Bowermann's training

My h.s. coach wrote his masters thesis on bill bowerman when he ran for him in 1980. When I attended oregon I found it in the library. The author is Christopher Walsh. It contains specific workouts and interviews w/ Bowerman. Check it out if your in eugene!

I have the book in storage and have looked through it many times in the past. It is a good book. The historical elements of it are quite interesting, besides samples of workouts that athletes did.

If I had a choice, I would have asked Bill Bowerman to be my coach. Why? Because I never seemed to respond to traditional hard workouts and my recovery from challenging days was not as fast as others. On light training I always did well, on hard training my body fell apart; injuries, for example.

Bill D. has been and still is a coach that many people like. He is affable and experienced. His stroke bothers him some, I think, but he still gets the job done for a few key athletes like Nick Rogers, last I heard.

Bill B. was known to be stubborn and inflexible, so if you didn't want to do what he said, you better catch the next train out of town. Knut K. can talk about that I am sure. Personally, though he might have been stubborn about training and racing, I would have done everything the man said. His record was amazing and his success stories plentiful enough for me to go blindly in the night and listen to his direction, feeling confident I would get there, wherever there was.

A great deal of my personal philosophy is made up on the principles that Bill Bowerman and Bill Dellinger created and used. Perhaps most important to me of all the principles are consistency, moderation, progression, and indivdualization. Tinman

Eugene was truly blessed with a great distance legacy. Bowerman and Dellinger produced many great runners. Without being critical of them, I would stir the pot a little and suggest that many good runners in the 70s in Eugene thought that Harry Johnson, the local South Eugene h.s. coach was the best coach in town, including distances. He not only won countless State titles, but worked with a sizeable group of elite athletes post college as well as developing the McChesneys. He was incredibly organized and very knowlegeable.

KnutK: I have an extensive interview with Bowerman in an early 80s "The Runner" magazine. He mentions he had a runner named McClendon who he had run 25 miles a week because he would never recover from longer mileage. When I page through the August 2, 1971 issue of Sports Illustrated which has an article by Bowerman on running technique there is a sequence of photos with Mike McClendon demostrating correct posture. I am sure it is the same person, but did you run with McClendon and did he run that low a mileage? Bowerman said he ran a 4:00.something mile off 25 miles a week. Thanks for any input.

Tom Jordan's "Pre" book was like a bible for me back in High School. I always marveled at the workout you did before you beat Pre in 13:20 in Helsinki: 2x1500 in 3:45 with 4 mins rests. My pr is only 3:46! Glad to have your input on the boards.

Bowerman was stubborn the sence that he knew what he wanted you to do and that he seldome changed his mind. But on the other hand he gave you workouts like those described earlier that gave you as a runner some fredom of choise.

He never dictated in detail what we should do on the fartlek part of those sessions, but he told us what he was after. This is one of the reasons I liked those workout. If I felt good I ran hard, if I did not feel good I did not go that hard.

Contrary to what many people will tell you I also found that I could discuss training with Bill but this was only up to a cetrtain level. One example, no need to suggest extreme anarobic work, he would never let you do it.

I totally agree with your judgement on Bill's ability to get people who had a tendency to break down to run well. One of his basic ideas was that 95% was a lot better than 101% and this belif made him perfect for people who had trouble with hard sessions.

I remember Mike McClendon well. He was a lot faster than I but never got to develpop his running strength because of his injuries.He did run 4.00,7 on a schedule with very low milage, but he did not race many races on that level. Not even Bill was able to get him to train consistanly.

As for the two 1500m's I ran in a workout. I think they were 3.48 and 3.45 but in "the Norwigan running folklore" they became 3.45's and Lars probably told that to Jordan.

To give an idea of the difference in Pre's and my own training that year our Sunday runs are illustrative. We both lived in the same area about 3 miles from campus. On Sundays I often ran in to campus and ran with the other guys for 12-15 miles. Pre drove his car and usually asked me if I wanted a ride home. I never did I always added thse extra 3 miles. Pre used to pass me, roll down his window waive and shout "marathoner". I would wave back, laugh, and think "Just wait".

I was on a Lydiard inspired build up over 8 month. Pre never did this kind of slow gradual build up with hardly any intervals. He very soon run som hard 6*3/4 miles or something like that. This was his main workouts and he was extrremely good at those, driving himself much harder on those than I did most ofthe year. I only did that type of work for a short period in the spring.

KnutK

.

Great coach one of the best ever in my opinion.

Knuts Trainings Diary 73-74, you should make a better version or send it to Mr.Hodge for his website.

Interesting stuff.

It doesn't work.

Mcdy wrote:

http://www.sportsys.nu/LC_KO_grid.asp

Knuts Trainings Diary 73-74, you should make a better version or send it to Mr.Hodge for his website.

Interesting stuff.

it does, you can view the training diary by switching weeks(uke) and months(maned).

or use this link:

http://www.google.at/search?q=knut+kvalheim&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=de&btnG=Google-Suche&meta=

and go to result no3.

Good idea for training

The listing of my training is not all that accurate. Most runs i did tyine in the sence that I left a watch at that I looked at to see how long time I ran. If the watch showed that I had been away one hour I wrote down 55 minutes running 40 minuts away gave me 35 minutes running and so on.

The students who recorded this on the computer estoimated my speed on the runs. I think most of them went a little faster. When I did som estimates for kn later I used 15 km pr hour as a general rule on regular runs. I think thios was more accurate than the nunmbers used by the students.

You should get a flavour of my training.

KnutK

this is a great thread, thanks for the insight KnutK.

im sorry for missing the obvious here but who is KnutK? I know it is pretty clear he is a badass runner. but who is he?

knut kvalheim

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=knut+kvalheim

Knut:

Please email to me at

runfastcoach@hotmail.com

Thanks. Tinman - Tom

KnutK: Any comments on the summer Pre spent trying to increase his speed...my recollection was he went from about 11.0 down to 10.3 for 100 yards...a nice improvement for a distance runner.

jorvack wrote:

My h.s. coach wrote his masters thesis on bill bowerman when he ran for him in 1980. When I attended oregon I found it in the library. The author is Christopher Walsh.

Interesting, in 1980 I remember Bowerman working with a small group, two to be exact - Henry Marsh and Chris Horton. A few locals jumped in now and then, including myself, but I don't remember anyone by the name of "Christopher Walsh." Perhaps you could refresh my memory? Thanks.