Interview by: Derick Lawrence (2/22/2008)
You have been the team coach for the Asics Aggies Running Club since 1999. Tell us about the recent successes of the team and how you initially became a coach for the Aggies.
(Photo courtesy of the Asics Aggies Running Club website)
I was awarded the position because of the loose nature of the organization, meaning there really isn’t a coach for the entire club, the club really needed a name to list down as “coach” and since I didn’t mind athletes emailing me for club info, they listed me. There are a LOT of accomplished coaches in our club so to say I’m the coach is not correct at all. I coach a handful of club members but by no means everyone in the club. For those I do not actively coach, I’m available to answer training questions if asked, still others I have very little to do with. The benefit of the Asics Aggies as a club and the reason I feel its been around at such a high level for so long is the loose structure. I realize this goes against the grain of most clubs and what many feel is the best way to run a club – but it’s probably why we’ve been successful taking athletes from being a decent college athlete to national class consistently since the ‘70’s. We’re like the old Oakland Raiders when John Madden was coach, all the individual characters that don’t really do their best in a rigid type of organizational structure, tend to have success in our type of environment. Most of our top athletes work full time and many have families, so they fit in their training around the reality of their careers and home life. The club is set up to assist as much as the athletes need. Some need gear or help getting into meets, others coaching, whatever the athlete feels works best for them, works for us.
The recent success is attributable to the dedication these post collegiate athletes have in performing well on the big day and they take blue collar pride in the fact that they all work or go to grad school full time and still kick butt. No excuses. Just train hard and get the job done because at the end of the day, so few actually make a living racing cross country or track, it’s not worth worrying about. Running is generally not going to make the mortgage payment, but there is a huge sense of satisfaction in competing well when each has circumstances that could give them a reasonable excuse for not running well if they chose to use it. Thankfully, they don’t make excuses. They just work hard in life and in running, race well when it counts and never complain about it. I’m there to offer help as needed for the most part.
You competed collegiately at Cal Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (’87) and garnered Division II All-American honors in the 5,000m. Post-collegiately you were a two-time U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials Qualifier (’92 and ’96), placing 26th at the 1996 trials. What were the essential elements of your marathon training?
Train like a competitive road racer for the most part with the addition of a longer long run on the weekend and a consistent long tempo run every other week. The rest of the schedule was pretty simple, basic components such as doubles most days, a consistent easy recovery day each week.
Generally I’d do 2 harder efforts each week 1 of which was either 8-10 x 1k (maybe 800’s) or 5-6 x 1600 at 10k-tempo pace and the other primary workout for the week was either 400’s or a long tempo run. If I had a race on the weekend, I did 400’s early in the week and the race on the weekend was the other hard effort for that week. If it was a hard workout day or low key race I would tend to do a long warmup and long cooldown unless it was a big race and then it would be a more traditional shorter warmup and cooldown. So on a workout of 6 x 1600, I would do a 25-30 min warmup and cooldown in the afternoon after an AM run of 5-7 miles before work.
For early season races such as the Wharf to Wharf or Morro Bay to Cayucos in July, I’d park at the finish, jog the 6 miles to the start for a warmup arriving about at the time the race was starting, then turnaround and race back, then do a 4-6 mile cooldown. The longer tempo runs usually were in the 14-16 range with the last 8-9 miles run with 4 at marathon pace, a small break, then the final 4 miles about as hard as I could muster which usually came out to tempo pace or so. This was in the afternoon after an AM run of 5-7. If you could get that done and feel good within the context of a normal training week, you knew you were pretty fit.
Could you outline your last two weeks of training prior to your 26th place finish at the 1996 trials?
Well I’ll list 3 weeks since I did a 3 week taper.
1/27-2/3/96
1/27: Hilly 8: Ass draggin tired
1/28: 2:12 moderate – felt alright whole way
1/29: AM: 8 easy. PM 5 easy felt great
1/30: AM: 6 easy. PM: 8 x 800 w/ Boaz on rolling road course w/ 2 min rec. (2:32-2:29). 4 mi up, 2 down. Felt great on warmup thought I was gonna blast it, got tired instead.
1/31: 10 easy. Alright
2/1: AM: 6 easy. PM: 5 easy
2/2: AM: 6 easy. PM: 14 with last 4 at tempo effort (4:50, 9:33, 14:31, 19:34) Didn’t feel like I was running fast, but times were good. Strong whole workout.
2/3: 9 easy. On verge of feeling good.
2/4: 1:49 hilly road course. Late night out. Pretty beat first half, OK last.
2/5: AM: 9 easy. PM: 5 easy
2/6: AM: 5 easy. PM: 400/800/1200/1600/1200/800/400 w/ 400 jog w/ Conover, Griffiths, Huff. (70, 2:19, 3:34, 4:48, 3:35, 2:21, 65) 2 mi up and down. Felt strong whole workout, recovered well on all reps.
2/7: 9 easy – so-so.
2/8: AM: 5 easy. PM: 6 easy.
2/9: AM: 5 easy. PM: 11 progressive run finished at JRHS track straight into a timed mile striding the straight/jogging the turns (5:21). 5 min home. Crappy run, strong on the track though.
2/10: 6 easy.
2/11: 10 moderate. OK run, nothing heroic.
2/12: AM: 5 easy. PM: 68/88/68/88 for 12 laps total….2 mi up and down. Pretty smooth and recovered well.
2/13: 6 easy. So-so.
2/14: AM: 5 easy. PM: 6 easy to JRHS, 4 x 300 w/ 100 jog (56-57 av). Felt good.
2/15: AM: 5 easy then travel to Charlotte.
2/16: AM: 30 min easy + strides. Felt good. PM: 10 min easy felt great.
2/17: Oly Trials. 26th 2:20:30. 10 min first thing out of bed + 15 min warmup. Race went alright, out fast. 10:08, 16:08, 1:09:08, 1:38:30. Raced well through 20, got tired at 22. Pretty good competitive effort on a tough, hilly course.
How did you apply your own experiences and/or marathon training into the coaching of your athletes?
I was decent, I didn’t have a contract so I had to work full time and fit my training around that reality. Same for all the guys I knew, the 2:12-14 marathon guys in town who worked full time when I was at Cal Poly. One guy was running in the LA Olympic steeple semi one day and washing dishes the next back here in town when he didn’t advance. The 8:16 steeplechaser in town cleaned apartments and shampooed rugs. Conover was working for the county. All ran the roads to supplement their income. The point is we all ran well, we all worked full time. No big deal, you just trained hard and went to work most days. I tend to do best with athletes who come out of college hungry, but maybe not as good as they should have been or at the very least, how good they think they should have been and they want to try giving it a go for a bit longer to see if they can get where they think they should be. I worked full time, learned what it took to make it after college without a traditional support structure like you have in high school or college and I did decent. I expect the same for them. It’s about learning to balance everything there is to do – work, sleep, training, social life - within the available 24 hours.
It starts with a sincere desire to train, compete and improve. Then it takes the will to get it done no matter the circumstances. That’s why I like people to struggle a bit after college. To understand firsthand that it is not easy to try to work 40 hours a week and fit in 2 hard workouts, double days, long runs, weights or drills, fit in a weekly massage if you can afford it, cook a decent meal when you are beat to hell and everything else there is to be done if you want to be good and still find a way to pay the bills. If they can figure that out and maintain their drive and focus, then if they have an opportunity to join a full time training group or if they get a contract that eases the number of hours they need to work, they will make the most of that opportunity because they understand how fortunate they really are and they won’t take it for granted.
What resources (research journals, books, magazines, etc.) do you commonly refer to throughout a season in your coaching?
The books that I reference consistently are Dr. Vigil’s book “Road to the Top” and Jeff Johnson’s manual “Nike Farm Team Training Plans 1999-2000”. Jeff’s book is nothing but the training logs for Jason Lunn, Matt Giusto and Kim Fitchen that year. Great stuff to just look over for ideas and training patterns. I have the Freeman/Simmons book in the pile as well as the Martin/Coe encyclopedia, Dr. Daniels' Formula, plus the book put out by Marty Liquori and John L. Parker in the 70’s “Playboy’s Guide to Running” I think is what it’s called, Harry Wilson’s stuff, plus things like Track Coach. I also check Canova’s IAAF Marathon Book annually to refresh, plus look at Dellinger’s Guide to Competitive Running occasionally. There’s also the collection of Runner's World from the ‘70’s, Track and Field News from the ‘60’s and things like Nor Cal Running Reviews that occasionally have gems like samples of James Robinson’s training in the garage, but Dr. Vigil and Jeff’s are the one’s I check the most.
How has your knowledge of training concepts and methodologies evolved?
I place a much greater emphasis on short intervals than I used to. Not speed work per se, rather short, controlled intervals. I understand their purpose now much more so than I did even as early as a few seasons ago on every athlete I have given them to consistently in recent seasons has run very well and stayed healthy, which has greatly increased my confidence in their effectiveness, so that would be the biggest aspect. Weekly short intervals if they are focusing on track or XC, I have them do these once every other week if they are a marathoner.
Also, the importance of consistent long, moderate tempo runs in addition to the shorter, faster versions. An example is the last 6-8 miles of a 10-12 miler done at a strong, but moderate pace really builds incredible aerobic strength over time. I’ve incorporated the longer, moderate tempo element of training within the context of our weekly mid week long run, which is essentially the last 40-50 minutes of a 75-90 min run being done at a steady effort. For a 4 minute miler/14 flat 5k kind of guy this would mean a weekly 70-90 min run with the last 40-50 min at 5:30-45 pace. Not heroic, but definitely solid.
Finally, I try to be conservative on the workout pace and offer more recovery than they may think they need. Early on, I was in the “if a workout is faster and has less recovery, it’s better” club. Not so any longer. I get a pretty good idea of how fit and athlete is or how well the program is working by race results. Racing is where you test your limits, not in a workout. I get so many emails from say a 14:45 5k kid looking to do 12 x 400 at 68-70 pace and they want to take a 30-40 second recovery or the same kid is looking to do 4 x 1600 at 5 min pace with a 2 min recovery. They kill themselves over the course of trying to do these workouts and they end up so beat they actually wish they were done with the season instead of facing another sub par race due entirely to being thrashed from overreaching in their workouts. I’ve actually gone to slightly longer rest intervals and have been basing their VO2 stuff on their 5k fitness vs 3k just to make sure we are conservative on the workout paces. A variation on this theme is that I now have them do in/out miles versus 1600’s with a 400 jog. So instead of 4 x 1600 at 5 min pace w/ a 400 jog which can get out of hand, we’ll do a 7 mile run at 5:00/6:00/5:00/6:00/5:00/6:00/5:00. That way the 5’s stay at 5’s, they get some volume in there, they get enough recovery, but the recovery is fast enough that it forces the fast ones to be held at the requested pace. You have to be aerobically sound to do it in this manner. I get what I’m after and the athletes benefit.
What key concepts do you believe are necessary for marathon success?
Volume’s pretty important, so is tempo work, VO2max work, recovery, long runs, consistency, the same stuff that’s important to the success of all competitive distance runners applies here as well, there’s just a greater emphasis on the tempo aspect or what we call LATR (long ass tempo run). If I have one thing I prescribe to not matter what distance the athlete is focusing on, but in particular for a marathoner, is to make your hard days hard and your easy days easy. I just stumbled upon it when I was training in the 80’s and 90’s and had success with it. My athletes have benefited using this through the years as well. In the case of an athlete looking at 100 MPW, I’ll have them do weeks made up of either 20 mile days or 10 mile days versus 15 miles daily. Then within the 20 mile day, it will have a higher degree of intensity, so if it’s mile reps for the day as the workout, there will be a longer warmup, a longer cooldown, plus the second run for the day will be longer. If the athlete is only doing say 2 double days per week, these will happen on their hard workout days. We offset the great volume/greater intensity days by making the easy days easier, so recovery takes place.
An example are the women I worked with in the fall of ‘06 in prep for CIM. None were national class, it was just my wife and her 2 buddies. All work full time, all have kids. So I had them run 5-6 days a week, but on their hard days, they ran quite a bit, on their off days not so much. Here’s an example of one of the weeks:
10/30-11/5/06
Mon: DNR
Tues: 40-60 min easy
Wed: AM. 4 miles easy, 3 at MP%, 1 mile easy, 3 at tempo, 1-2 easy. PM: 30-40 min easy.
Thurs: 60-70 min moderate in hills
Fri: DNR
Sat: AM: 4 x 1600 at 10k w/ 400 jog. 20-25 min up, 15-20 min down. PM: 30-40 min easy.
Sun: 14-16
They all ran pretty solid. PR’s across the board. 2:54, 3:04, 3:12 I think were their times. My wife was passing people the entire last 10k and said she felt great. You can see their hard days are about on par with what a Trials type athlete would do. Maybe not the pace per se, but the actual workouts are in the ballpark. The other days we had to adjust for work, family and the reality that the workouts themselves were pretty hard on them. So while the weekly mileage wasn’t heroic, some of the days were and allowed them to get fit for a 26 mile race.
On the Asics Aggies Running Club website, you have outlined previous training plans for your athletes. What will training look like for your post-collegiate middle distance athletes (800-5k) in the spring leading up to the Olympic Trials.
It won’t be much different than what you’d see there. Of course there will be subtle differences based on the development of the athlete, what needs attention, the strengths of the athlete and event focus, but 90% is the same you’d see there.
It won’t be much different than what you’d see there. Of course there will be subtle differences based on the development of the athlete, what needs attention, the strengths of the athlete and event focus, but 90% is the same you’d see there.
Your chapter in Run Strong, Devising an Efficient Training Plan, talked about incorporating six elements into a training program. How do you initially assess an athlete’s fitness and how do you determine the route you will take to enhance an athlete’s strengths and minimize their weaknesses?
(Photo courtesy of the Running Warehouse website)
It’s pretty easy to determine an athlete’s fitness really, just have them run a few races and see how they do That’ll tell you just about everything you need to know. But to get an idea of what they’ve done to get to that point I’ll look over the logs of the runners that have them to get a rough idea of their background. Most tell the same basic story, they are usually missing some aspect of training that isn’t seen as important from the athlete’s perspective, either that or they really overdo a particular aspect of training. It could be missing double days or a long run or tempo work or short intervals or consistency, maybe they are missing recovery or they lack some self control and hammer workouts much too hard, whatever it may be, the point is there’s something missing or overdone and the thing is, one part of fitness is built upon another so if you’re missing a single element or overdoing one it’s going to impact the rest of the system. I start with putting them on our basic training schedule which tends to work pretty well for competitive distance runners regardless of event focus. We cover all the essential elements consistently, teach them to run a certain training pace on particular runs or workouts so they learn what each feels like since most don’t have a clue about equating effort and pace and usually doing this over time results in improvements for the athlete. I’m sure this is what most top programs do, the same basic elements of training over and over.
Odds are if you cover the essential training elements consistently over time and you stay healthy, you’ll improve. We come up with a schedule that if the athlete is consistent following within the context of working a 40 hour work week, they will run fast. Really, it’s that simple. I expect them to have to work full time and train at a high level. To do that they have to learn to be consistent, to live like a clock and that’s really the turning point. Once they realize that this is something they sincerely want to do, and that it’s really their choice whether or not they are willing to do the work needed to race as fast as their talent will allow, then they are on their way.
After I have a few seasons where I can keep tabs on what works and what doesn’t for that athlete, then we adjust as needed, but to start we generally go with a sound program that has a history of working for most everyone.
You currently own a running specialty store, Running Warehouse, in San Luis Obispo, CA. What does a typical day of work consist of?
Depends on the day, there’s the day to day operation stuff, the daily business items needed to fill orders, manage the warehouse and effectively deal with customers. Then there’s the stuff that helps the business grow and prosper, so the things we need to change or add to the business and/or website to make it work more effective and efficient. Vendor relations and advertising fall under this area which is another area I tend to handle.
Operationally, we are a specialty shop that happens to have a thriving online presence (RunningWarehouse.com). So as needed I’ll deal with customers in retail, on the phone and over the internet. We have a sales staff, so I don’t do it that often, but I do sales if I’m working the weekend or if we are short handed. Many of the basic merchandising functions of retail, we have to do on the website. New products have to be placed in the right location on the website so it shows where people are looking for it, these new products need to have images taken and descriptions written. We have people who do this as well, but I check it over to make sure it’s right. Most brands have pricing policies, so I need to make sure that the items on the site are displayed properly in terms of price. New stuff that’s returned by customers to us has to be made so the customer can see it again on the website and order it, items that are sold out have to have their images and descriptions removed. When new products arrive, the older models they replace need to be put on the sale page and marked down.
I occasionally create online orders, I’ll process credit card payments, make pick lists for the staff so they can get the products picked from the racks in the warehouse, I run invoices so we can match the product with the order and get it shipped properly to the customer. I make sure we match at the end of the day. I’ll look over our orders on hold to make sure there are no issues, same with backordered product. Our staff is excellent so there rarely are any problems, but it still helps to have a couple eyes looking over things.
As far as the other stuff, today I met with our graphics department and went over updates to our banner, our shoe pages, our apparel and accessory pages. How do we make the pages easier to navigate, how do we display the needed information in maybe a different manner to aid customers when they place their orders. Tomorrow I’ll sit with our apparel and footwear buyers as we look over products from a few brands to see what we want to get 6 months down the road. Where do we advertise, what direction are we headed in the near and not so near future. I’m currently working on email sales flyers that are sent periodically to people on our mailing list. I work with other websites on affiliate ads. I tend to be the main person who meets with the key people at the various brands we represent so they have a familiar face and someone specific to work with. I just set up a meeting for the end of the month in Portland to talk about marketing opportunities. I meet with the guys in our video department to script and produce our informational videos. I oversee the message board, I acquire the articles for the learning center. Let’s see, I also have to meet with the fire department in the AM for their semi annual inspection of the facility. Lots of other stuff as well. Not real easy to say what I do actually, but it does fill the day.
What advice would you give to recent college graduates looking to stay competitive in running?
First off, just about every one of my buddies who ran well after college, ran their best times about 10 years or so after they started the sport. Most started running at 15-16 in high school, these same guys ran their PR’s when they were 26 or so. In some cases, it took a bit longer, few ran faster earlier – the point is if you stop in college and you seriously have a desire to see how good you can be, your best years are ahead of you so don’t quit. I think a good thing to think about in terms of keeping things in the proper perspective is to look at a post collegiate career in a similar timeline to a high school or college career. They give you 4 years in high school to figure that out. They give you 4-5 years of college to figure that out. It’ll take about the same amount of time to figure out post collegiate running as well. The first 1-2 years out, you’ll make goofy freshman mistakes, but you’ll learn. By the time you’re a junior or senior in post collegiate running you should be well on your way to running your fastest times ever. Just stay patient and keep progressing in all that you do. If you improve, no matter what it is running, relationships, business, you’ll stay interested in it. If you fail to improve, if you take steps backwards, you loose the fire and your sights turn elsewhere, so do the little and no so little things to ensure you keep improving. What’s that they say you eat the elephant 1 bite at a time.
I think if you can set a personal goal to improve a second a lap at each race distance each year, that’s solid improvement and also reasonable improvement. So for the 1500 that’s 3-4 seconds per year. For the 5k, 12 or so second each year. For the 10k, 25 seconds. For the marathon 2 minutes. Think about it, if you ran 14:30 in college, that would be sub 13:50 in 4 years. Most people would be happy with that I would think. A gal who works here ran 17 flat or so 3 years ago, 16:34 2 years ago, ran 16:18 last year. Low 16 or better this year would be the idea. She was 10:12 in the steeple a few seasons back, ran 9:57 last year. For the 1500 she was 4:34 a few seasons back, 4:20 last season. You think she’s fired up and focused on Eugene? For sure. She’s improving. That’s the most important aspect to sticking with it, just keep getting better.
Thanks to Joe for a great interview.
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