Jonathon Riley - why not better progress??

he was a miler in hs, now he is a 5000 meter runner, so he doesn't train for or race the 1500 nearly as much as a miler would. His focus is the 5000 and 13:21 is very impressive

Lots of people run near 3:43 in high school, Very few people run near 3:30 ever. Your thinking is skewed

Riley was also bounced all over the place in terms of events run while he was at Stanford. It didn't seem like he was finally able to pick an event until he graduated and was on his own. Once he started to concentrate on the 5k, he has done pretty well. I think he has yet to reach his potential still. Personally, I'd like to see him find another place to train/coach. Of course that's just me.

You could almost substitute Don Sage into this discussion too. Except he hasn't run 13:21.

3:30, 3:48, and 7:30? what form of math did you use to come up with these numbers? did you watch riley TRAIN for the last 5 years and determined he should get a new coach? i'm positive riley would have made a change if he felt it necessary- it is his job and palo alto isn't cheap.

riley hasn't thrown in the towel, he'll run faster. 13:21 last year (mt sac win, olympic trials win) and 3 wins at indoor nationals indicates he is a COMPETITOR. he hates to lose and if running 13:03 is what it will take to win, i think riley can get that. he will get faster, don't worry.

his progression since high school has been good considering the correct facts another post detailed (event changes, etc), but i'm sure riley is with you in wanting more. it is good to question the situation and expect more from a great talent, but it is arrogant to assume you know the solution.

For the most part Stanford has been really successfull at getting guys from high school to improve. However, once they leave Stanford, it doesn't seem like they progress anymore. The Hauser twins, Riley, Lunn, Sage, Stember, Jennings, Robison, Lucinni; it doesn't seem like any of those guys have improved since finishing college (yeah I know, Jennings doesn't really count with his escapades, and Robison and Lucinni need some more time).

Hopefully Dobson and Hall will have more success.

Riley's HS double always impressed me as indicating he would be a great marathoner (if not 10k guy) of great endurance. I don't know why he hasn't gotten his 10k time down- perhaps he's just more fast twitch. I confess to being perplexed by what is apparently an underperformance of his talent. Thanks for asking.

http://www.runningtimes.com/highschool/sbookriley.htm

I would agree with Young Coach. Riley's talent in my mind should have yield 3:34-5, 7:35, 13:10 by now. He is more talented than Broe, as talented as Kennedy and Goucher imho.

MarathonMind wrote:

Riley's HS double always impressed me as indicating he would be a great marathoner (if not 10k guy) of great endurance. I don't know why he hasn't gotten his 10k time down- perhaps he's just more fast twitch. I confess to being perplexed by what is apparently an underperformance of his talent. Thanks for asking.

maybe his 10k (the marathon is an idiot suggestion) would get down if he actually chooses to run a 10k after college.

he's been in the "after college" phase for a few years already...

maybe his 10k (the marathon is an idiot suggestion) would get down if he actually chooses to run a 10k after college.[/quote]

Seriously?

Please understand that I am not assuming to know the solution for his lack of better progress. I'm just curious and simply can not understand why an athlete who ran 3:43 as a 18 year old boy is not running close to 3:30 for 1500, 7:30's for 3000 at 26.

I am not the only coach who believes that in the 1500 a 10-12 seconds improvement is a sensible, realistic and natural progression in a 8 season/year period. and even if he indeed decided to concentrate in the 5000 as collegian, it appears that he has the basic speed to run close to 13:05.

But you are correct, it is very difficult to know without looking at his training over the last 8 years. If he hasn't reach his all time limit then I believe there has to be something wrong in his training.

Seriously? do you have any sort of detail or information on his training. Believe me, I think Jonathon Riley can run faster than he has, he's got the talent.

Why, do we keep getting these types of posts??? Only he and the people working closely to him would have any idea what is holding up his progress. Maybe there is not a problem. Progress stops or drastically slows when athletes reach their potential; lose their motivations; etc. There are so many possibilities. Please stop!!!!!!!!

Maybe when he gets his 10k time down we'll know if it's an idiot suggestion or not.

Riley is a very good runner, who has been recently surpassed by Broe, Dobson, and Hall. There is nothing wrong with being the 4th best 5k runner in the North America.

Jason Rexing interviewed Jon Riley at the Old Pro regarding his marathon thoughts:

Rexing: So what kind of name is Riley?

Riley: It's from the land of Guinness.

Rexing: What would you like to drink?

Riley: I'll take a Guinness, a true pint.

Rexing: So when are you going to race the marathon? Your high school double indicated great promise?

Riley: When are you?

Rexing: Well acutally I already have, in fact two. It was the year that I was training to take on the Navy Seals. I had eaten a bucket of ice cream that I stole out the back of a parlor and laying around on the couch with my girl friends watching Fight Club and I started feeling guilty.

I boot on my training boots and my bombers jacket, it was a cold night in Mexico City, and headed out the door. I clicked off 40K belching and wheezing and when I got to the end I realized I still had to go back. So it was an out and back.

Riley: That doesn't count.

Rexing: They are really accurate at their measurements in Mexico. I ran sub-splits.

Riley: Haha. Where’s my Guinness?

Rexing: So, when are you going to run your marathon?

Riley: Right now I’m thinking about a Guinness. Let’s talk about a marathon when I have not an ounce of speed left in my legs.

Rexing: Hey barkeep, where’s that Bartles & James I ordered? (To Riley) Doesn't he know I could eat him?

Riley: Good talk.

canada wrote:

Maybe there is not a problem. Progress stops or drastically slows when athletes reach their potential; lose their motivations; etc. There are so many possibilities. Please stop!!!!!!!!

Young Coach, read the above post. If there were some magic answer for why some athletes continuing improving while others do not, training runners would be easy. But there never is an easy explanation. Some reach their potential sooner than others. One of the main reason is: athletes have different TRAINING THRESHOLDS. Some can continue to up their training to higher levels each year and keep improving, while others can not.

Don Sage was better than Riley in HS (better mile, better deuce, and better X-C). Has he run under 3:38 or 13:20 yet? No. So where does HE fit into your magic formula for "expected improvement."

Andy Powell was as good as Riley in HS. He got injured a lot and not progressed at all.

Where is Gabe these days? Why has Tegenkamp (sp?) not run as well as Hall or Dobson on the track? He was just about as good as them in HS and in world jr X-C.

And the list goes on and on.

(and to the person who said that Riley was as talented or more than Goucher or Kennedy, I disagree. Maybe more talented as a miler, but not as a distance runner(5k/10k). Kennedy won NCAA X-C as a frosh, Goucher was 2nd as frosh. Riley got in the top 20 as a frosh, but not nearly as good as Goucher/Kennedy. Those two have more natural endurance capabilities. And that is why they have run faster at 5k)

4th I'll take goucher and torres over him.

And when did he win the olympic trials. LAst time I checked he was behind broe.

Some people mature faster than others. Look at Webb. Webb didn't break Ryun's record simply because of natural talent, he also had the help of maturity. He was balding at 18, he was muscular. The improvement curve isn't the same for everyone. For some reason, partly because of early maturity and talent, some runners simply don't improve much after hitting great times. Maybe it's lack of training? Maybe it's too much training? Maybe it's lack of focus? There are hundreds of reasons, but it doesn't matter because Riley is still a success. If he were to step off the track right now he'd still have had a great career.

Alan

Alan Webb ran 3:53 in HS and 3:50 tree years later.

Part of the answer for any particular time is: How much of it is talent, and how much is training load? Bob Kennedy ran 4:10 off 30 mi/wk; Steve Magness ran a similiar time off more than triple the mileage. Quite obviously, Bob had more training leverage once the training load was increased, which you can see in Bob's success at Indiana, and Steve's relative lack of success at Rice (other issues at play, of course).

My understanding about Riley (other than he is a rather, uh, lets say "unique" individual) is that he was running as much as 130 mi/wk at Stanford. Once again, compare with Bob, who was running half as much mileage at Indiana, so when he left Indiana and cranked the volume, Bob was able to go from 13:28 to 12:58. It may be that Vin pushes his athletes (or they push themselves) harder--or they pushed themselves harder just to get to Stanford--and they don't get much faster after leaving, because they have already reached their potential before they left.

This is why some of us as high school coaches try to maximize the results from more moderate training loads, and our national record holders (Bob, Meb, Deena, Broe...) have come from a longer-term, less progressive buildup strategy.