In article <[email hidden]>,
Gary said:(Robert Grumbine) said:In article <[email hidden]>,
Gary <[email hidden]> wrote:
[large snip to the new topic]
Quoted message said:I know the best High School Students sometimes burn out in later
running, but I also know not every decent runner becomes a great
runner. Why do the Kenyans and Ethiopians do well in distance? The
mountains and high red blood cells? A better desire to become great?This is a perennial here, and you can check out old threads on
it if you want more details/voices. My own take: natural talent
and a lot of hard and intelligent work. It helps that distance
running isn't the 73rd (to make up a number) choice of sport. (It
also isn't first, soccer is.)The talent question is already in the bank for you. What you have
control over is the hard and intelligent work, pursued over enough
years to develop that talent as far as it will go.For all that the success of the Kenyans has been known for quite
a while, very few Americans follow similar training programs. One
of the few who did, Bob Kennedy, did very well (at least for an
American -- broke 13:00 for 5k, and still holds the US record).
Well whats their training techiniques I wish to become great and I'm
still young enough to have the chance.
:-)
For now (your age) the main thing is to put in miles -- regularly
in the week, month after month. No magic. The one partly magical
thing is to realize that there's no real magic. This is also partly
descended from Lydiard's training (good name to look up on searching)
methods. One element being that although the miles are all base
miles a) you progress, over time, to doing quite a lot of them
b) you do them at the higher end of conversational effort level.
The difference between 70% and 78% is part of your training -- be
about the 78% instead.
During track and cross country season, though, do what your
coach says. (If he's hazardous, you shouldn't be on the team.
If he isn't, then do his whole program. Maybe talk to him about
doing more miles.) In your off-seasons, put down the base miles
in generally increasing numbers.
It's a long-range plan. You won't run the fastest mile this year
that you could. The idea is to be running the fastest possible mile
5 years from now. One of the things that Bob Kennedy had was coaches
who thought about his running 5 years down the road, not just this
season or his HS or College years.
Glad you found some interesting stuff on my site. More should be
coming, but that's been true for several years. Whether my site or
others, keep in mind that 10 book suggestion I made and Dot lead
some discussion about recently. Do a lot of reading, and notice where
there are similarities and where there are differences. Baseline,
though, is people are people, and when all the exotica is added up,
you still go out and run if you want to be a distance runner. (Sprinters
have some different considerations, so weight rooms figure more in
their training, necessarily.)
My Navy Seal story: I have, I'll claim, out-toughed a Seal.
(Ok, he wasn't a Seal until 6-9 months later, but he did enter
only a few months after the event.) It was at a 24 hour relay.
He wound up dropping after 16 miles, while I made the full tour,
22 miles for my spot in the order. (Full story, having to
do with old age and treachery vs. youth and skill, omitted :-)
Anyhow, while there's a lot of attention paid to speed work,
hills, etc. etc., such exotics are only going to buy you 10-20%.
Getting to the point where taking off 10% takes you under 4:00
for the mile is on your base miles. Noakes, in Lore of Running,
tells the story of Peter Snell -- world record holder (for a time,
tempus fugit) in the half mile -- who was a star of Lydiard's,
and who set that record off, mostly, base mileage leading to a
2:2x marathon not many weeks before his world record. Not many
half milers do marathon training runs. But ... there he was.
And here's keeping my fingers crossed that the newspaper article
on speed work comes out right tomorrow.
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences