Revisiting A Parent's Perspective - Part 8: Miles Make Champions

Red Hook, NY - We are competing in a curious time.  It seems as if the higher echelons of our sport are competing against the traditional paths.  While one of our harriers going pro is still the outlier, our top female harrier this year is coming off of homeschooling through her middle school years.  In addition, our top male harrier has been competing for the club team Rolling Thunder since he was eight years old.  And finally, the state's next rising talent, has been running CYO meets for years, coached by her father.

So does this mean that High School coaching is dead?  Not even close.  But it does raise some questions.  Questions that have been raised before, when another Home Schooled athlete was the talk of the town.  In 2005, Josh McDougal captured just about all the long distance state records, culminating with a 8:48.11 for the 3200y, and a 14:07.55 for an on-track 5000m run.  Now almost ten years later, the questions come back.

In 2005, one parent set out to answer those questions, submitting to TullyRunners an article entitled, "Josh McDougal is a Perfect Example of What is Wrong With High School Track."  The parent's name was John Raucci, a father with two son's running for Red Hook High School.  Over the next season, we will be re-releasing his original articles, which almost a decade later, prove fascinating.  You can note, that some of the ideas are a bit dated, but some of the things are spot on, before they came to be the accepted standard.  I hope you enjoy the article as much as we have.

Josh McDougal is a Perfect Example of What is Wrong With High School Track

by John Raucci

This will be the first in a series of smaller follow up articles to the primary article written in March/2005 entitled "Josh McDougal Is A Perfect Example Of What Is Wrong With High School Track". I am writing these follow ups in part due to the many sincere inquiries I have received in reference to the original article. I hope that they will serve to broaden the approach to running that I set out to present as well as deal with the practical matter of day-to-day training. In order to gain the most from these follow-ups, I would like to put forward a number of guidelines. First of all, it would be essential to first read and try to understand the primary article if you have not already done so. Secondly, as I will make training suggestions especially in this first follow up, I realize that they may not correspond to the kinds of training prescribed by a given coach for a given team at a given time. If that is the case, I recommend that runners follow the schedules put forth by coaches and not by me. Coaches are uniquely responsible for their athletes, and from my perspective, I would say that such a responsibility should not be violated. Any outside interference could lead to conflict and/or confusion, and that would certainly defeat the purpose of these articles. Thirdly, I would petition coaches to at least re-evaluate that which they consider to be ideal in terms of training and performance. We all work from a sense of what is best, and if we are mistaken in any way regarding the very best, the ideal, everything else we say or do will somehow be thrown off kilter. For example, strange as it may seem, it may not be ideal to stress a runner in order to improve performance. Stressing an athlete will certainly make he or she faster, but, in fact, it might be the alleviation of stress that takes a runner to his full potential. In another example, it may not be ideal for a High School sophomore young man to run a 4:10 mile. He may in fact be doing too much too soon, and his body may react with a vengeance in terms of thrusting him into a cycle of injuries. Finally, these articles should never be viewed as an attempt to help us produce champions now. Rather, they are an invitation to bring together the sport of running with the fullness of health. As my own children will attest, I have slowed the progress of their performance levels in the hopes that a future free from sickness and injury, would provide a foundation for the eventual realization of their athletic potential, along with a continuation of their unencumbered enjoyment of the sport.

This follow up will take on the practicalities of barefoot running, proper breathing in and out through the nose, and aerobic conditioning. As we approach summer, we are entering into somewhat of a gold mine of a training zone. A good summer's effort can bring about surges in the career of a runner. I want to express my appreciation to the runners of Red Hook and Rhinebeck who have helped me to understand running from an unusual perspective, as I have been able to observe them and their progress through our day-to-day efforts. I must confess that if I were to say anything about myself, it is simply that I am a student of running. I have learned much through trial and error, and expect to continue to do so. Please accept this presentation in such a light, and allow your own experience and research as well to guide you in your pursuit of excellence.


Part 1: If the Shoe Fits - Beware of It

Part 2: Hold Your Breath

Part 3: Breakdown or Breakthrough

Part 4: Eat a Lot – A Lot of What?

Part 5 : Mind and Body – For or Against One Another?

Part 6: Shoeless and Clueless

 Part 7: Darth Vader - The Master Breather

 

Part 8: MILES MAKE CHAMPIONS

 

Some years prior to his death, Arthur Lydiard wrote an article heavily critical of the American system of training. In it, he tore at the emphasis upon interval training, and so-called speedwork. He claimed that if he were to come here and coach, he could produce Olympic Champions within about five years. He praised the Africans because he saw in their system of training a mirror image of his own methods which produced a number of great Olympic Champions from the 60's onwards. And the basis of that training, the center of all the activity, was nothing other than the long run. The long run increases the aerobic threshold, and that threshold is the basis for virtually every type of performance gain. In subsequent articles, Lydiard exposed anaerobic activity for what it is - a limiting factor in regard to performance, and an inducement to the breakdown of an athlete culminating in the destruction of human potential. For Lydiard, aerobic activity, and aerobic activity alone, is what brings about gains in athletic performance.

Although many in the American running community no longer take Lydiard seriously, I for one do. And, in line with his approach, I would say that summer training can be very simple. Just gradually increase the length or rather as Lydiard would say, the time we run. In Red Hook, we usually begin in June after school when the Track season is concluded. We run on the fields for about an hour plus on average. As the summer proceeds, we move to the early morning and simply increase the average time running. The runs are always comfortable, but they are not at all jogs. At the same time, they will never come close to being anaerobic. For those who can, we recommend jogging in the evening. As stated earlier, my sons will work up to two hours per day plus jogging. Once a week, they will do one three hour run. This level of training should be approached gradually, and I am not saying that everyone should do as much running.

In the aerobic phase of Lydiard's training, he would intersperse speedwork sessions. His concept of speedwork was more related to strengthening of the running muscles. In an ingenious way, he never allowed his runners to extend bursts of activity beyond aerobic levels. Therefore, time spent in rapid paces would fall into the 10 to 20 second range. In one workout, he would have runners bound up a 200 meter hill, jog for a while, sprint down the hill, jog, and repeat. In between the repeats of the hill bounding, he would call for short sprints on a flat of about 15 seconds. Runners would never be in oxygen debt. I suggest that everyone study Lydiard's system of training and its wisdom. I see his as a good system of training, but even there, I believe it should be approached cautiously by a High School Athlete.

If we are going to make the transition to longer and longer runs, we may have to leave it at that. To add anything else might be counter productive. I learned this the hard way last summer when I added Lydiard's speedwork to the increase in milelage of my sons. Within a couple of weeks, they wound up having to back off from everything for a while. Later I came to learn that runners working with Lydiard directly were more likely to be injured during the speedwork sessions. Ultimately, as Lydiard would say, it is the miles that make the champions.

There is an obsession with speed and interval workouts in America. Alongside this obsession is the notion that running slow will make us slow. Although I understand this type of thinking, I cannot find verifiable evidence for it in my experience. Since I have been involved with Red Hook, the emphasis has been upon long slow running. Even during the season, interval workouts are done sparingly. Yet Red Hook is producing faster runners than ever. Never in the history of this small Division II school has it been able to send a 4X800 team to the State Meet. However, for the last 2 years, the Red Hook 4X800 team has won the League and Section championships and qualified for the State Meet, medaling on both occasions with an average 800 time of between 2:01 to 2:02 per man for both years. In response to the primary article, I received a good number of e-mails which absolutely concurred with the notion that slow running can make us faster. In one letter, a runner told me that he had run the mile in 4:35 or so in High School and was plagued by injuries and burnout due to the speedwork and the intervals. Afterwards upon entering into his 20's, he slowed his training solely to long runs of 7 minute miles. Then, with a few intervals done a month prior to a one-mile race, he got down to 4:21 without difficulty.

Former Olympic Champion in the 800 and 1500, under Lydiard's tutelage, Peter Snell is now going around the world teaching that running slower makes us faster. He claims that when we do long slow runs, we use up the glycogen in our slow twitch muscles after a period of time. Without knowing it, we then switch over to our fast twitch muscles even as we maintain a slow pace. Thus, our fast twitch muscles get a good workout, and as a result, we are able to run faster. This in fact may explain why I and others experience speed gains through long slow running. In any case, one thing is for sure as far as I am concerned. If we become faster through running slower, we will be much less likely to find ourselves with a stress fracture or torn ligament or knee problem etc. etc. Ultimately, speed and stress, when applied to training, may not at all be what they are thought to be.

Finally, I would like to refer to a recent Swedish article called "Some Words About Running". I recommend that we all take some time to review this article, especially the first half of it -

( http://ingrid-kristiansen.com/holisticfitness/running.htm ). The article documents the failure of science to comprehend the extent of aerobic energy required for all middle distances, stemming from measurements taken from faulty parameters. With new and accurate data, a 400 is now understood to approach being 50% aerobic, an 800 - 70% aerobic, and a 1500 - 85% aerobic. The article proceeds to emphasize the significance of a training, very heavily weighted to the aerobic side in order to maximize performance for middle distance races. It goes on to elucidate that anaerobic activity is not only of less significance in regard to middle distance races, but that the production of such energy can greatly hinder the body's ability to function aerobically. In addition, it demonstrates graphically how inefficient we become when we rely upon anaerobic energy to get us through our training or racing. It concludes that long easy runs will give us much more bang for the buck, even for shorter distances.

I am sure that Arthur Lydiard would have jumped for joy had he been alerted to the above referenced article. It seems to verify scientifically Lydiard's direct experience with training and performance. The upshot of such information is that we should be secure in the thought that we are gaining far far more by switching our training away from the track, and away from the stop watch. As Lydiard taught, "Miles make champions".