Whoops ! I should have said I dislike all this : "He is a better Coach than this person because .... "
Whoops ! I should have said I dislike all this : "He is a better Coach than this person because .... "
Glenn -- Well stated. It is all about the individual, and what works best for each. Many have sid that Jim Ryun may have been better with a different coach not demanding so much. I contend he had exactly the right coach. Others say Dough Padilla could have been even better if he trained harder (he was well known for some pretty paltry workouts), but those kind of statements are extrememly hard to prove one way or another. If IFS AND BUTS WERE CANDY AND NUTS IT WOULD BE CHRISTMAS ALL THE TIME. I've tried the same thing for various runners and some do well, while others need a different approach. I do feel there are some basic principles of training that work for everyone, but that is usually most sucessful when getting into the sport. When you start dealing with the cream of the crop, now there has to be pretty close back and forth interaction between coach and athlete. I like the marathon plans i have written, but in talking with the runners I coach, some have asked to have more recovery days between quality workouts and that has been done and working very well (particularly for those doing 120-160 miles/week) The athletes must take part in the discussions about training. I always remember my equestrian coach telling me that you can't just blame the horse for a bad ride; the two of you need to work things out through communication with each other. With your runners, at least you both usually speak the same language.
I still remember the comment from my anatomy teacher at university: He said that there are some people who have their heart on the right side of their body (I can't remember the name of this condition...). "You can't turn around and tell them that they are wrong," he said. Same thing with training. Some people are concerned with weekly mileage and ask if whatever the distances they are running weekly is enough. The whole purpose of training is so you'd perform well in the actual race. If you perform best with 30MPW, so be it. In fact, I remeber Arthur actually saying something like "It's not 100 miles a week that makes you great; but you've got to get good aerobic base." However you achieve that, you've got to figure out yourself.
To jtupper,
I didn't need to be push or manuplated in any way to win or break world record.It was my desires to channel my energy intuitively in the environment of WSU
My enthusiasm was my nature of life,to be able to breath in joy and happiness.
I used to say to my heart, this is my nature of athletics that allows me to be enthusiastic.
All I needed was to be around social friendly people.And I used to seek that support on my own at the Bar after training,which was very wrong.
My training was like a student who goes to class and listen to the teacher take notes do assignment and homework and build on from there on until final exams.,and without good attendance class participations ,reading and homework, you will not pass the exams.
The same application in running,my nature allows me to have good sights and observe what was wrong and how the coach delivers his teaching,which was very wrong and primitive to the coach.
It is like coming to classroom to stop a student in the middle of the final exam.
The point is that some athletes dont need to be push in any way.
Most of the American coaches took advantage of the athletes from the third world nation by abusing them in the manner, they knew they had no support from the media.
When you want to leave the school the coach threaten your life.
Henry
I have met Chapman, did he ever threaten you? Henry? Ever?
LYDIELS
There... stick a fork in this thread.
Henry: I was coaching college in the early days of coaches having foreign athletes and greatly abusing them -- some coaches took money that their athletes won (telling them that they -- the runners -- were not allowed to win money while in college, so the coach will take it for them). Then these outstanding runners would win championships for their school and the coach got all the credit. Then other coaches did the same so they could also be considered good coaches. Often, the coaches didn't even know how to train these guys, but if they won, the coach was "the man." Of course this still goes on, and coaches make a name for themselves while knowing (and often also caring) very little about what thier runners respond best to. The lucky runners in such a situation are left alone and do well because of their determination, which is what you had.
To Trialswatcher,
Most of my written work is in the 'Olympic Dream.'
I couldn't do anything,even to buy house with money I won was a problem.
'Get your ass out of there,what will the Kenya say if buy a house in the house?'
I mention this to one of the reporters here in the US.
He told me,"be sensitive don't mention that about chaplin."
I say, I also don't want to mention about Kenyan officials too.
"They always write bad things about them all the time anyway, it is Okay."he said
The reporter was only looking for athletes' being abuse by Kenyan officials.
To be in my shoes in my time was headaches.It was like being in 'prison camp.If you go back with the interviews in those years,I always mention about that and no one understood what I was talking about.
I didn't have any-rights to say no to my coach.I remember one the smart Kenyan runner mention,"Is is this concentration camp."
Henry
easy question that I'm sure is in here somewhere already but here goes. In building a base, is it ok to do say run each day for an hour or is there some reason you should have shorter days/longer days? For example, a 60m week with 6-10 mile runs just as good as having a 15 and five 9 milers?
You're right. The answer must be here someplace, but Arthur experiemented with this himself and found that he got better results running, say, two hours one day and an hour the next. So he thought it was better to have some variety in distance, partly because you can go faster on the shortere runs.
Is a guy like Josh McDougal hurting himself doing 17M everyday? What if you're not really pushing it on any runs?
Lydiard had a phase when he did a full marathon everyday. Jeff Julian used to do similar things in his base phase. Most people don't like to run that far everyday, but Barry Magee has always told me that getting in the distance is the key regardless of how it's broken up. If you look at the "classic" Lydiard base phase, you're running 100 mpw in one session, so that's not too far removed from a 17 mile run each day.
MacDougal is running very well and I'd be reluctant to say he's doing anything wrong. Remember that Arthur always said that his schedules were just guidelines.
We colelcted every drop of urine from 14 elite runners, 24 hours a day for 35 consecutive days -- mainly to look at adrenaline and noradrenaline (stress identifiers). Interestingly, guys running 15 miles a day showed this to be no more stress than no daily running for a sedentary person. It seems that your body adjusts to a certain amount of daily stress and may even consider a regular 2 hour run as just another day on the job. Where's the limit? Whatever you can handle without losing interest or getting sick or injured, and that is where the biggest problem lies: how do you know how much that is, at what age and when during a season. That is also where it sure can help to have an understanding coach.
If your body adjusts to it, whatever "it" may be in terms of training load so that it becomes "just another day at the office," is it still effective? If getting fitter is about adapting to stress and you adjust to the point where your training isn't stressful, is it working?
Just came back from Chicago and this is what I see!? HRE, I thought we talked about just letting this thread go...???
Dr. Jtupper: that is a very interesting research. It is quite amazing how much human body can adjust to. You see a fit young man (and nowadays, quite a few fit "old" people as well) who runs and/or bike and/or swim and/or do whatever else comes to their mind and they will go on and do all sorts of activities at home and at work and they seem to have endless resource of energy. On the other hand, you also see some unfit, and quite often obese, people who start to sweat and breath heavily watching TV! Surely it's not how much daily activiy they engage themselves into; but how much the body can handle. Naturally, a trained body seems to be able to handle a heck of a lot more and they don't think anything of it.
One of the reason why Lydiard came up with longer days / shorter days pattern, as well as recognizing how longer runs developed better muscular endurance, was because they tap into different energy system. You might want to run a bit faster one day but shorter duration; and the next day you go further but at easier effort. The way Ray Puckett explained to me was "one day you work hard on your breathing and the next day you go far to spend time on your feet." They are different stresses; and consequently you are giving 48 hours for the body to recover from one set of stress. I'm not sure if this is scientifcally correct but it makes sense to me.
However, for the base building phase, as long as you cover big aerobic mileage without breaking down, it probably doesn't matter that much how you do it. Henry Rono can tap in here but I believe he used to do pretty much the same distance work day after day after day (something like 8 miles in AM and 8 miles in PM) except for Sunday when he went one longer run of about 22 miles or so.
Wow ! back up and runnng. Good to see everyone back on deck.
Dead right Nobby. Jack Foster also used to talk similarly to Ray Pucket. He even went as far as to say if the Long run on a Sunday was unusually hard (His were to the average runner !!). Get on your Bike the next day and just "turn the system over".
I know for myself I always found that if I hit the formula of Long run followed by shorter (slightly quicker) run then I did not have any problems.
I ran with Norris Wyatt for 2 years and he ran this formula for years.We ran 13 to 15 miles on a Tuesday and Thursday and Monday and Wednesday we ran anything from 7 to 10 miles.
I seemed to handle 13 miles one day,7 the next quite nicely.
The 13 to 15 miler was on course that were 'Rolling' hills.
Old story : Do what suits you and works.
Maybe we should never declare this thread dead, no matter how long it's been gone. But how many times has Godzilla come back?
As many times as Jason has come back... Or was his name Rocky?
Seriously, and another thing that should be emphasized during conditioning is the importance of undulation.
The undulation is important, but as Arthur reminded me, some days you keep the pace constant (an example: 6 minutes per mile rather flat, uphill or down) and other days, you keep the perceived effort the same (comfortable or hard) with little concern for the pace.
Glenn
Glenn:
Thanks for the clarification. Yes, and I actually personally prefer the opposite of what the schedule in "Run to the Top" says: I like shorter, faster runs on more or less flat course and lots of hills on longer, slower runs. As you know, even Arthur said (in the book) the longest run of the week over "flat" course, Waiatarua is known with monstrous hills.
When I trained this young lady who never run more than 1:20 (only once) before we got together, I laid out so she would do, say, 2-hour flat first, then 2-hour hilly course; then move on to 2:30 flat, then 2:30 hilly... It worked really well.