Jack Daniels at Sports Basement for Focus N Fly 2.0 Launch

This past Thursday, Jack Daniels was the guest speaker at the Sports Basement, Crissy Field for the Focus N Fly 2.0 Launch event. It was a great turnout of runners and coaches who were entertained by the Daniels' talk. Interestingly enough, he is a local guy who went to Sequoia HS in Redwood City. He is a two time medalist in the Modern Pentathlon (silver and bronze) in the now discontinued team event. Here are some bullet points from his presentation.

1) No one has all the answers
2) Athletes are people
3) Coach's job is to provide an environment for athlete's to succeed
4) Achieve basic fitness first
5) Avoid injury
6) Focus on the task at hand

Ingredients of Success
1) Inherent ability (people are not the same)
2) Motivation - must come from within
3) Opportunity
4) Direction

Great Ability + High Motivation = Champion
Great Ability + Low Motivation = Coach Frustrator
Little Ability + High Motivation = Self Frustrator
Little Ability + Low Motivation = No Show

How do we train?
The surviving egg theory?
What did my coach do to me?
What do champions do?

We need some guiding principles

He then showed a weekly schedule for Jim Ryan in HS. I am sure some of you have seen what he did (HOLY!) but I could not write it down fast enough. I will post it when I find it or if someone has a copy, please send.

He also added what Gerry Lindren used to do (HOLY ####!!). It included a LOT of mileage. He mentioned asking Gerry what was his longest run that he ever did. 66 miles! What was the most miles he did in one week? 360 miles (50 miles A DAY!). Despite all those miles, Gerry suffered one injury in his running career and that was when he was hit by a car while running. That makes perfect sense to me since he was on the road so much, you figure that his chances of getting hit were a little greater than the average runner.

A quote from him "Get the maximum benefits from the least amount of work".

Principles of Training
1) Body reacts to stress
2) Specificity
3) Benefits depend on the type of stress
4) Ease of maintenance
5) Rate of achievement
6) Personal limits
7) Benefits and setbacks

Purpose of Training
1) Increase available energy
2) Improve speed
3) Improve economy
4) Improve endurance

Types of Training
E/L Upto 150 minutes (Easy/Long)
M Upto 100 minutes (Marathon Pace)
Tempo 10%/>20 minutes (88% of VO2 Max)
Interval Upto 8%/30 minutes
Repetition Upto 5%/5 minutes

Some Laws of Coaching
1) Treat each athlete as an individual
2) Always have positive comments to make
3) Everyone has good and bad days. There are no fluke good runs
4) Discourage training when injured or sick
5) Be flexible in terms of scheduling
6) Have short and long term goals
7) Try different warmups and race strategies

More Laws of Coaching
1) Training should be rewarding
2) Know the purpose of every workout
3) Be available to your athletes
4) Treat your athletes as people first and then athletes

Final Ingrediants of Success
1) Opportunity
2) Direction

and Finally
LUCK
(focus on the task)

If you have any specific questions about any of the above bullet points, let me know.