Running with the Buffaloes 1998 XC Training Log

I read the book, and goucher was doing a lot of his mileage at 5:45-6:00 pace, and some of the guys too if I recall. They often ran pretty hard on their non-workout days. The book has so much damn carnage in it, athletes dropping like flies from stress injuries.

Got the sense that everyone on the team absent Goucher was running their easy days too fast, but that’s how it is on any team where you have an outlier talent. Everyone wants to try to stay with him. Would explain various injuries.

zcxzcxv wrote:

Also, how fast did they run the 10M?

I would have to refer to my copy of the book. I will try to remember to check it when I get home tonight.

Working Stiff wrote:

Source: Running with the Buffaloes Book

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Otg3Yc1pIQP0yofQwHw4TPtDrFmQSijeA4B_Eg7VsYk/edit?usp=sharing

So much for weekly mileage being the most important thing.

Leddy Gee wrote:

Karl B wrote:

What's the difference between AT and LT pace? I thought that Anaerobic threshold and Lactate threshold are essentially the same pace, but this schedule appears to view them as two distinct paces.

Wetmore never used the term LT. He did use the term AT. The OP took some liberties with how he wrote up the schedule. The "AT/LT" runs were hard 8k or 10k runs on the track. The 10 mile "AT" runs were called "The Dam" and were described as 10 miles flat out. The 8k/10k AT runs were on the track and Wetmore would tell them what pace he wanted them to run. Like he might tell Goucher to run 10k at 74 per lap. Something like that.

Leddy's explanations are correct. I took some liberties with the descriptions of paces. Wetmore doesn't exactly use all these terms the same way I do. I was trying to distill it into this format to get a more Birdseye view of the plan without fretting too much about exact paces of particular runners.

Note that it's time based wrote:

So much for weekly mileage being the most important thing.

Actually Wetmore did not normally prescribe runs based off of time. The OP just wrote the schedule that way as a guide. Normally he would tell the guys to run a particular distance instead of a time. But, then again, the book doesn't normally tell you what exactly they did on the non workout days. Sometimes it would mention what one or two of the guys had done the previous day before going on to tell you about one of the hard workouts but it normally skips most of the non-eventful mileage days.

By the way, you all should read the book. It is a very good book!

Anyone interested in adapting this to a High School program?

Out of control wrote:

Anyone interested in adapting this to a High School program?

probably not the best idea with high school kids, due to the high volume of races. This sort of schedule works well for those whose first race isn't until late september and only racing a total 5 times, 2 of which are 10k.

One of the reasons this training works, is because Wetmore has a plan, and sticks to it. He focuses the majority of the year on NCAA XC (not indoor/ outdoor track), and his athletes believe in him.

your high school adaptation is simple: stick to a tried and true training plan that works around your key races, believe in the system, and get your athletes and their parents to buy into it too, so that they're training 11-12 months a year.

your high school adaptation is simple: stick to a tried and true training plan that works around your key races, believe in the system, and get your athletes and their parents to buy into it too, so that they're training 11-12 months a year.

This.

RE: the altitude

Don't forget a number of those dudes were born and raised Coloradans. I don't know//have the science in front of me but the conversions for a kid who grew up at altitude has got to be different than a kid from say, New Jersey ( like Slattery or Elmuccio). Just food for thought.

To the poster creating these documents, kudos man. I geek out over this stuff and know I'm not alone.

One last thought: can you imagine if a kid today spoke openly about "fuzzy foreigners" like Goucher did???

hart crane wrote:

RE: the altitude

Don't forget a number of those dudes were born and raised Coloradans. I don't know//have the science in front of me but the conversions for a kid who grew up at altitude has got to be different than a kid from say, New Jersey ( like Slattery or Elmuccio). Just food for thought.

To the poster creating these documents, kudos man. I geek out over this stuff and know I'm not alone.

One last thought: can you imagine if a kid today spoke openly about "fuzzy foreigners" like Goucher did???

My bad. I guess Elmuccio lived in CO as a kid. Either way.

zcxzcxv wrote:

Also, how fast did they run the 10M?

They did the 10 mile "Dam" runs on their XC course both times.

The first time Goucher ran 54:15 with Severy 20 seconds behind him and several of the other top guys running mid 55 to low 56. Temp was 80 degrees.

The 2nd time was right after Severy's crash. Goucher ran 53 flat with most of the other top guys in 54-55.

Just a reminder that Goucher has alluded to Wetmore overtraining the team leading to injuries for multiple people, while also acknowledging that he (Goucher) believes Wetmore learned his lesson for recent teams.

Don't try to replicate this program, especially since it is nice to look at but not necessarily accurate and complete.

I think it would be very beneficial to read the part at the beginning of the book where Wetmore lays out how he sets up the training. He breaks the season down into about 5 phases. I can't remember what they are at the moment.

The first phase is ascending to full volume.

The second phase I think is short specificity. That is where they will run very short segments at race pace with full recovery. Example would be the fartleks on the XC course where they run 90 sec at xc race pace and then rest however long they want. I believe they ran 90 seconds runs until they completed 4 miles. Most of them don't take very long breaks but it varies from runner to runner. They rested however long they needed.

There are a few more phases and I can't remember exactly what they are without checking the book for reference.

If you used the basic philosophy and just adjusted the volume and catered the workouts to high school runners, you could probably have a pretty good plan.

Anyone have any idea what the CU summer training would look like?

Fugu wrote:

Anyone have any idea what the CU summer training would look like?

Run as many miles as you can without getting injured.

RWTB inspired me to embrace a higher mileage approach, and I improved significantly. Though, I did it as an adult with quite a few years of running behind me.

As someone else mentioned, I got the impression that most of the guys were practically racing their runs on a daily basis.

The Plan (Directly from the book)

Period A : Ascending to Full Volume The period lasts roughly six weeks, beginning when they resume training after taking a break at the end of outdoor track and lasting until the end of July. Each runner has a different goal volume depending pending on what he has done in the past. Wetmore recommends "no more than a ten percent increase from his last successful maximum volume." In a letter he sent to the squad on June 24th, he wrote of this first period, "For the time being don't attempt any hard workouts. outs. No intervals; no ATs [Tempo runs]; no fartlek; no races. Just steady medium-distance runs and a weekly long run that is 20 percent cent of your total week. Get your bodies ready for the sustained volume ume of September and thereafter."

Period B: Aerobic Short Specificity This phase lasts five weeks and is characterized by work done at task pace (be that mile pace for milers during track season or I Ok pace during cross country since that is the distance run at NCAA's) that is not anaerobic. This means that another interval is not started until the athlete is fully recovered from the previous one. An example of a workout in this period is a fartlek with one minute on, four minutes utes off. There is a complete recovery between each hard effort so that no significant oxygen debt is accrued.This is mainly a transitional phase where Wetmore's runners get used to going fast again.

Period C: Aerobic Long Specificity This phase lasts six weeks and includes longer intervals than in Period riod B, while still avoiding anaerobic workouts. This phase is characterized terized by longer fartlek workouts, mile repeats, and long, hard aerobic obic efforts such as the ten-mile Dam Run. The rest between intervals will shorten towards the end of Period C as the runners advance their fitness. Because the intervals are much longer than in Period B, his athletes start Period C running intervals at paces that are slightly slower than they will be running November 23rd. The paces drop over time. It is important to emphasize that through Period riod C the Sunday long run is emphasized, using the rule of thumb that it. should be twenty percent of an athlete's weekly volume. As a rule, the steady runs on Wednesday afternoons through this phase are fifteen percent of an athlete's weekly volume.

Period D: Anaerobic Specificity Now Wetmore introduces a heavy dose of traditional interval running: ning: short, fast repeats with precious little recovery. The anaerobic work enables the runners to capitalize on the increase in their aerobic obic capacity while giving them what Lydiard calls "the vital edge" to race anaerobically. The Wednesday medium-distance run and the Sunday run are continued as aerobic maintenance, the difference being that with only six weeks until Nationals, the distance of the runs will decrease by 10 to 25 percent. The pace of the medium distance and long runs remains steady.

Period E: Anaerobic Speed The season's last phase is marked by training sessions designed to induce duce deep anaerobic stimulus. In layman's terms, this is when his runners ners puke and come back for more. The hard training sessions will include sprinting and intervals at paces substantially faster than race pace. The end result of these sessions is a feeling of sharpness-a power and fluidity of stride that causes a reversal of traditional mind-body body communication. Up to now the mind is employed to overrule the unresponsiveness of the legs that is a result of the cumulative fatigue from an ungodly number of training sessions. Now it is the legs that start telling the mind: hey, you have the tools to raise some hell when it counts.