Charolette Distance Summit

Excellent. Canova was great, if hard to understand at times. Great altitude discussion and explanation of his take on the specific endurance phase. Vigil was every bit as good. He discussed his middle distance training but he dipped into other areas. Of course his anecdotes are worth the price of admission. Aris and McMillan were very good. They spoke mostly about their respective programs. Mcmillan had more to say about their training. Aris kind of skirted the training and spoke more about Fay-Man's history and the structure of their program. Jay Dicharry only presented once but ran over because he was really into it and there were a ton of questions. Wish he had presented twice. I didn't sit through Simmons. It was a similar presentation to previous years. I don't fault him for it. He put together a great summit.

Much BETTER than last year (Hudson was disappointing, to say the least).

+1 Vigil and Canova were great! Canova was a bit hard to understand but he didn't just stick to the handouts which was great so it was like you got twice as much from his presentation.

Canova and Vigil were awesome! I've heard Vigil twice now and I'd sit and listen to him for days. Canova, like others said, was a bit difficult to understand at times, but was also great. Listening to him was possibly a once in a lifetime opportunity. Really happy I got to hear them.

Jay Dicherry was excellent and I wish there were more labs around the country. Would've liked to hear more from him.

McMillan was good, but he only spoke once. On the panel he said nothing, even about altitude, bummer.

Aris, talked solely about his program. Got a few good things from him, but he just defended his team most of the time. He likes to talk.

WAY better than last year.

Felt the same way as everyone else. Vigil and Canova were FANTASTIC, absolutely stunning. Very friendly too; i was able to talk to them quite a bit and get even more out of the summit. McMillan & Aris were excellent as well, I would of liked to hear more about Aris' training, but he instead talked more about his "rounded approach/holistic approach" to coaching. McMillan went more into detail about his workouts and phases so that was great.

They also passed out a nice softcover booklet that had fairly detailed notes on each speaker's presentation, so it's not like i can't go back and reread some of the lectures.

McMillan was filming the whole thing so anyone should be able to buy it off his website soon, he said.

Didn't stay for Simmons presentation, but i was very grateful he put on the clinic.

Vigil always entertaining. MAde some great points. Catch him while you can, I don't think he'll be doing this a lot longer. Agree that Canova was hard to listen to. Both very friendly and approachable. McMillan did I nice job. I have to admit I didn't think he would. Simmons and Dicharry gave us some good stuff. could have used a little more Dicharry to discuss some solutions to the problems he posed. Could have used a lot less Aris.Told his business story twice and kept pushing his holistic approach. Lots of bad comments about those that are critical of him on Lets run. Gee, he only brought it up 12 different times! No specific workouts and seemed to start making shit up as he went along. Nothing like a guy that seems to have all the answers and will quickly tell you so. I came away thinking his program is far too intense for high school.

Agree with those who have posted already. I could listen to Renato all day long!

There was a fascinating discussion on eating disorders with input from audience member Francie Larrieu Smith among others.

Summit was great. All speakers were tremendous, Vigil is Vigil extremely smart and relates his knowledge and shares it well.

Some negative comments about Aris are wrong. Sure he defended his program a little bit but his topics were "HS Distance programs" and that sure comes with the territory. He was not hiding anything, he is who is he and trainining is not the secret recipe for success. It is all of the other things, the "wholistic" approach that he gets his athletes to believe in that make them so great in the distance events. It's just knew to alot of others so you think he's feeding us mumbo jumbo, but between the lines in practice he's no different than others. He was not hiding anything.

A nice guy, easy to talk to. Known him for years and he did a great job at the summit.

Just posted a review of the Comference on my blog for anyone interested:

http://maximumperformancerunning.blogspot.com/2011/01/super-distance-summit-in-review.html

This was my first Distance Summit since the first one at Grinnell, Iowa. This one was excellent. Simmons should be very proud of the fantastic weekend he arranged.

Simmons should be a little less proud of his presentation, which was by far the weakest of the weekend and had little new from the first summit. The only new things he had was talking up his elite athletes like Crouch and Cabada, but he didn't do it in a way that shed light on their specific progression, like Canova did with some of his athletes. Simmons is a very inquisitive guy, so maybe he next time he can include new modalities, like whatever he figures out to do in training with his new Alter G.

Aris' first talk was very good. It gave a fairly clear picture of why they are so successful. I have to admit that his deep attention to every detail that could affect his program appeals to me. His second presentation, however, went over a lot of the same ground, and would have been much better if he had included specifics. At a track/XC clinic with 2 1/2 - 3 hours of presentation time, how hard is it to squeeze in a sample week of workouts from your top group during one of your training phases?

Don't misunderstand. I'm still glad I travelled to hear Aris, feel like I now have an idea why FM is so successful, and took away some ideas to improve my program.

Canova isn't that hard to understand if you were ever around the old guys playing bocce ball in the park. "Eefa the traininga loada..."

Canova was worth the price of the clinic, which by the way, was not much, especially after they gave out a free pair of $90 Nikes.

I had never heard Mcmillan before. He was excellent, organized and thorough in his presentation. Very, very good.

Dicharry also gave a few practical points that will definitely be used in my program. He probably should have presented twice. I noticed the coaches were very hungry for his information, particularly the hands-on analysis tests along with the exercises to fix the major locomotion issues.

Vigil is an American legend. As the man said, you'll want to see him before it's too late. I've seen him before, heard much of the same stuff and still took away a better understanding of the training principles he advocates.

Maybe I would benefit from attending a typing/spelling/proof reading conference as well.

Was there and thought it was outstanding. Lots of information and simply not enough time to absorb it all! You could put these guys in a format over a week and still not get enough.

Scott did an amazing job in putting this together and acting as ringmaster for the whole event.

I can listen to Joe all day. As someone else said, he is honest and entertaining and always a wealth of knowledge interspersed with some classic stories. He is tired and having trouble moving around these days. With his "I can't ever say No attitude", it could mean he is going to have to start winding it down.

Greg gave some great insight on what goes in in his program and the basis behind it. I fine his enthusiasm a breath of fresh air. He only had enough time to give us the set up, but I would have liked to hear a little more on how they get into the program and what the day to day set up is.

Renato was simply brilliant. And a great sense of humor! When he wasn't presenting, he was either listening intently or out in the hall answering anything you could throw at him. Dificult to understand at times. You could hear everything, but it would be easy to misinterpret some comments in a large setting.

Bill was great at getting to the philosophy of his program. I took away some great ideas from his presentations. Applications for Captains, "God, family, School, Running" I love the idea that his kids see good clean healthy living as a choice not a sacrifice.

I too felt he could have actually shed a little light on his workouts. He did spend a lot of time defending his program. My only negative "in my mind", was that the Stotan philosophy is a bit too extreme for high school age kids.

Dicharry could have used a second presentation. Again, very approachable and full of ideas and research backed information. Good stuff on barefoot running, but for me, it left more questions than answers.

The audience was full of many who themselves, could have put on a presentation. As someone already said, Francie was there. How often do you have a setting where, arguably, one of the top 5 women in the history of American distance running is on the edge of her seat gathering every bit she can use?

Great job Scott!

Aris interesting, Joe Vigil great, Renato fantastic !

I hope to meet them again !

If people in the Northwest would like to hear the excellent Dr. Vigil present, he will be at a clinic in Spokane on Jan. 21-22. Here is the link to that clinic:

http://goeags.com/sports/c-track/2010-11/files/RunnerPacket.pdf

Enjoy

Thanks for posting reviews. Does anyone have actual notes or better yet video?

It was far better than what the USATF Podium Project/coaching "education" have degenerated into.

Canova had great info, as we've come to expect from his helpful posts here. A lot of talk about the importance of strength endurance, which fits perfectly with the type of program John Cook has used to win medals.

Dr. Vigil was great as usual. Nice to hear him talk more about track events and less about marathons.

I wish I could have dragged malmo into the Dicherry presentation.

No question it was worth the money, even for the people who aren't D1 coaches and aren't paid to go.

I sure hope we can get Renato to come back and talk to us next year.

bump.

Anything else to share about the Summit?

Why Dr. Joe Vigil and Renato Canova don't write a book, together ? They could help young coaches understanding training principles...

They say training is an art, not a science.

DVD's of the entire summit will be available on McMillan's site in a few weeks. Not sure of the exact release date. I think they said each presentation would be released separately.

Could anyone expand on what vigil had to say about 800/1500 training. Thanks.