The Updated Training Wisdom of John Kellogg

The Updated Training Wisdom of John Kellogg A collection of John Kellogg’s writings on training for distance runners Compiled by John Davis between May 2009 and December 2015 [email protected] www.runningwritings.com “Why do I pose as ‘Oz’? Because I know which mission to assign to help runners discover their potential. But I can't give them any results through magical powers; I'm just a human like the little carnival man from Kansas. I can only guide them. ” —John Kellogg Preface The goal of this project was to compile as many of John Kellogg’s posts on LetsRun.com as possible. I profoundly admire his training advice and his knowledge, and applying his principles to my own training brought me to new heights as a runner. Why John Kellogg, and not any of the other highly-regarded figures in the running world who have posted on LetsRun.com over the years (Renato Canova, Nobby Hashizume, Jack Daniels, et al.)? Perhaps because of his mysterious, guru-like reputation, or perhaps because of the sheer difficulty of assembling the range of posts. I also felt that it had to be done, that it would be a great loss for this knowledge to fade into obscurity over the years. John Kellogg seems to revel in the anonymity of the internet, and has posted under probably dozens of different “handles” over the years. In all likelihood, the writings here represent only a fraction of his total contribution to the online running community. Though his words sometimes fell on deaf ears, the power of the internet preserved much of his writing. My collection grew as I tracked down relevant posts by John Kellogg on the LetsRun.com message boards, mostly using Google to trawl for old threads. However, it is highly likely that I have missed many threads and am oblivious to many of his pseudonyms. But thus is the nature of scholarship. His writing style is very distinctive and hard to miss, and he is still using a few of his nicknames from time to time, so I’ve omitted them here in case he wishes to preserve his anonymity. But the volume of long, detailed posts has dropped off sharply after about 2007, so the time is long overdue for a collection of John Kellogg’s posts to be put together. I have also added John Kellogg’s articles written for LetsRun.com’s main page and the contents of his long-defunct website, paragonrunning.com, which were retrieved using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. I have only included posts that contained substantive training advice; he often posted short, witty responses to discussions on everything from drug use in sport to astronomy to classical music. John Kellogg also authored a chapter in Run Strong , Kevin Beck’s 2005 book. Sometimes, the context of the post is not clear, so I have added a few words or comments in brackets [like this]. I may or may not eventually rearrange the posts in some sort of by-topic scheme. I do, in fact, have a life outside of internet-guru scholarship, so the odds of that happening are not good. They are not arranged in any coherent manner as of right now, and I have not included any other posts from the threads in which I found them, unless John Kellogg quoted them himself. If you wish, a Google search of LetsRun.com for one phrase from a post in quotes will often turn up the entire thread. For example, to find the entire thread from which the very first post in this collection comes, Google site:letsrun.com "The average high school runner adopts it unwittingly" . Finally, I am indebted to Tim Galebach, whose 2003 collection of John Kellogg’s posts from the old LetsRun.com message boards was the inspiration for putting together this project. His collection appears in Appendix C. All of the non-bracketed text is the copyright of LetsRun.com for the message board posts and “JK Speaks” articles, and copyright of John Kellogg and Kyle Heffner for the ParagonRunning.com writings. It is reproduced here under the doctrine of fair use. John Davis, April 2012 Updated March 2014 & December 2015 1 Table of Contents: John Kellogg’s LetsRun.com Message Board Posts......................................3 Appendix A: JK Speaks Articles Four Principles to Correct Training for Elites.................................220 Total Quality Management - Boosting the Economy Part 1...........222 Total Quality Management - Boosting the Economy Part 2...........224 Maximizing Oxygen Uptake...........................................................225 Progressing To Peak Fitness............................................................233 This Low-Volume Rubbish..............................................................240 How I Became a Guide....................................................................246 Appendix B: ParagonRunning.com.............................................................251 Sample Training Weeks....................................................................251 Training for Age Groups...................................................................257 Workout Purposes - Continuous Easy Runs (up to 90 min.)............260 Workout Purposes - Long Runs (over 95 min.)................................267 Workout Purposes - Lactate Threshold Workouts............................268 Workout Purposes - VO2max Workouts..........................................273 Workout Purposes - Speed Maintenance..........................................274 Workout Purposes - Lactate Tolerance Training..............................276 Sample Workouts..............................................................................281 Definitions and Terminology............................................................282 Article: Mastering Running After 40................................................292 Appendix C: The [Original] Training Wisdom of John Kellogg.................296 Appendix D: John Kellogg’s Conversion Chart...........................................320 2 This [Will Freeman’s “diamond model” at Grinnell College] approach has been around a long, long time. The average high school runner adopts it unwittingly, since the less-than-serious high schooler doesn't normally come into the season with the base associated with the "pyramid approach," but instead starts doing a few 20-30 mile weeks near the end of the summer. An extremely prominent NCAA cross-country powerhouse (as well as a number of other universities) has used this basic scheme for decades, with most runners coming in fresh at 50-60 miles per week of mostly relaxed running and ramping up to 85-90 miles per week of predominantly strong aerobic running, touching more and more on the specific areas of fitness throughout the season and not reducing the mileage very much in order to taper. Tapering instead involves hitting the same speeds as on "hard" workouts, but using fewer reps or otherwise truncating the effort. I used to call this the "tree structure" in the 1980s, since the addition of mileage and of specific workouts during a season resembled a thin "trunk" (fairly low mileage during the off-season, composed of basic easy running) which spread to various "branches" (more running with different types of workouts added) and slightly tapered again at the very top. But the term "diamond model" actually seems more fitting, since if its done correctly, the "base" of the diamond broadens faster than a tree trunk does, and the notion of a diamond allows you to talk about "facets" when you refer to types of workouts. This model seems to work pretty well within the constraints of high school and college running and during the time frame involved (4-8 years). Not surprisingly, a bigger "diamond" (more running at all stages of the process) is better than a small one. Those less-than-serious high schoolers are usually employing a small diamond, but they still manage to round into shape near the end of the fall season. They often surpass some of the more serious runners who did put in the "pyramid model" base stage and who try to taper by cutting way back on mileage near the end of the season. On first inspection, this leads to a conclusion that the diamond model is basically more effective than the pyramid model. Stepping back to view an entire running career, however, reveals that regular inclusions of very extensive low- to moderate-intensity phases, as in the pyramid model but downplayed in the diamond model, is invaluable. The petering out of the "pyramid-trained" runners at the end of a season is usually a result of losing the fitness they achieved early when they do less running throughout the season (thereby providing too small a stimulus to even maintain what they had). Over-tapering just tops off the loss of fitness. So which model should we adopt? It turns out that the best model of all for long-term development is one which I term "progressive periodization." This begins a career with a few diamond-type patterns, which makes use of the fact that initial gains in performance are heavily concentrated in increase of max VO2 and in running technique. Then the path follows an ever-widening series of traditional pyramid patterns, which include increasingly higher amounts of "base" running and which also include a few of the tapers (lower mileage and faster speed) that the diamond approach considers ineffective. These taper periods actually do turn out to be less effective for the moment, but the strict periodization allows for safer, more relaxed development of all the facets of running that are always done concurrently using a strict diamond model. Realize that "periodization" does not mean only long, slow jogging is

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