I would gladly take any of Al-Sals work outs.
I would gladly take any of Al-Sals work outs.
Ozzie wrote:
You are treating the post race workout like it was a punishment and not just part of the plan. There are plenty of things that Alberto did that I think were morally wrong, but post race workouts were not one of them. It would be different in my mind if Alberto said, "If you run X time, that will be all, but if you are slower, we are going to crush you with a workout." He didn't do that. All of the NOP athletes knew that whether they ran well or not, as long as they were not injured during the race, they would complete a workout after.
I can't cite the source, but I remember reading that part of the reason for the post race workouts was the travel. The race by itself was not enough of a workout, but the travel that often followed the race made it difficult for the athletes to get in another high quality day after the race (remember a lot of the publicized post race workouts were from indoor season, where they ran in Boston). He also talked about working different energy systems in the post race workout than he had worked in the race. So after a shorter race, the focus would be a longer, more aerobic (but not entirely aerobic) effort, where a longer race would be more glycolytic or speed oriented. These race plus workout days were always very taxing because they knew it would be a few days before they would do anything really hard again.
Plenty of reasons to dislike Alberto, but I don't think this is one of them.
Read my post again - I never said anything about post-race workouts being a bad idea, I do them myself after every race.
What I said is that for Mary Cain in that situation giving a superhero post-race workout was wrong. Not even mainly because of physical stress, but because mentally she thought that after beating several top tier runners and running a huge PR in that indoor mile she would finally make Salazar happy and live up to his ultra-high expectations, but instead of celebrating with her he forced her into this super hard tempo-run + 600 breakdown workout.
This was a 16-year old girl we are talking about that gave up everything to move across the entire country and be coached by him and he had nothing better to do than to destroy her in a post-race workout when she needed his praise and encouraging words.
Salazar had no idea how to treat young HS-age girls, he treated her the same as his veterans in their 20s and that was his main mistake, not him being a bad coach/trainer.
Seems like he gets more credit than he deserves. I can't think of any athletes of his that are really running well besides Yomif and Hassan and I feel like those athletes would run well under any coach really..
Sory but I;m going to defer to AlSal when I look at his record both as a runner and a coach compared to a buncha slappys on a message board.
Hayduke wrote:
Could you imagine if Once a Runner was written today? 40 quarters!!! Making fun of a girl with a limp!!! John Parker is so full of hate!
It was 60 quarters and JLP is kind of bitter.
LateRunnerPhil wrote:
Read my post again - I never said anything about post-race workouts being a bad idea, I do them myself after every race.
What I said is that for Mary Cain in that situation giving a superhero post-race workout was wrong. Not even mainly because of physical stress, but because mentally she thought that after beating several top tier runners and running a huge PR in that indoor mile she would finally make Salazar happy and live up to his ultra-high expectations, but instead of celebrating with her he forced her into this super hard tempo-run + 600 breakdown workout.
This was a 16-year old girl we are talking about that gave up everything to move across the entire country and be coached by him and he had nothing better to do than to destroy her in a post-race workout when she needed his praise and encouraging words.
Salazar had no idea how to treat young HS-age girls, he treated her the same as his veterans in their 20s and that was his main mistake, not him being a bad coach/trainer.
You must not race very hard.
When we consider both his career as an athlete & also when he wrote the book Duel in The Sun than his long and very promising career as running coach, it easily understood and clear comprehended that - Epstein didn’t kill himself
NotPC wrote:
Sory but I;m going to defer to AlSal when I look at his record both as a runner and a coach compared to a buncha slappys on a message board.
Are you referring to the doping coach who operated with the financial backing of a conglomerate? Yes I bet he got good results.
LateRunnerPhil > AlSal
as athlete and coach
I did re-read your post. I think where we differ is where you seem to be assuming that a post race workout must be a task assigned by an unsupportive coach. Could be, but I can't jump to that conclusion. My guess is that Salazar and Cain both knew that the plan for the day was to run a great race and finish it off with a workout. Cain may not have known exactly what the workout was, but was probably understood the general theme and was not surprised when it was difficult. After a successful race, maybe the interaction was along the lines of, "Great job, now let's finish the workout," with celebrations following the conclusion of the workout. My version is speculation as much as yours. I just think that if a plan seems to be working (Cain was running well), another success isn't reason to deviate from the plan. If workouts got more difficult when the athletes performed worse and got easier when they ran well, I would be much more inclined to agree with you, but we hear about NOP athletes running hard workouts following great performances all the time.
That the organization itself was unable to differentiate Cain's talent from her age and maturity is a clear failing of the group and its infrastructure. And whether the organization cared at all for the athletes involved or just the results they produced is questionable enough to earn them condemnation. No argument from me on those points. But what you are seeing in the post race workouts is just something that I don't see. Or at least I cannot see that the angle you are looking at it from is truly the angle from which those workouts happened.
RIP: D3 All-American Frank Csorba - who ran 13:56 in March - dead
RENATO can you talk about the preparation of Emile Cairess 2:06
Running for Bowerman Track Club used to be cool now its embarrassing
Hats off to my dad. He just ran a 1:42 Half Marathon and turns 75 in 2 months!
Great interview with Steve Cram - says Jakob has no chance of WRs this year