Running wild. (Here Below).WE HAVE ALWAYS wondered how a track colossus Colossus - (A huge and ancient statue on the Greek island of Rhodes). 1. To add insult to mediocrity, America has not won a 1,500m gold medal since 1906, neither a 5,000m nor 10,000m gold since 1964, not a steeplechase steeplechase Either of two distinct sporting events: (1) a horse race over a closed course with obstacles, including hedges and walls; or (2) a footrace of 3,000 m over hurdles and a water jump. gold since 1952, and not a marathon gold since 1972. Hardly the kind of stuff out of which legends are made. You have to ask yourself: Whatever happened to our runners while the rest of the world was establishing all those dynasties in long-distance running long-distance running In track and field, any foot race over 5,000 m in length. Marathons and cross-country running are also considered long-distance events. Women rarely ran in races beyond 3,000 m until the late 20th century. . Scandinavian Dynasty: Nurmi, Ritola, Anderson, Erikkson, Viren, etc. Great Britain Great Britain, officially United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, constitutional monarchy (2005 est. pop. 60,441,000), 94,226 sq mi (244,044 sq km), on the British Isles, off W Europe. The country is often referred to simply as Britain. Dynasty: Coe, Cram, Ovett, Delaney, Coughlin, etc. Oceania Dynasty: Lovelock love·lock n. A lock of hair hanging separately from the rest of the hair, as one tied with ribbon and worn by courtiers during the 17th and 18th centuries. , Elliott, Snell, Halberg, Walker, etc. European and Russian Dynasty: Barthel, Reiff, Zatopek, Kuts, Cierpinski, etc. African Dynasty (now in full flower): Keino, Rono, Aouita, Yitter, Boutaib, Bikila, Guerrouj, Gebrselassie, and an army of Kenyans too numerous to mention. Our education really began in 1948 when a Czech army officer named Emil Zatopek won the Olympic 10,000-meter gold medal in record time and was hailed as a potential world-breaker in everything from the 5000m run to the marathon. What exactly was he doing to achieve such astonishing a·ston·ish tr.v. as·ton·ished, as·ton·ish·ing, as·ton·ish·es To fill with sudden wonder or amazement. See Synonyms at surprise. success? We wrote to our contact in England, who wrote to the Russian Olympic coach, who wrote to the commissar com·mis·sar n. 1. a. An official of the Communist Party in charge of political indoctrination and the enforcement of party loyalty. b. The head of a commissariat in the Soviet Union until 1946. 2. of track in Czechoslovakia, who got in touch. with Zatopek's coach, who informed us that he'd be honored to write an article for Scholastic Coach! The article appeared in our March 1951 issue, and it was fabulous. K. Kerssenbrock informed us that Zatopek worked out 365 days a year in any kind of weather on whatever surface was available. His actual training focused on a combination of repeated short runs at alternating paces. In a typical practice session, he would run five 200m bursts at about 34 seconds each and then 20 or more 400m stints at 75-90-second pace. All these intervals were interspersed with recovery jogs of about 200m. When working on speed, he inserted more 200m runs. When working on pace, he'd run more 400m intervals, sometimes as many as 60. He'd run at least 100 miles a week and often get up to about 125 to 130 miles. We discovered that most of our advanced coaches knew about "interval training Interval training is broadly defined as repetitions of high-speed/intensity work followed by periods of rest or low activity. This training technique is often practiced by long distance runners (800 meters and above) although some sprinters are known to train using this " and were using it with their athletes, but very few of them were aware of Zatopek's work ethic work ethic n. A set of values based on the moral virtues of hard work and diligence. work ethic Noun a belief in the moral value of work . It wasn't until Zatopek pulled his astonishing triple in the 5,000m, 10,000m, and marathon in 1952 that our coaches learned what interval training is all about. The runners didn't train just for endurance. They trained by practicing running fast. And how did this tie in with the American way The American way of life is an expression that refers to the "life style" of people living in the United States of America. It is an example of a behavioral modality, developed from the 17th century until today. ? We learned that our top distance coaches like Bill Bowerman and Jumbo Elliott were very much into interval training, though it still wasn't a big thing with our high school coaches. After Jim Ryun and Marty Liquori ran their miracle miles in high school, the miracle miles suddenly stopped happening: The sub-four-minute high school mile disappeared for 36 years. The reason? No one had an answer. We believed that our kids and probably a lot of coaches lost interest in long-distance running. Nobody was putting in the time anymore. We'd ask the coaches, "How many practice miles are your kids doing?" They'd tell us, "About 30," then add defensively: "You don't need to run more than that to get the good times." We found this unbelievable, but of course we weren't coaching high school kids. That was only a couple of years ago. Who would have dreamed that a couple of American kids named Alan Webb and Dathan Ritzenhein would run the fastest high school mile and fastest high school 3,200m in history. And so we can ask, "What in the world is happening?" And the only answer can be that our kids are back logging 50 or more miles a week and focusing on interval training. That's fabulous. But then you look at the awesome long-distance runners from Kenya, Morocco, Ethiopia and Algeria -- wherever there are mountains -- and realize that their success involves more than training: it also involves genetics and geography. |
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