Running with the Legends and the Limiting Factor

I have always been very interested in what great athletes from all sports have done in the past. I think a lot can be learned from these athletes. I have been reading "Running with the Legends," by Michael Sandrock and man it's a good one (thanks for the recommendation Janda). It basically tells the condensed life story of 21 of the greatest runners of all time. It is all very interesting, but what I like reading about most is the different training methods these phenoms used. So far, the two who have stuck out the most are Emil Zatopek and Lasse Viren. I have known of these two for a while now, but this book gives some great insight into what kind of people these 2 were and how they trained. I wonder where we'd be today if it weren't for Zatopek. The guy basically started 2 key training principles that are vital to endurance athletes, interval training and tapering. One session that he did often was 20x200, 40x400, and then another 20x200...all with 200 meter jog recoveries. That's kind of taking it to the exreme, but it worked for him and allowed him to be the only athlete ever to win the 5k, 10k, and marathon at the same Olympics (1952). Viren was pretty impressive himself, winning the 5k/10k double in back to back Olympics. He had a special ability to peak for the Olympics. He would often times get beat in races all over the world, but come that Olympic year he was in top form. It talked in the book about Viren doing upwards of 200 miles a week for weeks on end during his base phase. That's incredible. I don't want to give too much about the book away, but this is a must read for any runner/multi-sport athlete.

Changing direction a bit, in running and multi-sport there is so much knowledge out there today about training and racing. Often times I think this can be very overwhelming. I think one of the best things an athlete can do is create or have someone help you create a sound training program and then just STICK with it. I know a lot of people who will change a program a few times a year because they read something somewhere and doubt what they are doing so they change things up. Now, I'm all for spicing things up a bit in training to keep things interesting, but there are key training principles that need to stay constant in one's program. Here is an article written by Janda Ricci-Munn that covers some of these very important concepts. I think this is an excellent article...especially as people are starting to plan for 2010. Enjoy: http://landiceblog.com/?p=105#more-105.