November 18, 2002
I recently received a message from former marathon great Alberto Salazar in which he praised University of Colorado coach Mark Wetmore, saying "I admire Mark tremendously for the great job he's doing with our young American hopefuls like (Jorge) Torres, Ritz (Dathan Ritzenhein) and (Adam) Goucher."
Salazar, a former New York City and Boston marathon winner and one of the best American runners ever, is not alone in praising Wetmore. The former English teacher has been named coach of the year many times and is regarded as one of the best in the business.
His former CU runners, people such as Alan Culpepper, Adam Goucher, Clint Wells, Scotty Larson and Adam Batliner, continue to excel after college, showing that they have a solid base of knowledge along with a love of running.
The Colorado men will defend their NCAA championship next Monday, although they are hampered by the redshirt year being taken by sophomore Ritzenhein. Even with the loss of Ritz, the CU men are ranked No. 3 in the nation, as are the Colorado women.
Wetmore is known for taking walk-on athletes and turning them into All Americans, showing that his system can work with nearly everyone. That is good news for those of you not training to win a national title or an Olympic medal, because the fundamentals of training Wetmore uses with his runners are applicable for your own training as well.
The key to the success of his Colorado cross country team is "patient, aerobic development," said Wetmore. "That is what is most different about our program than the others."
It is anathema to many runners that "slower" aerobic ? "with oxygen," ? running can sometimes be far better for you than fast, all-out intervals run on a track. The aerobic running Wetmore preaches creates a base, or foundation, of strength and promotes an efficient cardio-vascular system that will allow you to later on do the fast anaerobic ? "without oxygen" ? running needed to turn in personal bests.
I saw a clear example of this a couple of years ago down on the track when former NCAA and U.S. national champion Shannon Butler approached Wetmore one day, asking if the coach would oversee his training.
First, Wetmore told Butler (who was already in 30-minute 10K shape) to "go do base work, 100 miles a week, for a year, then come back and we will talk." That is what Butler did, and sure enough, exactly one year to the day, he jogged by Wetmore's office ? without having talked to him in a year ? and said he was now ready to train.
That is the kind of long-term outlook it takes in Wetmore's program.
"It takes two years for someone serious about training to get fit enough to get fit," explained Wetmore, whose runners are able to train twice a day many days of the week.
But if you are someone saddled with a job that does not leave you with a lot of time to train, Wetmore says the best workout you can do is a "long, up-tempo Sunday run. If you are running 30 miles a week, of course you can't do 20 miles on Sunday, but you need a 75- to 90-minute run." This Sunday run is not a jog.
By "up-tempo," Wetmore means a minute to a minute-and-a half slower than your 10K race pace. His collegiate men runners race at five minutes per mile; their Sunday runs are 20-milers at a six-minute pace. That is what the CU cross country runners have been doing all year; on Monday, we will see if it pays off.