Who knows VanAaken's training?

I do not really remember when I picked up that sleep pattern. I used to be real good at going to bed at 10:00 pm and getting up at 02:00. I would just wake up. However, in the past few years my sleeping as well as my training and running have gone downhill. Speaking of 26.2 in a day. We used to do a trial marathon about five (5) weeks out. You would take a weekend to run your marathon at your expected race pace. You had the entire weekend to do it. I would usually do thirteen (13) times a mile in 5:20 with a walk across the infield of the track to recover. Later that day I would usually do ten (10) 800 in 2:40 with the same recovery. Then the following day I would be down to doing 400 and 200 (hopefully not getting into the 100- but it did happen). All had the same recovery. He had some of the other runners do the same. Like some of the milers would run < 4:00 pace for as long as they could. He would time every 100. He would call out when they were off pace. The athlete would walk a 100 then go again. Many of the good runners would go 1000-1200 before being reduced to a walk. Then they would be doing 200-400 to fininsh up. I think if he had a large group of dedicated, talented athletes they would have rewritten the record books. However, he was more interested in general health for the masses.

Fascinating. Thank you. I agree with your last point about his interest in health for the masses and what might have happened had he worked with a large group of dedicated athletes. I always had that impression.

Thank you very much for the insider info Vladimir---very interesting. I have always been fascinated with the Van Akken training approach, and it's great to hear from someone who trained under Van Akken himself.

This thread motivated me to find my copy of "Van Aaken Method" by Ernst van Aaken, M.D. 1976. World Publications: CA.

On the subject of weight:

"If you take two men of exactly the same height, one a shot putter, and the other Harald Norpoth, and you weigh the bones, the difference in the weight of the bones is only going to be 900 grams (about two pounds). The normal weight is a function of the muscles, the water and the connective tissues."

On Prefontaine and weight:

"He probably couldn't have brought his weight down further, any more than Norpoth could bring his weight down further. Every person has his own weight where he has gotten rid of practically all of the fat. He can't get down lower than that."

On running slowly:

"With Harald Norpoth, I had to teach him to run slowly. By "slowly," I mean 400 meters in two minutes (about eight-minute mile pace). He'd do it 10 times, 4000 meters total, as a start. This would be 350 meters of running, a minute of walking, again slowly 350 meters, etc. Of course, this training could last for 10 hours..."

On losing weight:

Eat only 1000 calories a day if you want to lose weight. Train when hungry so the body learns to switch over to burning fat instead of carbohydrate. Run at least 14 hours after eating. If you can teach the body to shift gears this way, you can run 500 kilometers (300-plus miles).

If you get a chance, maybe you could answer a few questions that I've wondered about.

In an article I read, he was writing about the training of Roland Watschke(may have misspelled that). What was described was not unlike some of what you've written, repeats of 3km, 100meters, 600s, all in large numbers. Then he wrote that the base of Watschke's training was slow runs of 10-20km. How was all of that mixed? Did you alternate days of repeats with those 10-20km runs? And what about volume and longest runs?

His son told me that EvA's own marathon prep consisted of 10k runs with walking breaks. I asked if there were any longer runs involved but never got an answer. Do you know?

Thanks.

According to his method (or at least as I understood them he was more concerned with running without stressing the systems. He first started us out with a scheduled walk break and later we were suppposed to know when to stop. Of course the problem with this is I am not going to stop until you stop- then he would stop all of us and make us walk. I remember in training for my first marathon a guy by the name of Barry Brown (many may remember him) had me do 105 x 440 (that is what track were in the 60\'s) with a short recovery between. My goal pace was 90- about three weeks later I ran 2:36- a little faster than my \"training pace\" As matter of fact Barry is the one that first told me about Van Aaken (he actually told me about several \"coaches and concepts\"). Acording to Barry almost any method will work as long as you stick to it. As I heard from Mr Campbell (a Mass. coach) Find a method that works for you and stick with it. Do not go with the current \"best method\" as projected from the current world beaters. Van Aaken worked for me because I kept at it and enjoyed it. This is a long way around of saying I do not know exactly what Roland did, but I would guess that he still used the same system with pace workout and no hills or anything that would \"stress the system\". He wanted us to be able to breath. Remember that everyone can run 100 meters in 20 seconds. Even four of them in 80 is not that bad, but as you keep going on it becomes more difficult- 5:20 mile- 33:00 six mile and 2:20 marathon. We have the speed required, we have the endurance to cover 26.2 miles, but we lack the ability to cover the 26.2 at a 5:20 pace (or at least most of us do).

You've really been around and may be one of a handful of people who post here who are older than I am. I recall Barry Brown well and also recall track in the 60s, though I never did marathon prep that way, though I knew a few guys who did. Bob Campbell just died last December or January, by the way.

I could pepper you with questions forever, but will just thank you for what you've written up to now.

Be careful HRE. I am still a kid. I was 2 years old when I worked with Barry and a few years older with Dr Van Aaken. No really I was lucky enough to get to meet and know many of who are now the founders of distance running. I still have some hand written letters from Mr Campbell as well as from Dr Sheenan. These were all written before distance running was a money making venture. I am sure you remember when NEW BALANCE only made training flats- everyone trained in them and then raced in TIGERS, ADDIDAS or KORA BEARS. Remember Nike STINGS, TIGER CUBS AND RON HILLS (REEBOK) WORLD TEN? Here I am dating myself. Do you remember Kurt Steiner, JOe Klinerman and Barry Geisler (all from NYC)? Must go time for chores.

I see something of a northeast flavor to your life. If you were working with Barry Brown in 1965 it seems to me he'd have still been in Providence or upstate New York. The latter might be my guess. It had to be before he moved to Gainesville.

The only shoe you list that I don''t remember is the KORA BEAR. Any chance you're thinking of Kahrus, which is in fact the Finnish word for "bear?" I've also seen pictures of van Aaken and Manfred Stefffney running in the Eugen Brutting shoes, which of course, became the "Lydiard" shoe. I always wanted a pair of those but never got round to getting them.

I recall that Barry Geisler had a training profile in Joe Henderson's "Road Racers and Their Training" and I did bump into Kleinerman and Steiner once or twice. They'd never have remembered me.

I've got to say, those 105 quarters put you in league with Zatopek, at least in one way. Mentioning that made me remember a chat I once had with Lou Castagnola who was, I believe, the fifth American to break 2:20 for the marathon. He'd done a lot of his prep for that on the track, but I don't think he did as much as you did in that session.

Right on the NY guess. If you give up the web site message board you will make a good detective. The Kora Bear's were very much like the old tiger marathons (except they only came in blue- no red/maroon). I think they were from Korea, but not really sure. The Lydiard shoes had an EB on the side or back (depending upon the model). I used to wear the Kahrus when I ran for a team in Spain (they were our sponsors, but the shoes were very heavy so we took the stripes off of other shoes and put a magic marker to the shoes and made what I think I remember was like a large "M". Kleinerman and Steiner were bot very nice gentlemen that dedicated themselves to the sport. Are you old enough to remember Jim McDoungh (spelled???) and Ted Corbit? Two other pioneers (in the case of Ted he ran for the Pioneers). Jim was I think on Milrose AC. Running on the track was not that uncommon, because we used to get strange looks when people saw us running on the road. You may have heard Joan Benoit-Samleson tell how when she started to run she would stop and look at flowers when a car went past her.

I don't have time now... its too late (got to get my beauty sleep!)

But I'll tell you some stories about Dr Van Aaken and his prize West German pupil H. Norpoth .. a real classic. Did you know that he also designed running shoes for EB .. a very brilliant coach .. but as usual, controversial at the same time! Dr VA tried to get me to lose weight (10 lb) when he met me in 1974 in Germany after I finished second at the BAA again .. I was already was down to 155 lb at 6' 1"

later, TF

Message board detective? Perhaps a new occupational category. So far I've got you somewhere in NY, then off to Germany and Spain with a marathon best perhaps of around 2;20 set sometime in the 70s, and I'm guessing a tad older than I am, yet still a kid, as am I at 52.

There's a story about Jim McDonagh(?) before the 1967 Holyoke Marathon which was the Pan Am Games Trial, the thrust of the story being that he drank 36 beers the night before. Do you have any idea if he's still alive? Of course I also remember Ted. I know I've spoken with him once or twice when racing in NY, but it was very brief. He was a very quiet guy from what I've heard and seen.

I did not know that EvA designed dhoes for EB. I've always heard Arthur Lydiard say that Bruting designed the best women's fashion shoes in the world and that Arthur got Bruting to do running shoes. Do you know that Bruting still makes and sells those shoes, though evidnetly you can't get them in the US.

Do you ever see Hugh Sweeney these days. He had a burst of good master's running at shorter and middle distances, but I haven't seen his name in race results for years now.

I'll hang on for the stories.

Right on NY and traveling is something I would love to continue, but "family" obligations come first. I have you by about four years. I do not think that Jim had 36 beers before Holyoke- I say this because he always complained about how weak our (US) beer was- so I do not think he would stop at a mere dozen. Ted is still active. I see him every once in a while at VCP or Central Park. I did manage to get a little under 2:20, but never the times I ran in practice (in my mind- when I was winning Olympic Gold).

vladimir wrote:

Be careful HRE. I am still a kid. I was 2 years old when I worked with Barry and a few years older with Dr Van Aaken. No really I was lucky enough to get to meet and know many of who are now the founders of distance running. I still have some hand written letters from Mr Campbell as well as from Dr Sheenan. These were all written before distance running was a money making venture. I am sure you remember when NEW BALANCE only made training flats- everyone trained in them and then raced in TIGERS, ADDIDAS or KORA BEARS. Remember Nike STINGS, TIGER CUBS AND RON HILLS (REEBOK) WORLD TEN? Here I am dating myself. Do you remember Kurt Steiner, JOe Klinerman and Barry Geisler (all from NYC)? Must go time for chores.

Vladimir,

I ran for Barry Geisler when I was a kid - he coached a group of us in the early 80s for Millrose. He's one of the greatest people I've ever met. Barry spends most of the winter down in Florida now and is doing well, although he does a lot more spinning classes than running. He still makes it up to VCP sometimes in the summer. Did you run with Barry or John Garlepp? These guys have some of the best stories ever of running back in the day and growing up in NYC.

WSS I take it you mean Barry Sr. I think he had two kids (Barry and Eric)- I could be wrong on this as it has been many miles since then. Do you remember the old Peekskill to Yonkers run. I was one of the handicap runners and got to the turn off before the officials telling me to turn. So instead of running the 60k (37.?) I ran straight into the War Memorial in Yonkers. Once there I started to circle the track (they told the entire field that the course was still unmeasured- will be done during the race- by car) and they will tell us how many laps are needed to finish the race. After about two laps I just sat down and waited until someone showed up. It was guessed that I cut off about 10 miles of the event. Nice to know that three others followed me, but the officials were tracking Corbit and McDonough. They later mailed me a trophy for 1st place in the 27 mile race. You must have also run the McCombs Dam Park races.

Right, it's Barry Sr. we ran with. He celebrated his 70th about two years ago - Christmas Day! Barry Jr. was there, but I can't remember now if his other son was there too. Back in the 80s I was running age group races and Barry was our coach so unfortunately I'm not familiar with a lot of the other races, but we did a lot of running at VCP or running along Riverside up to the Twin Donut at 218th. Legend has it, Ted Corbitt used to run around the Island of Manhattan once a week - that's about 35 miles. He would also run to work in the morning and people couldn't believe it - one guy he'd pass everyday said, "Man, that cat is always late for work."

There was a race in California called the Camerila Festival 100 mile race. Sometime in the late 60's or early 70's Corbitt showed up to run it. It was an unsual race in that each day for three days you did 33 1/3 miles on different courses. Ted shows up and runs 4:00 day one, 4:00 day two and 3:59 day three. What shocked me even more was I got to the start of day three early (about 45 minutes before race time) and I see Ted warming up for the race!!!!!!!!!! What a machine. I do not know if they ever talked, but in my conversations with Ted about long races and training the concepts were very much alike. It was Ted that convinced me to use my feet for travel. When it was too far to run to work (remember Buddy Edelen used to run the 4.5 miles to work in England) I would take a page from his training and it would go something like this: Mon ride bike to work- 22 mile- run home; Tue run to work- ride bike home; Wed bike to work- run home; Thu run to work- bike home; Fri bike to work- run home; Sat run to pickup bike and bike home. Sun was my long day. It was great. From this travel I was able to run a very easy travel of about 175-180 each week. I would try to do this once a month. Ted also convinced me to travel to family events by foot. I used to set out a few hours before my wife and son and run to family outings (picnics, birthday parties, Christmas dinner, etc.). On Thursday of this week I will drop my car off and walk to work (recent back injury has me unable to run for a while) about 6 miles. I then will walk back to get the car. It takes quite a bit longer than when I used to run it, but it is only about a hour and a half each way. I would spend that much time getting to a training venue and getting changed. Running is easy the difficult part is fitting it into your life style.

Did you not run the Boston Marathon because of your back? I read an earlier post and took it to mean you'd done the marathon.