How much did Coe/Moorcroft/Hutchings success damage non-African distance running?

It didn't hurt it at all. The problem is that people didn't understand the Coe method, they just thought they did. Seb did his over distance work at 5 min mile pace, and sometimes faster. This wasn't tempo work, this was just regular mileage. He worked on race pace year round and never lost touch with his speed. He just upped the intensity and volume of his work as the year went on. He was a wonderfully trained speed endurance runner. When you do over distance work at 5 min mile pace, along with 40x100 meter hills, frequent sprint work, and 800s on the road, you don't need to slog through 120 mile weeks at 6 min pace. Long slow distance produces long slow runners. If speed is the name of the game, never get too far away from it. Of course, the masses here at LetsRun will have you believe otherwise.

[quote]Helio wrote:

Tide has turned towards Bedford/Stewart.

No it's not. The East Africans don't run 150 miles a wk and 2 workouts. They do less miles (still fairly high) and workouts most days

clearing the bs up wrote:

Of course, the masses here at LetsRun will have you believe otherwise.

Peter Snell might have you believe otherwise too. And pretty much every single elite distance runner, Africans and otherwise, that run 120 mile weeks at some point in the year.

Also, Coe's ability didn't extend much beyond races of 5 minutes in duration.

bs no one gets into distance running scared of work

find your own way

many roads

How many 800m WR holders post Snell would have averaged over 60 miles a week? I would say that only Ryun and maybe Wottle would have. The rest would have been on or well under 60miles per week.

1.41.01 David Rudisha

1.41.11 Wilson Kipketer

1.41.73 Sebastian Coe

1.43.44 Alberto Juantorena

1.43.5 Rick Wohlhuter

1.43.7 Marcello Fiasconaro

1.44.3 Dave Wottle

1.44.3 Ralph Doubell

1.44.3 Jim Ryun

Snell had abysmal stamina for all those miles.

Doubell ran as fast on much less.

Wheating and Manzano do better than Snell on half as much running, closer to 50-60/week not 100/week. Hell, Charles Jock ran 1:44 with few runs much longer than 20'.

These days if a 1:44.3 middle distance guy runs only 3:37.6 for 1500 we send him in to get checked for anemia, maybe worms.

Lagat ran 3:27 1500 on 50/week with less 800m speed than Snell. Obviously, how you run those training miles has something to do with it.

insider trading wrote:

Peter Snell might have you believe otherwise too. And pretty much every single elite distance runner, Africans and otherwise, that run 120 mile weeks at some point in the year.

A lydiard trained athlete will not run a 1:41 800m. You need immense speed endurance training for that. While some relatively slower mileage is useful for establishing a good cardiovascular base, it should be limited to being just enough to achieve its aim and no more. Intensity is the stronger stimulus. There have been many faster athletes than Peter Snell to run 800 & 1500/mile. Why spend months working on speed, only to lose it all and then spend months trying to gain it back?

Only 2 people have run faster than Seb did at 800m, and only marginally.... and they were pure 800m runners! Seb ran faster at the 1500 / mile than kip and rudy ever did/will. Only one person has run faster than he did for 1000m, and that happened during the EPO free reign days. It is not a difficult concept to understand. High volume is only necessary to make up for a lack of quality. Seb regularly incorporated a rest day into his training, and he needed to, because he trained so hard the other 6 days. He got more out of each training session than runners running 120 mile weeks.

Steve Ovett, a very good athlete, took the latter approach of running many, many miles while Seb ran much less. Seb ended up running faster at every distance from 800m-1 mile. Steve Cram also took an approach similar to Seb, choosing to focus on quality over quantity. He ran a high of 80 miles during the winter, much of it at 5 min / mile pace, often finishing the last 2 miles under 9 minutes, and this was the peak. He averaged 60-70 per week. He once tried going up to 120 but found the increase to not be beneficial.

Herb Elliott also focused on quality over quantity. Saying that 4/6 of his training sessions would focus on quality, and that intensity of training is what good athletes should keep in mind. If you want to be a good runner, focus on quantity. If you want to be a great runner, focus on quality.

This debate has never made much sense to me. Why does it have to be either/or?

You can still run 120/miles a week outside the competition phase and include weekly "quality" workouts.

Over time, the idea is to get your general mileage pace down to a speed that provides a stronger stimulus than before, but is still recovery.