By MySportsResults Senior Correspondent Marty Ogden, Editing and Graphics by Ron Knapp
Winning a single state championship is a thrill for any coach and a testament to how they have mentored their team to put in the necessary work to achieve such a noteworthy accomplishment. But when you win eight straight class titles as Griswold coach Gerry Chester’s teams did from 2000-2007 and you help three different boys to the National Cross Country Championship, people should take note of what he is doing. Now retired from full time coaching, he has written a book “The Evolution of Threshold Workouts”.
While there are plenty of books that describe the scientific principles with big scientific words and graphs that can be quite a lot to take in, this is more of a story of how a coach learned about these new workouts and experimented on himself and then presented them to his, at first,reluctant athletes. Threshold training is a difficult concept to understand at first. “Train smart, run slow and race fast” is the mantra Coach Chester preached to his athletes and anyone that will listen, but boy does it work.
The chapters detail what training was like before Dr. Jack Daniels developed the idea of cruise intervals and why the old run hard everyday until you dropped probably wasn’t the best method to optimize performance. Then it goes onto describe how Daniels developed the system, how to implement the workouts and yes, there are some big scientific words, but they are interwoven with stories about the teams he has worked with to give it a personal and relatable touch.
Part of the evolution of threshold training is the latest incarnation used by Jakob Ingebrigtsen, holder of multiple world records and Olympic champion. He trains using a double threshold system, known as the Norwegian Method and a description of how they run their youth athletic developmental programs in the Scandinavian country.
But one of the best parts of the book are the testimonials from some highly respected and accomplished coaches and athletes and their experiences with this 30+-year old training system that is used in most of the most successful distance programs.
The book is only available by contacting Coach Chester and emailing him at coachchester@yahoo.com for a cost of only $17.
