I met Seb Coe today ... and I was wrong

Years back I met Peter Coe and had a lengthy discussion about Seb's training. According to Peter, he only kept track of the quality stuff (i.e., anaerobic & LT work) that Seb was doing, but not the aerobic stuff. It was very clear that Seb was putting in 70+ miles per week of total running since a young age.

Long since countered by DOZENS of quotes and accounts from the very same people admitting that warmups, cooldowns and other easy mileage were not counted. This, in turn was either not believed by those inclined not to believe it or taken as gospel by those inclined otherwise.

The words of the very same people.

When you take into account the fact that certain types mileage was (ostensibly) never counted, it's not very contradictory at all.

Fortunately, I am not such a proponent. I simply have no use for the "he's lying" school of debate. I doubt that Seb Coe gives a damn about the subject enough to lie to anyone.

Having recently watched the DVD "Born To Run" I believe that Coe did high mileage (but ofcourse his mileage would have decreased in summer which is why he says that he did both low-mileage and high-milage {obvious}).

In an interview on that he says "the day after the final, it was worse than any hangover, so the only thing i could think of was to go for a run..... the press followed me for the whole 10 or 12miles that i was on the road".

An athlete running 40mpw in base training would not go for a 10-12mile run the day after (or the day or 2 before) and olympic race... he would only do that if he was used to doing 10-12mile runs all the time (ie. every morning?)

The big question that I think people should ask if they want to untap a secret about Coes career is:

How much did Sebastian Coe run on the road?

His dad talks about nurturing and taking care of an athlete from a young age to develop them.

"At 14 i knew he was good and at 16 i was certain that if i was patient and played it right, that he'd be a world beater" - Peter Coe

In 'Born To Run'... there is only 2 surfaces that coe is shown running on: Track and Road. He does reps on road, long runs on road, recovery runs on road, hills on road..... HOW DID THIS KID NOT GET INJURED?

Average_Joe wrote:

How do we come up with a conclusive opinion based on such contradictary evidence?.

When you take into account the fact that certain types mileage was (OSTENSIBLY) never counted, it's not very contradictory at all.

"ostensibly"......so we are still at maybe.....apparently.....on the face of things, he did not seeminly count warm-up mileage. But what if we dig deeper? I guarantee you we will get nowhere.

Average_Joe wrote:

I simply have no use for the "he's lying" school of debate...

Who said Seb is "lying?" Maybe he is now just DOUBLING the warm-up mileage he apparently did not count all those year before! Maybe that is the way he decides to now count mileage!

Interesting that you suddenly have such faith in the words of Seb about his training. But when previously many quotes directly from Seb (recorded by sources just as reliable as Martin) had Seb stating that he did indeed train on "low mileage", you didn't mind when people questioned the realibility of THOSE comments, did you?

I personally don't know if I can trust him at all on his training. There is too much contradictory info out there.

Earl wrote:

I have always thought that the low mileage BS was meant to psych out his competitors.

It was probably also to try and keep others from breaking his records...

this just proves TRACKHEAD is never wrong. never.

he and vipam

i have also heard from coe that he has done more than 100 miles a week in the off season. he did not include warm-ups, cooldowns or morning runs in his total. if he does a 5-6k warmup with easy jogging and strides followed by a 5k cooldown, thats close to 10k of running. with his multipace training, he was doing 3-4 workouts a week, so you are looking at an extra 30-40k during the week, not reported. then add in the three-four 6k-8k morning runs during the week and now youre looking at higher mileage.

I am based around Haringey in London were Coe prepared for 84 Olympics. Many athletes are still around from this era (coaches or administrators now) and remember what he was doing.

One session was 4 x 800m in 1.50 of around 3-4' recovery. This sort of work is documented in Peter Coe's books. However, straight after this session Coe would put on his trainers and run for 45-60' - this is not in the book!

He did run a lot more mileage than is documented in Peter Coe's work but he did do the intensive stuff as well that is not exaggerated either!

was it really miles, or kilometers, the british always measure things funny. not like I\'m trying to bring more ambiguity into the discussion.

[quote]UK boy wrote:

people this is BS. there has not been a lunch with Coe this week.

Oi Oi!

Who the forks using my name!!!

Capital B next time my old china.

Regards

I think when people read accounts that Coe never did more than 70 miles a week, that doesn’t include warmups warmdowns and just general fitness running (i.e. easy recovery style running). When he says he does 30 miles a week now, that will all be fitness running at an easy pace. So when asked that given this, what did he used to do, he’s obviously going to give the total amount (i.e. including fittness running too) to give an appropriate comparison.

why we he need to?. The guy was "beast" if he ran 30 miles or 300. His times and record over the years speak much more than mileage.

horse with no name. wrote:

was it really miles, or kilometers, the british always measure things funny. not like I'm trying to bring more ambiguity into the discussion.

I think you're confusing us with our Continental cousins. The vast majority of us, of whatever age, think and record distances in miles. We are able to work in kilometres too as we are very clever.

Actually, I seem to think in miles and metres, which is a bit strange.

I think in miles and metres too. It's quite bizarre. I hope the government will change the road signs in the UK to kilometres soon. :)

With weights I don't really understand the imperial system except when talking about peoples' weights. I can visualize 10 stone straight away but have to think about what 70 kilograms means.

probably closer to 100 kilometers a week. and to the poster that mentioned Seb bragging about being a "beast", he was!

maybe wrote:

and to the poster that mentioned Seb bragging about being a "beast", he was!

Are you the one he left his wife for?

Why probably closer to 100Km per week? On what basis. I don't know a british athlete that measures there training distance in KM rather than miles, and Coe said 100 mile per week acording to malcom.

Sorry ... that's Martin, not Malcom, X. (Although I'm happy to be assoicated with legends whenever possible.)

Martin

Martin,

how'd you manage to end up having lunch with Coe, anyway? Front page says it was some sort of function to do with the 2012 Olympics. What's your involvement?