample sizes are large enough to approach a normal distribution (about 30 will do it). If a different team has 30 recruits who averaged 9:15 in high school come out of 4 years of college with an average 5,000 time of 14:15 while the national expected value for 9:15 high schoolers is 14:24 after 4 years of college, the team with the slower recruits actually outdid the expected value by a slightly larger percentage (1.05% better than the average vs. 0.97% better) than the team that would kill them in a meet. Based on the expected development, the slower team actually got more out of their guys.

This method doesn't take into account how well runners perform in the most important races, which is one of a few drawbacks to it, since some teams don't chase times as much as other teams do, but it does give one quantitative method for measuring development. With a sport that is as quantitative by nature as track is, at least we have this way of comparing development. And as sample sizes get larger, the measurements about development become more trustworthy, since there will be plenty of runners on all of these teams who do chase times and have the chance to nail down their best possible personal bests.

You could also make a pretty good comparison using cross country recruits who didn't run quite as well in track. There have been Foot Locker finalists who weren't that great at the 1,600 or 3,200. But making the finals means you're one of the top 40 in the nation (or were at some point in the season - namely, on the day of the qualifying race). If you take the top 40 times for the year in the 3,200 or converted 3,000 or 2 mile, you can get a comparison of how good being a finalist in cross country would be if you were equally as good on the track. For purposes of comparing college cross country teams, having 5 Foot Locker finalists on your team, even if they never ran that well in track, is likely better than having 5 9:00 3,200 runners who were not proven cross country commodities. Again, given large enough sample sizes over a period of several years, the probability of having excellent cross country recruits who eventually perform well on the track increases.

Altitude times (Colorado, Utah, etc.) are a little harder to adjust for since people vary quite a bit on how well they run at sea level when they come down from altitude.

Comparing teams with equal recruiting classes but significantly different numbers of recruits will favor the teams with the larger number of recruits. If team A recruits 40 middle distance runners over a 4-year period and the average incoming 800 time is 1:55, while team B recruits 70 middle distance runners who average 1:55 before college, team B has a significant advantage in "diamond in the rough" potential. There are methods for comparing improvements for samples of different sizes, and you have to use those methods to make accurate comparisons when warranted.

These comparisons can be made if you want to find out who's really coaching and who's recruiting. It will take a lot of number crunching, but that's better than unsubstantiated name calling. So for anybody who wants to run their mouth, let's see your numbers and with some work, we can see if you're full of crap or not.

Let's do it. Seriously. Let's put this issue to rest.

Wow, this thread is a disappointment.

Must be a pretty good article if the only criticism that can be applied is the ad hominem.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”