A Wolverine Of A Workout

We have talked several times recently about The MichiganWorkout.  I related how it is considered one of the most difficult workouts by many in the distance running community.  And we even have friends of the group who were there at the beginning of the phenomenon.

My logs from back in the day weren't detailed enough to regale specifics of the Nittany Lion version of the workout from Coach Groves.  That is why we have more than 1 Officer of the Group!  Thankfully our Chief Laundry and Morale Officer Larry Mangan has kept his more detailed logs and has specifics on two of these workouts from back in the day.

"I had to dig deep into the archives and find a calendar from the fall of 1980 to find evidence of this "Michigan" workout (I need to clean off my keyboard after typing that school up north and out west).

I found two in 1980:

October 6, 1980 - 3 mile warm up, mile 4:40, 2.5 mile at 5:30 pace, 1320 yards "hard" (no time), 2.5 mile at 5:30 pace, mile 4:48, 3 mile warm down.

October 27, 1980 - 2 mile warm up, mile 4:32, 3 miles at sub 6:00, 1320 3:25, 3 miles back to track (no time), mile 4:25, 3 mile warm down.

As to the 4:14 mile Gary Black remembers, we did have a November 3, 1980 4xmile workout on the Blue Course that went 4:36, 4:25, 4:45 and 4:17 (alternating uphill/downhill miles). I remember that workout because at the end it was cold and dark, Harry handed out those reflective vests and we had to drag ourselves back to Rec Hall - I hurled at least twice on the way back. Three weeks later we finished 3rd at the NC2A meet."

And out of the blue, Manager John Barber sent me this smuggled video of that second workout on the golf course out of the PSU archives without Coach Groves knowing about it.  It turns out that wolverines and badgers are really the same thing.