jim ryun ovetrained

No argument that Ryun was never the same after the mono. People get laid low sometimes. But there is no way to assess someone's true potential. I know that when people told Elliott that he'd retired before people saw the best of him he'd tell them that mentally he'd given all he had and that people most definitely had seen the best of him.

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There's a photo, probably a few of them, of Ryun kicking in the '64 trials, with O'Hara, Grelle and Burleson, matching each other stride by stride. A 17 year old kid doesn't get that from luck and talent alone. With all the coaches and talented high school kids in the U.S., please name another who has run 3:39 and made the Olympic team at age 17.

I have always believed and continue to do so, that Bob Timmons was the only coach who could have developed and trained Ryun to success. And Ryun was quite fragile, though he got strong and developed great biomechanics, because of how he was trained.

Bob Timmons doesn't get nearly enough credit for the genius of a coach that he was. But more than that, a great person.

And quite a modest person, never taking any credit of his own. If someone said he was a bad coach or person then he might agree. It was the kids that were great to him. I just can't say enough of that man and what he did for the kids and people who were fortunate enough to live in his world.

Overtraining is not defined by how many miles you run.

You can train reasonably at 110 mpw and you can overtarin at 40-50 mpw.

If you run 40-50 mpw but everday is fast and high quality you can burn out faster than someone doing a lot of easy miles with two hard workouts per week.

Most top runners overtrain and say they could have run faster if they did it right.

I know Coe thought so.

something I haven't seen mentioned in this thread - as to a factor in Ryun's latter career roller coaster. It was mentioned back then - that is his allergies. He did comment on how that had interfered with training - I think he move from Oregon to Santa Barbara as a result. What I understand is that allergies eventually contributed to his moving from there. How much this had an impact in the overall 'performance' on the track I don't know and don't recall reading anything specific. Maybe some old timers here have a take on this.

Not true that post-mono, he did not run well. In 1972, he ran a 3:52.8 mile a few weeks before the Munich Olympics. The seeding computer mis-read this time as a 1500 meter time and put him in the same heat as Keino, which was a mistake that cost him.

At the U.S. Olympic trials, Ryun had a tremendous last lap in 51 to win the 1500. If you watch videos of that race (I saw it live on TV), his stride in 1972 was still awesome.

If Ryun had made to the 1500 final at Munich, he would blown away Keino as Vasala did. Unlike in 1968, Keino had no "rabbit" to lead for him as Jipcho did. As good as Vasala was, he was nothing compared to Ryun.

Ah this is awesome! This thread has it all.

* A DVTT of 3:25 for Ryun's 1500 WR.

* Apologists for the notorious and infamous Coach Timmons.

* Ryun fetishists telling us how he would "blow away" Vasala.

Yeah baby!

banked track wrote:

Not true that post-mono, he did not run well. In 1972, he ran a 3:52.8 mile a few weeks before the Munich Olympics. The seeding computer mis-read this time as a 1500 meter time and put him in the same heat as Keino, which was a mistake that cost him.

At the U.S. Olympic trials, Ryun had a tremendous last lap in 51 to win the 1500. If you watch videos of that race (I saw it live on TV), his stride in 1972 was still awesome.

If Ryun had made to the 1500 final at Munich, he would blown away Keino as Vasala did. Unlike in 1968, Keino had no "rabbit" to lead for him as Jipcho did. As good as Vasala was, he was nothing compared to Ryun.

Ryun's 3:52.8 while good, was not on par with his 3:51.1, which he floated through, stating he thought he had run 3:56 or so, and feeling as if he could go out and run another mile (watch his bio "America's Greatest Miler"). Ryun was never quite as strong or smooth. He was in great shape by the time Munich rolled around, much better shape than when he ran in the trials. He had a good shot at winning. Kickless Brendan Foster always whines that Ryun would have lost because Vasala had run a good 800 that season, but Ryun had run down Wottle at the trials and Wottle had run a faster 800 than Vasala that year. Foster was purely jealous of how much better a miler Ryun was than himself. Foster was a great 5k guy, but no wheels when it came to a kick, hence his sour grapes. Had Ryun run the final and lost to Vasala, he no doubt still would have finished ahead of Foster, lol.

HRE wrote:

No argument that Ryun was never the same after the mono. People get laid low sometimes. But there is no way to assess someone's true potential. I know that when people told Elliott that he'd retired before people saw the best of him he'd tell them that mentally he'd given all he had and that people most definitely had seen the best of him.

Elliott had done it all, but it doesn't mean he reached his physical potential. I think today's runners come closest to reaching their absolute due to having rabbits in so many circuit races. They literally get used to all out, flat out, super fast paced races week after week.

The poster who stated most record breakers don't reach their full potential is probably correct, just as the statement that Ryun was trained incorrectly is correct. Even Timmons admitted his system was far too harsh in an article by Kenny Moore. As Snell said, Ryun was so good he was able to survive Timmons's training.

Having trained with Timmons at W.E., I would say that his training was most definitely not hard. In fact it was easy.

Heck there were 2 minute rests between every 440.

There was a lot of work though, good hard work, and that was great stuff.

The reps could be quite painful though, which was up to each runner just how fast they ran each repetition. And the rest of the running, besides the reps and time trials, was often quite slow. One time I was warming up with the group before a XC race, and they were going so slow, slower than a walk, that I walked a few steps, not being used to running so slow. One of them said to keep running, because Timmons liked them to keep running, but he didn't care how slow they were running in such instances.

Sure, if you ran hard on the reps then it was going to hurt. I was hungry due to not getting to run with them very often, and ended up rolling around on the ground a few times cause of that. Ryun started the reps quite moderately, based on his speed and ability, gradually went faster, and would run them quite fast by the end of the reps, which I think that was an excellent strategy. The East guys would usually follow behind him and see who could hang on the longest.

Timmons was a very nice person and I never saw him yell at anyone, like some coaches do. He was all about goals. He would come up and say "be sure you finish" such and such, and you wanted to do it because you knew that he cared.