Why do people admire Jack Daniels so much?

another runner wrote:

That's who you would put in the mt rushmore of American distance running??? hahahaha... um ok...

Mt Rushmore of contributions to American distance running, not mt rushmore of American distance running

Reading Comprehension Is Hard wrote:

another runner wrote:

That's who you would put in the mt rushmore of American distance running??? hahahaha... um ok...

Mt Rushmore of contributions to American distance running, not mt rushmore of American distance running

Yes I understood what was meant. I don't think any of those people should make that list.

another runner wrote:

Reading Comprehension Is Hard wrote:

Mt Rushmore of contributions to American distance running, not mt rushmore of American distance running

Yes I understood what was meant. I don't think any of those people should make that list.

None of them!

Who would you replace them with?

Peter Gilmore trained pretty successfully under Jack.

His D3 teams were very successful.

been around ya' know wrote:

Youth is wasted on the young wrote:

He is an icon who borrowed periodization from Arthur Lydiard who should be admired. But what has Jack Daniels done as far as coaching? He has done great harm to the sport by introducing more intensity to young people.

We need to be more patient. Jim Ryun peaked at 21.

umm . . . ever heard of Joan Benoit Samuelson?

Daniels was never her coach; he has said so on LR.

Sitting around listening to Jack was one of my favorite things about training, the sport, and being advised by him. He had some of the best stories, and back in the day, every time I left his office I felt better about what I was doing. I wanted to get better, and although I could run in the 13:30’s for 5k, I struggled at 10k’s, until he got me to understand tempo runs. Because of his advice my 10k improved 90 seconds, and I doubt I would have run within minutes of my marathon times, which included a sub-2:10. I also credit him for his fluid absorption research and guidance on glycogen loading, both of which helped me feel comfortable in my early marathons.

Putting up with frustrated, temperamental athletes is not easy, but Jack did it with calm, steady, assurance. I’ve seen the names of runners and coaches celebrated on LRC whom Jack advised at some point in their or their coach’s career.

Weekly - 3xmile, 12x400, & 4 mile tempo runs... and I broke 2:10? Go figure. Although that was not the pinnacle, with my limitations, that was because of him. Thank you Jack!

Ken Martin

10:06 HS 2 miler

I admire him because he figured out much of the same things I have, and many many more of course, but he did it before the free flow of information on the net made it all so much easier.

But malmo has said that you did your tempo runs too fast.

When I was 17 I had never heard of Jack Daniels, but I was visiting NAU in the mid 2000s on a college visit. My HS coach (in retrospect jokingly) said to stop in and see Daniels. I didn't have an appointment or clue what I was there for, but I waltzed in to the Olympic Training center and asked to speak with him. The woman at the desk was skeptical, but sent me to his office. After an hour of conversation I left excited about the sport and fascinated by the science of exercise. Seven years later I was still interested after earning my M.S. in Kinesiolgy. I rarely post on LRC but I think this thread is missing any recognition of how kind and compassionate a person that Daniels is. The reason I admire him is because he was an inspiration in my academic life, as well as a really nice guy to many people he didn't need to be nice to.

I would say that as scientist he was exceptional, however as a coach average at best. He has been at Wells College for about a decade with zero results. If he has two men under 29 (8k) or two women under 20 (5k) in the same season it would be the exception. Nice guy well informed, but unable to achieve results.

No I didnt.

I said that JD prescribes tempo pace that is too fast. What I said that Ken ran too fast was in and out miles which felt great but left him flat. Had I been in Albubu while he was doing this (as I recall with Reifsnyder and Ortiz) I'd have told him to back off.

Most runners are running their workouts too fast for their ability. They run as hard as they can on every interval. Really what you want to do is learn to run that pace and feel comfortable doing it. Usually that means slowing down in training. That is something that I slowly learned through the years.

The Daniels tables are realistic training paces for most people based on actual race performance and may even be a bit fast for some. I can typically hit a race at a certain VDOT but will actually do mile repeats about 5s slower than the table says and it is plenty for me. Using the training pace tables has made me a better runner and racer by learning pace control.

This is what I have learned from Jack Daniels.

If I were to sum up the most important thing that I have taken from Daniels (in the 27 years that I have trained under his principles), it would be:

Understand the purpose of every run.

The rest flows from there.

i hate to break it to ya, but sports is a young persons game. All these greats who are performing well into their late 20's and 30's aint doing it because of patience and coaching.

Catching up on this thread...

I did run some things faster than Jack would have recommended, and maybe did more hard workouts per week too (3; 4 if counting a long run as some do). Jack accepted that athletes would tweak his recommendations to their liking, but the fact that I did tempo runs was all because of talking to Jack.

We never really did tempo runs at Oregon when I was running under Dellinger. For a month or two during the winter or spring of my senior year (I have lost those training diaries) we did 4 or 5 mile steady runs (5:20 pace and lower?) around the intramural dirt track on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. During that time period we also did afternoon intervals on those days, and I did the fartlek & 30/30's on Monday that was on the training sheet, plus a Saturday morning track workout for a total of 6 quality sessions per week. No surprise, at the end of 5-8 weeks, or whatever it was, only me and another guy were still showing up, or were able to show up, for those morning runs.

The in and out miles were not from Jack. Those were something I got from Bill McChesney, and I only did them a couple of times that I remember. One was the session I think Malmo is referring to in Albuquerque (5,000 feet). Aaron Ramirez, John Treacy, Bill Reifsnyder and I did one of those sessions on the UNM track I believe in the late fall of 1991. I did that session a few weeks earlier by myself and was pleased to convince those guys to do the next one with me. We alternated 800's and ran ~ 4:40 and ~ 5:00 1600's for 7 'miles'. Heading into the last one I was feeling very comfortable and decided to stride out the last one and ran around ~4:22 feeling good, thinking I could probably have gone 4:12-4:16 if I wanted to hammer it. I don't think that particular workout did me in or got me in good shape, but rather indicated how good quickly one can get back into good shape the more years of training one has behind them, as I hadn't done anything impressive in training that fall up until that workout.

Before I ran 2:09 in NYC I did all my long runs on my treadmill in Santa Fe (7,000 feet). Jack suggested I just get the distance on my legs and avoid all the hills around me that I ran every morning and afternoon when not on the track. I would practice drinking on those runs and my treadmill had a good shock absorption system, so the long runs never beat me up or seemed like a hard session, just endurance. Fastest long run then was just under 6:00 pace for most of the run.

Such an insightful post, that's why I still come on here.

Btw, may I ask how fast you did your mile repeats and tempo runs based on the fitness back then? Was it mostly based on Jack's VDOT table?

Thanks for this. It is always interesting and useful to hear the thoughts behind what you guys actually did.

Because i think he's sexy.