"Hammond High had no track"

in this interview, Pinkowski says the mileage was around 120-130 in some weeks.

Here's an old SI article about the Hammond Trio which confirms 100 mile weeks were routine:

Coach Candiano was called a "neanderthal" by some contemporary coaches because Hammond was training an insane amount compared to most teams at the time. I know Hammond's weren't the only athletes training over 100 miles at that time, but I don't think it was that common for teams to run that much, even in the "running boom" days.

another one

western kingbird wrote:

http://www.garycohenrunning.com/Interviews/Pinkowski.aspx

in this interview, Pinkowski says the mileage was around 120-130 in some weeks.

He actually says "There were periods when we did only distance when we MAY have hit 120 or 130 miles a week, but it was all easy."

That sounds plausible to me. Short periods. All easy. That's nothing like what is being alleged in the thread.

Craig Virgin didn't have a track in hs either.

I hope some other northwest Indiana residents can back me up here, but before we had the Internet and all this stuff, the training methods of that trio were well known around the region. So I believe that listed training planning. The morning longer runs were definitely standard for those guys.

Don (Tom?) Candiano was a younger coach, so you could keep up with his runners. I remember hearing that those guys would run over 100 mile weeks routinely, getting up to 130 or 140 at their highest. Those distances do seem rather insane for high school runners.

That trio never won a high school cross country state title because their 4 and 5 runners were way back. I think Candiano just focused on his best runners. You have to remember, the coach was still young and competitive himself.

They probably could have won the track and field state championship by themselves, but back in those days in Indiana, athletes could only run the 1600 or 3200, they could not run both. And the 4x800 was not an event until 1996.

the training was insane. what made it work wasn't really Candianos coaching so much as the trios incredible physical durability, mental toughness & dedication to training. Chapas 28:32 speaks for itself.

Back in the day Hammond (which is now almost completely "ghettofied" alongside its more infamous neighbor Gary) was a diverse and blue-collar/working-poor steel mill town, so unlike many kids today (insert old fart argument here) the trio were probably familiar with the concept of work ethic at a young age. I doubt very many high schoolers would be willing to put themselves through that kind of training regimen nowadays, the coach would probably get sued or at the very least parents who had any knowledge of running whatsoever would try to get him fired. It would be "interesting" to see a coach once again try to have a tough and durable group of runners go insane on the mileage seeing as elites nowadays tend to range from 70-90, but the results probably wouldn't turn out quite the same.

BTW on second thought I believe it was actually Dan Candiano.

My bad.

Yeah, great that they worked harder than any lazy HS kid today could ever contemplate, but it sounds like it only worked for the top 3 if their 4 and 5 were so far back.

I'm sure the coaches who won state championships back then wished they had their guys running 130 mpw with a large amount of quality work.

norphxc wrote:

but it sounds like it only worked for the top 3 if their 4 and 5 were so far back.

You can't make a racehorse out of a donkey.

I believe the Hammond training was exactly as reported.

Some people get the idea that just because they ran a certain way, and weren't that good, that therefore everyone else did the same thing, but no, they did not. They trained the way that they said that they trained.

I think their 4th guy was a 4:19 miler?

lease wrote:

By the way, Chapa's 28:32 for 10,000 was 3 x 3200m @ 9:08 w/ 0 recovery.

Plus a lap.

I'm proud to say I saw that race and have all of Rudy's 220y splits.

One of the 2 HS records that will never be broken.

The density of that training is tough. I can see top class runners thriving with that program like Chapa. Definitely would crush the lesser athlete.

mass hole... wrote:

I think their 4th guy was a 4:19 miler?

YEP, that is way back

mass hole... wrote:

I think their 4th guy was a 4:19 miler?

Where did you get that idea?

Asked my dad if they really ran 130/week, as he is quite familiar with the trio and was around the area while they were in HS (and even knows Pinkowski), and he just nodded...

malmo wrote:

I know Pinkowski, I've trained with him, and have even been to his childhood home in Hammond. I've never heard him say anything about mileage like that.

I heard Ritz was up around 105 before his senior season in HS

lease wrote:

it was actually Dan Candiano.

He ran with them a lot then. He was an outstanding runner as I believe he still holds the DePaul University record for 5k or maybe it was 1500m.

Rudy said that their weekly Fri. 7 mile time trial was harder than his 10k record.

illegitimate wrote:

Asked my dad if they really ran 130/week, as he is quite familiar with the trio and was around the area while they were in HS (and even knows Pinkowski), and he just nodded...

malmo wrote:

I know Pinkowski, I've trained with him, and have even been to his childhood home in Hammond. I've never heard him say anything about mileage like that.

I'm going to turn the argument around ... take a guy right now who can run 28:30. Make him an adult, with more years of base work under him. Assign him that training schedule .... think clearly .... think logically .... that week would literally CRIPPLE him. C'mon, book guy comes to me and wants to know what I do for training with the kids I work with, I may well juice it up just to freak out my competitors even more, or to make the athletes I work with look super-human. Can you even imagine handling that workload? THINK? EVER?

Years later Pinkowski even eludes to the fact that it wasn't that hard ... read the article. Lindgren comes on here, talks crazy and everyone makes fun of him ... but it's in a book and it's fact? Sheesshh