The program seems to work well for Merritt, Rocket, there is more than one way to skin a cat, they don’t do 1 hour runs all year, As Dwayne Miller explained, that is in their prep period, as the phases go on the rep distances get shorter and faster, they do hills and look at the Champ Phase, it’s all speed and are ready for it at that point. Miller found less injuries that way, no one is saying it’s the best program, but much of it is taken from Hart and I believe Bud Winter as well.
what are drill outs ???
Merritt has had minimal overall improvement since leaving ECU (ie what he would have run if he stuck out even 1 full season indoors and out @ ECU). If he would have stayed there, he would be going much faster than he is now. He had so much improvement running there off of just a fall and partial winter and then spent a bunch of time muddling around and didn’t have any improvement this past year.
2009: World Champs gold medalist (44.06WL), 1st at USA Outdoors (44.50)…1st at Baie Mahault (44.50)…1st at Reebok Grand Prix (44.75)…1st in 300m at Nike Prefontaine Classic (31.30)
2008: Olympic Games gold medalist (43.75, WL & PR)…Olympic Trials champion (44.001st at World Athletics Final (44.50)…1st at Nike Prefontaine Classic (44.65)…1st at Berlin (44.03)…1st at Baie Mahault (44.34)…1st in 200m at Doha (20.08)…1st in Greensboro (19.80w)…ranked #1 in world by T&FN…bests of 43.75 & 20.08.
2007: World Outdoor 4x400m gold medalist (2:55.56)…World Outdoor 400m silver medalist (43.96PR)…USA Outdoor runner-up (44.06)…Tyson Invitational Indoor champion (45.51)…2nd at Reebok Grand Prix (45.09)…2nd at Nike Prefontaine Classic (45.17)…1st at Kingston (44.95)…1st at Paris (44.62)…1st at Rome (44.44)…1st at Monaco (44.38)…1st in 200m at Thessaloniki (20.02)…2nd at London (44.23)…ranked #2 in world, #2 U.S. by T&FN…bests of 43.96 and 19.98.
2006: USA Outdoor runner-up (44.50)…1st at World Cup (44.54)…3rd at World Athletics Final (44.14PR)…runner-up at USA Indoor Champs (46.17)…1st at Nike Prefontaine Classic (44.88)…4th at Rome (44.77)…5th at Lausanne (20.10)…2nd at Stockholm (20.25)…ranked #3 in world (#2 U.S.) by T&FN…best of 44.14.
2005: 4th at USA Outdoor Champs (44.73)…2nd in 400m at Nike Prefontaine Classic (45.57)…1st at Powered by Tyson Invitational (44.93i), the 3rd fastest indoor time in history…1st at Kingston, Jamaica (44.66PR)…ranked #10 in the world (#5 U.S. by T&FN)…best of 44.93i.
2004: 2004 World Junior 400m ( 45.25), 4x100m (38.66WJR) & (3:01.09WJR) gold medalist…USA Junior champion (200m-20.72), (400m-46.80)…ranked #9 in U.S. by T&FN…best of 45.25.
2003: Virginia State HS 100m (10.47), 200m (21.13) & 400m (47.69) champion…best of 47.69.
He ran 44.93i very early in '05 and then left his coach @ ECU. He struggled to replicate indoor times (notice his outdoor best is actually relatively slower and run just shortly after leaving his coach, running much slower overall throughout the rest of the season). From people I know that were running at ECU at the time, who have gone to the most recent Olympics and World Championships (ie people who saw the full training and knew what he could do in the right situation), said he was likely able to dip below 44 THAT season outdoors if he just stuck it through. The 44.93i was quite submax and very early. The ECU guys did little work under Coach Carson for indoors and basically no unloading for those early meets.
So as you can see from the results posted - He ran 10.47 in HS and was a world junior champion. So for a guy like that who already has the speed it does not matter if he does 1 hr runs or 1 min runs. The point is what are the pre-req’s to run a 400 in 44 seconds. One of the main requirement is the athlete has to run the 200 in between 20 - 20.3 seconds. And to run the 200 in 20.3 you would need to run the 100 in 10.2. So if you can accomplish that by doing slow long runs - though i dont think so. LaShawn or his coach does not have to worry about that. Coming out of HS he was already running 10.47. So my point again is it does not matter what LaShawn does because he has the natural speed and most of the kids don’t.
That is why Wariner is doomed as long as LaShawn stays motivated and healthy.
Here are both Jeremy’s and LaShawn’s bests over the years…
Wariner
2004 (20 yr old) - 44.00
2005 (21 yr old) - 43.93
2006 (22 yr old) - 43.62, 43.91, 43.99
2007 (23 yr old) - 43.45, 43.50
2008 (24 yr old) - 43.82, 43.98
2009 (25 yr old) - 44.60
Merritt
2006 (20yr old) - 44.14
2007 (21yr old) - 43.96
2008 (22yr old) - 43.75
2009 (23yr old) - 44.06
I didn’t include any 44+ times for these guys unless it was their SB that year. Jeremy has dropped below 44 seconds on eight different occasions compared to Merritt’s two times. Also, Wariner’s PB is .40 seconds faster than Merritt’s - not to mention that he has beaten Merritt’s PB three times.
I guess my question is: “What happened?” To me, Jeremy at his best was better than what Merritt at his best has been thus far. If Jeremy is able to attain the level he once was at, do you think Merritt could beat him (i.e., Could Merritt run faster than a 43.45?)? I guess that also makes me wonder, can Wariner match his best again?
What are your thoughts?
If you look at the splits of the world championship, wariner and merrit had the same split at 300 m. In the past coming off the 300 curve, wariner used to lead and hold on as well. Now he’s dropping a fair bit in the last 100. Where as Merrit is getting more confident, he sees wariner in front or beside him and knows he can get him. Anyway, so I think wariner has to build up his confidence running some fast times (in races where merrit is not running ) and then he will have the belief he had in the past to beat merrit. For now merrit has the edge on wariner. I think 43.5 is close to their best for both of them given their current speed. Merrit has a better chance of running faster than 43.45, purely based on his 200 m time. Wariner is pushing the limit and will be interesting to see if he can run better than 43.45, if his speed remains the same. Will have to wait and see. my $0.02
I know the guy you are talking about and he has a tendancy to see things more optimistically than they are. I doubt that he would have gone sub 44 that season.
Given that they are running the same 300m time, with Wariner dropping off, it would follow that Merritt has more speed reserve than Wariner and is therefore doing it easier at that pace. He’s definitely looked a bit skinnier lately (even more than usual) so speed and strength may be the way forward for him - as it would be for most sprinters, I’d say.
Regarding indoor times…even if it was on a regular track, There is not 1 second differential…llok at kerron Clement’s times.
The person I am talking about ran in the 45s the same year LaShawn was at ECU and this guy was far from a best friend of Coach Carson or LaShawn, so I don’t think there is much exaggeration.
And no, there isn’t a 1 second differential (actually, plenty of people do have 1+ second differentials, but we’ll forget that for now), eros, but if you actually took a second to educate yourself, you’d realize he ran it earlier than Kerron did and in a training program geared almost entirely towards outdoors and they trained right through the meet. Of course, this was all in the idea that he was going to be sticking through at least to the indoor national meet or at least with his coach instead of up and leaving mid-season. Believe what you want though.
Kerron Clement holds WR indoor…I can see that education is not your main assett…but everyone knows that.
The differential depends mainly on how much an athlete cares about indoor races…if they are not a primary objective, for sure more than 1 second…if not, you can count on less, as there are many examples ( Kerron being the brightest one, but also european runners, mainly italians).
Off course you are right:
All time indoor/outdoor:
Kerron 44.57/44.48 ( +0.09)
MJ 44.63/43.18 ( but did not run after 95…where he was just under 43.5) (+ 1.45)
Danny everett45.02/43.81 (+1.21)
Thomas Schoenlebe ( ER )45.05/44.33 (+ 0.72)
Alvin harrison 45.05/44.09 (+0.96)
Calvin harrison 45.18/44.64 ( + 0.54)
Butch Reynolds 45.26/43.29 ( RUN INDOOR IN 93…WELL after his prime) (+2.03)
X-Man 45.28/44.53 ( +0.75)
Terry Gatson: 45.29/44.93 (+0.36)
It Is hard to adfirm changiNg coach as a bad move, since he got considerably better, ranked n.1 for 2 years and won Oly gold and WC too.
Since apparently you don’t understand what the fuck I am saying, I’ll lay it out a little more simply, because he has nearly 0 to do with any indoor to outdoor conversions:
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Merritt ran 44.93 much earlier into his season, against far less competition than Clement did.
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Going into the meet, he was under a heavy training load and he competed for a coach that puts relatively little emphasis on the indoor season.
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He was far beyond what other elite level 400m runners in his training group were doing. This included 45 second 400m runners. These athletes acknowledge this as well.
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A few months later, after switching coaches, he ran his outdoor PR and season PB @ the area permit meet down in Jamaica, visibly less fit. His time was actually significantly slower than his indoor time if you consider the track differences.
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He persistently got slower over the course of the season and only beat his indoor time @ that early Jamaican invite and maybe 1 other meet the entire outdoor season. He routinely lost to athletes below his level.
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All of this has been confirmed by his coach and people training with him at the time, including people that do not particularly like the guy and have no reason to embellish. Merritt himself was routinely asked in interviews if he was going to go back to his coach because of the dramatic drop-off in form during the outdoor season.
Go back to your hole.
Fogelson:
re-read the site rules. They’ve already been posted for your edification and can enforced at any time.
I just don’t know what it is you think you know or how you think ridiculing others will make what you say any more valid, but your tone will stop now or you’ll be banned here.
I’ve been around long enough to see that the more bellicose the language gets, the less knowledge is imparted, and it is an infection that spreads.
If you want to be civil in your discussions, you are welcome here, but, if you can’t or won’t, there are plenty of other sites available for the sort of discourse you seem to prefer.
The point was about yoour quote about +1 second differential, used to argument Merrit form in college.
You can always think that old training was better, maybe it was, but the results speak for themsleves; this cannot be argued.
That was never a prime component of my argument–go back and read the posts in context.
Results do speak for themselves–0 progress this year, significant loss of form when he first left. Sure, he’s gotten better, but he has also matured. He was only 19 when he did his sub 45 indoors, so he should have some improvement just from the fact he would be able to be a full-time, very well paid athlete and maturing. Like I said, I am not saying this based on what you see in an article or a results page, but what people, who themselves were world class in the 400m, said about him based on what they saw training with him on a daily basis.
Could well be …who knows…even Kerron Clement was way better in 2005…and with Kersee, while winning, there wasn’t any improvement in any distance.
Charlie, I vote to ban him, I have held my tongue or keystrokes after reading a number of his degrading posts in the last few months, but the bottom line is he needs to go as he makes all Americans look bad with his degrading “ugly American” posts for specifically ridiculing a number of folks on this site who speak English as a second language. Most of us Americans do a poor job speaking English so I am not sure how we can criticize people in the first place who speak and write in a number of languages. Bottom line I am on this site to learn and I do not learn from Fogelson, he is a distraction and takes away from the site.
Also, if i remember right someone posted he is the same person who used to go by the Davan name on the site and you banned once already. Charlie