CU Stress Fractures and Running with the Buffaloes

good point.

Goucher was also one Wetmore called "fat"

Kennedy...not skinny,Moorcroft...not skinny,Baumann...hmm atleast not as skinny as the africans, Todd Williams...not skinny

As a former runner at CU i can tell you this story, it didn't hit the book. One day we had our work day up at Wetmore's house. Mark brought me a glass of water and said, "If a bug falls into the glass, let me know because i don't want you to drink it and get the extra protien." He was serious.

Not that I agree with Wetmore, but what about the fact that Batliner was trying to drop excess pounds. If the generally accepted rule is that one pound is worth roughly 3000 calories, then that means that he was carrying around 18,000 extra stored calories available as fat. Granted, fat isn't the most efficient or readily available form of energy, i.e. glycogen/glucose, but still, he DID have the calories there to repair himself from his daily grind-he had 18,000 in excess that he was trying to get rid of. In order to drop them, you have to go negative somewhere, either in calorie intake or calories burned. Now, if we are talking about nutrients, then that is a different story. I contend that you CAN get ample nutrients, i.e. all your vitamins and minerals to repair your body from day to day in 2000 calories. You have to be disciplined and can't have junk take any calories away from what you are doing, but it can be done.

can't have junk take any calories away from what you are doing, but it can be done.[/quote]

We can't give up the ice cream!

Guess Me wrote:

can't have junk take any calories away from what you are doing, but it can be done.

We can't give up the ice cream![/quote]

Ice cream will put you in a world of hurt on your daily count. Not to mention put you in a negative on getting your other vital nutrients to repair yourself.

I remember being shocked when I read that part of the book as well.

I tried to cut down on some pounds when I thought it would help, make me faster. I was running over 100 a week, and I just couldnt do it. I reiterate, it cant be done. I lasted a couple days of strict eating, and it was torture, like living in the Hanoi Hilton.

It CAN be done. You always have to ask yourself how bad do you want it? When you fail, your answer is there for you. Not bad enough is the verdict. Sorry, I am old school on this one. You gotta make things happen.

Wetmore is no fool. He sucks every speck of talent and ability out of his runners while at CU the results of this method is national championships and lots of injuries. Heck, Arkansas has been doing this for decades. How many great distance runner come out of these programs to go on to success at the olympic level....very few....they're fried!

rosebud wrote:

Wetmore is no fool. He sucks every speck of talent and ability out of his runners while at CU the results of this method is national championships and lots of injuries. Heck, Arkansas has been doing this for decades. How many great distance runner come out of these programs to go on to success at the olympic level....very few....they're fried!

How much of it falls on the athlete to make the decision to go on after college is finished? If you ever talk to the former Razorback runners, you will find absolutely NO REGRET in their lives. If they could go on to a higher level, they did, if not, they found something else to do with their lives. It's as simple as that. Don't lay that shit on the coach. These aren't 5 year olds that go away to colege, they are young men, and they make the decision to either be great in a great program, or go somewhere else. After, their drive has to be something they pull out of themselves. It's not Coach Macs or M. Wetmores job to force them to be great after college. That fals squarely on the athlete.

Fatty all-natural ice cream banana split with nuts is a great post-workout food.

I had always thought that it was living at elevation that caused them to recover more slowly, thus leading to a higher rate of stress fractures. Medical people will tell you that you recover more slowly when your tissues are oxygen deprived, as is the case at 5500' on Boulder. Its the same idea as smokers healing slower than non-smokers following something like a bone break. Since the tissues aren't getting adequate oxygen (albeit in this example its from decreased capillary density in tissues and not high altitude) they recover and heal more slowly. Just look at the Denver broncos...when their QB Griese kept getting hurt, they sent him out of denver to recouperate...make sense to me. High altitude is good some of the time, but when injured or overtraining it can do some harm.

I always see people citing RWTB when speaking about current problems/injuries with CU runners. Do people not realize, or maybe just choose to ignore, that we are over halfway through 2004 and that book was written in 1998??!!?? I'm not saying that there aren't some valid points, but come on all the things that happened in that book happened 6 years ago! Everybody commenting on the CU runners (except for the bug juice guy) are commenting from the outside. How are we to know that things aren't different 6 years later? Do you think every year at CU is a replay of that goddamn book?

I'm not saying Wetmore is good or bad or hurt or doesn't hurt his athletes. I'm just asking that we all put the book in the proper historical context (that's what it is, history). If you have information on what CURRENTLY goes on at CU, please chime in. If all you have to go off of is what a team did 6 years ago then find some new material.

How wrong you are my friend....I've been there. If you are gettin some fat scholarship / free education to perform ...you simply do it. Listen....yes these kids arn't 5 yrs old but at age 21 not many are very savvy about what they're doing now and impact on the future. A good (note! = good) coach has a "god" like ability to get you to perform.

THEY GET STRESS FRACTURES BECAUSE THOSE MOUNTAIN SCHOOLS DONT HAVE ANY QUALITY TRAIL TO RUN ON. ALL THE TRAILS ARE TOO HARDCORE. THE GO POUNDING ON SOME MOUNTAIN RUN UP HILL FOR 10 MILES, DOWN HILL FOR TEN MILES. THE NEXT DAY THEY HIT UP THE TRACK FOR SOME LONG ASS SPEED WORKOUT IN FLATS. THEN THEY DO A 12 MILE RUN ON THE ROADS THE FOLLOWING DAY. STRESS FRACTURES WOULD BE NON EXISTENT IF THEY DID THEIR RUNS ON GENTLE TRAILS AND LONG GRASS STRETCHES.

SCREW THE MOUNTAINS.

Wrong.

wrong? i agree with the previous post. if you want to ruin your running career, go to a school in the mountain region. you will get real far. up to the top of the mountain and then you will fall off the face of the earth.

Like the old saying goes, better to have burnt out rather than to have never caught fire. I'd rather go to a school achieve greatness and not go far after college rather than never achieve greatness at all.

you'll be whistling a different tune as you sit in the physios office whilst your mates are bashing away out on the roads.