In The Lead Pack with Dr. Jack Daniels

(Photo courtesy of the Center for High Altitude Training)

Dr. Jack Daniels, currently the Head Distance Coach at the Center for High Altitude Training at Northern Arizona University, is a world-renowned authority on distance running. Dr. Daniels has over 31 years of experience as a track and cross country coach, collegiately at Oklahoma City University, University of Texas, and SUNY Cortland as well as the Nike Farm Team and National Track Coach in Peru. He has coached 30 individual NCAA National Champions, eight NCAA National Team Champions, and more than 130 All-Americans. His training philosophies and research have been published in five books, most notably Daniels' Running Formula, and over 50 articles in scientific journals. Prior to his coaching and research career, Dr. Daniels was a competitive modern pentathlete, earning silver and bronze team medals in the 1956 and 1960 Olympics, respectively.

Interview by: Derick Lawrence (2/04/2008)



You were a two-time Olympian in the modern pentathlon, winning a Silver Team Medal in the 1956 Olympics and a Bronze in the 1960 Olympics. What were these experiences like?
I was twice US National Champion, was in three World Championships (with a Bronze Team Medal) and two Olympic Games (with Silver and Bronze Team Medals). My most memorable victory was winning first place in the Swedish National Championship, the year after the two-time Olympic Champion, Lars Hall of Sweden, won his second Olympic Gold and Finns had taken Individual Silver and Bronze. Many Swedes and the top Finns were in that competition that I won that summer in northern Sweden, but what I remember most was the 10-year old girl who picked some nearby flowers to give me just after the award ceremony. Interestingly, I never thought of myself as “great,” even a year or two later when I was given the unofficial title of the World’s #1 horseman in the pentathlon. I loved the riding event, and it was clearly my best event, but it was also the only athletic event I can honestly say was really fun. In fact, I remember in one World Championship riding event, at about the 3500-meter mark of the 5k ride I was riding along between a couple of far-apart obstacles and I said to myself, “Man this is fun.” How many athletes in the middle of an important competition get to think and say, “Man this is fun?”


How did you decide on a career in coaching and research?
It sort of came by accident. I majored in P.E. at U. Montana, and was sent to Korea after finishing college and having been in Army ROTC. After some months as a rifle platoon leader I was transferred to Regimental headquarters to be the Regimental Athletic and Recreation officer. There was a flyer announcing the upcoming triathlon competition (pistol shooting, swimming and running) and having shot on the ROTC rifle team in college and also having been a swimmer in college and high school, I figured anyone could run, so I entered and won the thing. I went on to be “Far East” military champion, which allowed me to be transferred to San Antonio (Ft. Sam Houston) to train with the US Modern Pentathlon team. Between my two Olympics (Melbourne in 56 and Rome in 60) I studied a year in Stockholm at the Royal Gymnastic Central Institute, where I became interested in research. One of my professors was a great and famous exercise physiologist named Per Olaf Astrand. When I left Sweden I got a job with another great physiologist named Bruno Balke and he and I started doing some altitude research in the summers while I worked for him at the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) Headquarters in Oklahoma City. Another doctor at the FAA asked me to help his high school son with his running and that went well. The father then became a Vice President of Oklahoma City University and asked me to be the cross country and track coach there so if his son attended I could continue coaching him. I was given some scholarships to work with and got a few good runners to attend OCU. A couple were Australians, and one of them won Texas, Kansas and Drake Relays events as a Freshman. He also took 5th in the 3mile at DI nationals that year. Coaching was gong well, but a new college president eliminated track and cross country and I took a job as National Track Coach in Lima Peru. In Peru I coached with Larry Snyder, who had just retired from Ohio State and had been Jesse Owens Coach in his early years at Ohio State. When I left Peru I decided to go on with my PhD with a guy named John Faulkner, who had been with us in some of our summer altitude studies. Faulkner was a professor at U Michigan, so that is where I went. In the meantime Balke had left the FAA and took over the Head of the Biodynamics Department at U Wisconsin. He offered a very nice fellowship so I transferred from Michigan to Wisconsin, where I finished my Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology (I had gotten a Masters at U Oklahoma when at the FAA and OCU). My first job after my Ph.D. was at U Texas and when I arrived there the Head Track Coach offered the distance coaching position (based on having seen some of my Oklahoma City runners do well a few years earlier). I had gone to Texas just to teach EX Phys, but the coaching deal was really nice and that led to me becoming the Head Women’s Cross Country and Track & Field Coach at UT (the first coach of women’s track & XC at Texas). From there it was one thing after another that involved both teaching, research and coaching. I have never taught without coaching and never coached without also teaching.


As the head track and cross country coach for men and women at SUNY Cortland you won eight NCAA Division III national team titles, seven of which in cross country on the women’s side. What was this experience like?
It was a fun time at Cortland, but my wife and I had never expected to stay at Cortland for more than a few years. I applied for over 40 other college coaching jobs in my years at Cortland and was interviewed only twice. I think it was a combination of age discrimination and the fact that many of the positions I applied for were for coaching women, and not many colleges wanted to hire men to coach women. I had some outstanding teams at Cortland. We won nationals with 18 points one year (NCAA DIII record low winning score) and also hold the national record for the worst winning score (somewhere around 145 points won it that year). My greatest improvement in a runner was Vicki Mitchell who had a high school PR of 2:38 for the 800. Her Junior year she won indoor nationals in the 1500 (4:31) and outdoor nationals in the 3000 (9:39). Her senior year she won XC nationals (by over 20 seconds), won indoor 5k and 1500 and outdoor 5k and 10k. She never ran a 40 mile week. I coached her for a couple years in grad school and her first year of grad school she won Penn Relays 10k in 33:01 (beating the DI National collegiate record holder in the event). Changes in the Athletic department and coaching duties sort of turned me off at Cortland and the position at the Center for High Altitude Training seemed like a good fit, even though it meant taking our younger daughter away from her middle school friends with the move to Arizona.


Could you outline what a two-week period of training consisted of at SUNY Cortland prior to a conference or regional cross country meet?
Sunday was a long run of about 25% of each runner’s weekly mileage total. Not many ran over 40 miles a week, so it was typically a 10 mile effort on Sundays. Monday was an easy day (usually two runs of moderate distance). Tuesday was an interval day (1000s or 1200s were most typical, and always on the grass). Wednesday was threshold day with alternating between a steady 3 or 4mile tempo run and 4-6 miles of cruise intervals at the same pace as would be the tempo runs. Thursday and Fridays were easy day. Most often Friday was a morning run because we would often travel Friday and not have evening time for a run. Race Saturday. Before the final meets of the fall I would have just a Tuesday or Wednesday threshold session with some rep 200s to end it, so only one quality workout in the week leading up to championship races, and that quality session usually Tuesday.


Who has influenced you the most in your coaching and research?
Many coaches – Larry Snyder, Bob Timmons (Jim Ryun’s high school and college coach), Bill Bowerman, Bob Sevene and Frank Gagliano. Also many runners have made an impact on my coaching philosophy, including Jim Ryun, Tom Von Ruden, Chris McCubbins, George Young, Gerry Lindgren, Lisa and Ken Martin, Joany Benoit Samuelson, my wife, Nancy. As far as research goes it was Astrand and Balke who had the greatest impact.


What factors do you believe prevent collegiate runners from developing or progressing?
Inadequate time for rest and training is a big factor for many. Inconsistency in coaching is another factor. Many of my college runners had three different coaches each year in high school – cross country, Indoor and Outdoor. Then I was to take over and they didn’t have a clue what to do or whom to believe. Over racing is also a problem for some college runners; the better runners get raced too much in hopes of scoring more points at conference and other championships. It usually takes a year or so for a runner to adjust to a new coach and the runners we get into college don’t have much time with the college coach. Often some runners are pushed too hard in too short a time and if lucky enough to avoid injury, often get plain tired of racing.


With all the different training terms and definitions out there for the same concept, how do you believe these concepts can be standardized?
It is not an easy task because there have been coaches who use various scientific terms, sometimes in a not-so-accurate way, and sometimes coaches use a term that scientists also come up with, but with different meanings. I once wrote an article for a scientific journal on the topic of Interval training. I asked some athletes and coaches to tell me what they felt made up an interval workout. One said to be an interval session the work bouts had to be longer than 2 minutes; another said to be intervals the work bouts had to be 2 minutes or less in duration. Some said the recovery between work bouts was the “interval” and others said it was the work bouts themselves that were to be referred to as the intervals. I went to the dictionary to see how interval and repetition were defined and included those definitions in the article. Then there is the issue of what is a “tempo” run. I have tried to define all these things in hopes of at least standardizing things somewhat. I started using the phrase “VO2max intervals” in an attempt to be a little more precise, and identify “threshold” pace as about 86-88 % of VO2max rather than threshold being a particular blood lactate value. I also coined the term vVO2max, which scientists and coaches (and runners) around the world often refer to , but some define it quite differently than my original definition, which is in the literature. So it is not an easy task, especially when you invent a term and it gets interpreted differently by various individuals.


Easy pace running, as defined in your second edition of Daniels’ Running Formula, is 59 to 74 percent of VO2max. A noticeable change from the first and second edition of the book is the slower E (easy) pace intensity, a difference of 12 seconds (85 VDOT) to 24 seconds (30 VDOT). What was the deciding factor to make this change? How important is easy pace running during a season, especially for high school or collegiate runners?
Probably the most important things about easy runs are (1) try to get over 59% VO2max to get maximum benefit in terms of stroke volume of the heart (some physiologist consider 60% of VO2max as the easiest effort that elicits max cardiac stroke volume ; not that an easy run must accomplish that, but it at least puts some credibility to using a particular intensity). (2) not to let yourself get sloppy and have an easy run produce an injury simply because you got so casual about it that you let mechanics get a bit poor. (3) Even a very slow pace (below max stroke volume) will reap some benefits so not to worry about the intensity. As long as you can answer the question “what is the purpose of this run?” things are OK. Maybe the purpose is to go for a run with a friend you haven’t seen in some time and you just want to go out and socialize – legitimate purpose for that run. (4) Some days you just feel good and the “easy” run becomes fairly fast; not so bad as long as it is not too often nor does it spoil the next day’s session.


Another addition to the second edition is the variation in mile tempo pace based on run duration (Tables 7.1 and 7.2). Could you describe this addition to the book as well?
I originally felt (and still do) that the ideal duration of a run at lactate threshold (“tempo run”) is one that lasts about 20 minutes, plus or minus a couple; this is based on a Swedish researcher, Bertil Sjodin, who found no significant difference in improvement in lactate threshold whether steady threshold runs last 20 minutes or as long as 30 minutes. He also introduced me to what I refer to as “cruise intervals.” (I got the idea from Sjodin, but the actual name, “cruise intervals” came from swim coaches I worked with). As seems to be fairly common, many runners and run coaches use the term “tempo” to refer to almost any prolonged run that is at a fairly demanding, but not too demanding pace. Often these “tempo” runs are a progression run that starts fairly easily and gets faster and faster as the run progresses (with maybe the final 20 minutes at true threshold pace). I can accept the benefit of these type “tempo” runs, mostly from a mental outlook of learning to hold a solid pace for a prolonged period of time. So I decided I would come up with a speed that is associated with longer tempo runs. What I did was to use the rate of deterioration of speed as the duration of a race gets longer, something we came up with some 40 years ago. For example we found that a person can race for about 5 minutes at 110% of VO2max, 14 minutes at about 97+% of max, 30 minutes at about 93% of max, etc. The relationship between duration of a race and fraction of a max that you can sustain is described by a regression equation we developed, which means there is a predictable rate of decline in running speed based on how long you will be running. This regression was applied to the duration of “tempo” runs that last more than 20 minutes, and produced the table on reduction in pace which is a factor of run duration.


In Appendix B of the 2nd edition, you describe a suggested protocol for testing runners for max and submax values of VO2. How often should one be tested for this and other physiological variables in a given season or year? What can this information provide for a coach throughout a season or year?
Unless there are special circumstances (illness or injury or a major change in performance – one way or the other) I don’t think VO2 testing is particularly desirable more than a couple times a year, or maybe a little more often if there has been a pretty prolonged period of training without race feedback to see how things are progressing. The main benefit of testing is to compare a runner’s results with his/her own previous and future test results. It may be good to test a little more often if the runner has been through a specific emphasis in training and you want to see what changes may have been associated with a particular training regimen. Some tests, like periodic blood tests for hemoglobin, HCT, serum ferritin, and field blood lactate measures during specific workouts may be more often as well. It can be very useful to see the effects of a certain emphasis in training or change in diet, etc. However, these changes do take some time so no need to do testing every few weeks.


You coined the term “vVO2max.” Could you describe this term and how you came up with it? Also, how can this be applied to coaching?
In the late 1960s, after seeing two runners with VO2max values of 73 and 63, both run the same times in various races, I decided to start testing for running economy, and found that VO2submax (economy) varies considerable among runners of equal race ability. I started running 4 submax runs at progressively faster speeds, and then you --

Calculate the regression of VO2/kg on speed, and extrapolate the resulting economy curve out to VO2max. Drop a vertical line from VO2max down to speed, to arrive at vVO2max (velocity at VO2max), which is the best value for comparison among subjects.
Having both submax and max data on each runner tested also helps explain some of the very high VO2max values that some labs tend to get, sometimes as a result of poorly calibrated O2 and CO2 analyzers. If the analyzers are spitting out particularly high VO2 values then the max looks good and the submax look bad, so they sort of cancel each other out. It is almost worthless to do just a max test and not get economy data to go with it. If you want you could take a vVO2max value and consider that speed to be associated with VO2max and using that you could calculate the speed associated with any fraction of that speed – say 88 % of that speed for a threshold run.


How has your knowledge of training concepts and methodologies evolved through the years?
I have become more aware of the mental side of training and racing, but at the same time have come to believe that there are minimum speeds of training that elicit the maximum benefit, so you learn to temper the enthusiasm of some runners, but you must be able to explain what it is each workout is designed to accomplish.


Where do you see distance running research heading 10-15 years from now?
It would be nice to see some good “effects of training” studies, but they are almost impossible to do because it requires that different groups of runners be subjected to different types of training for fairly prolonged periods of time, and many serious runners don’t want to be put in a group that is doing something they don’t believe in, especially for some months at a time. I am happy with a couple different approaches to training marathoners and even 1500 runners and it would be fun to compare the two, but you need lots of subjects and all must be willing to train as prescribed.


What advice would you give to young high school or collegiate coaches?
Read about training from several sources. Listen to other coaches and runners and try to develop a plan that suits you and the runners you coach. It is hard to offer advice without expressing my philosophy – for example, when in doubt as to which of two different workouts to have your runners do today, I always say to pick the more conservative one. I try to teach a variety of warm-ups and let each individual settle on the one that is best for him/her, which may not be the same as other members of the team. Let your runners experiment with a variety of events. Don’t over work your better runners in meets in order to score more points – think of the runners first as people then as runners. Insist that your runners focus on the task at hand and not worry about the others in the race – do your thing and let the others do their thing. Never introduce a new type of training within 2 or 3 weeks of important competitions (for example, don’t start some hill running 2 weeks for a championship cross country race because you found out the course is a hilly one).


Thanks to Dr. Daniels for a great interview.