RW's Amby Burfoot has a thought provoking idea for Ritz: limit your run training to 40 miles per week. Maybe this will allow him to break mzungo Dieter Baumann's 12:54? Until then, mzungo.org is not that impressed.Dear Dathan: Congratulations on your impressive 12:56.27, the new American record for 5000 meters. You remind us once again that, since the fall of 1999, you've been the one. I hope you'll have many more record-breaking races. But first, a few words of caution: Now it gets tougher.
Dear Alberto: Congratulations on whatever you did to help Dathan set this new record. Especially giving him that long, hard drive to the finish. I can't figure how you taught Galen and Amy and Dathan to produce such great kicks, but please share it. There are lots of us out here who could use help in the fast-finish department. I hope you'll guide Dathan to many more great races.
But first a few words of caution: Now it gets tougher.
I'm referring to several things. First, the obvious one: It's not easy to improve on personal bests and American records. The higher you climb, the more difficult it is to reach the next rung. Dathan isn't in a class by himself; he's not a Kenny B; he can't afford mistakes or to take a willy-nilly approach to cross-country, track and the roads. To achieve his potential in the coming years, Dathan will need a smart, tightly focused plan.
A big part of this plan will have to be injury-prevention. I hate to label Dathan, the once indestructible Michigan high schooler, as an injury-prone runner. Let's just say that in recent years he hasn't always produced his best performances at the most important times. And if there's one thing we know about injuries, it's that past injuries are predictive of future injuries.
Happily, Dathan gets racing fit very quickly. He's almost East African in that regard. That's a rare talent among Americans, and one that has to be nurtured.
So here's my proposal: Be courageous, and make Dathan a guinea pig in the Great Training Experiment. Put him on a 40-mile-a-week training program.
Sure, I know most of the great ones run 100+ miles a week. But there's little to no evidence saying 100 is better than 40. It's just what the elites do because they're obsessive types (often a good thing, by the way, but not always), as are their coaches. Few elites have the nerve to break from the customary practice, especially not when they hear or read about their rivals' impressive training.
But let's remember that a handful of great runners have followed a different path. What did Roger Bannister run, 12 to 15 miles a week much of the time? And Henry Marsh was always said to be a low-mileage trainer, which didn't stop him from making four U.S. Olympic teams and holding the American record in the steeplechase for 27 years. Not too shabby. Like many others, I'm a big fan of Coach Jack Daniels, Ph.D., who's basic philosophy is: Get the best results you can get with the least training.
This doesn't mean that more isn't better. Often it is, and Brian Sell is probably a good example of that. But more isn't always better. There are individuals, perhaps more than we realize, who would be better served by less training than by more. And Dathan Ritzenhein is beginning to look like one of these.
Let's consider what you could do in a 40-mile training week. How about a 16 over the weekend, with the last 6 miles at 5:00 to 5:20 pace? And a nice interval workout a few days later, say 4 x 800 in 2:00, followed by 4 x 200 in 28. Nothing outrageous (for Dathan), just solid work. And then a couple of days later, a smooth, progressive 8-mile tempo run that might include 2 miles at 5:40, 2 at 5:20, 2 at 5:00, and 2 at 4:40. That gives us a total of 16 miles for the long run, 10 for the interval day (with lots of warm up and cool down), and 12 for the tempo run (with warm up and cool down). My math says this adds up to 38 miles. It also says this runner could run fast from 5000 meters on up.
Of course, Dathan should do a lot of other stuff. All that Nike can afford, in fact. He should sleep 10 hours a day in a altitude chamber, do tons of cross-training on non-impact machines, work out occasionally on low-gravity and under-water treadmills, and find the best physical therapist-trainer out there to be his personal strength/flexibility coach.
The only thing he shouldn't do is run more than 40 miles a week, or whatever low ceiling he and Alberto agree on.
Because the goal isn't to train harder than anyone else or to log more miles. The goal is to find the training program that works best for you, and then to race as fast as possible.
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