Joe Vigil: The ‘Dean of Distance Running’

Albert Schweitzer felt a successful man lives a life that “never gets used up.”

After 50 years of medals and awards, records and titles, tributes and inductions, Joe Vigil could just play golf or tennis like the rest of us.

“I’ve studied my whole life, so why retire?” said the Dean of Distance Running, the coach’s coach, a bottomless well of knowledge who will once again lead the U.S. Olympic distance team into Beijing this summer.

Vigil, 77, who has coached every Olympic Games since 1968, looks forward to the team’s late August departure out of San Francisco just like he always does every four years.

“It’s an honor, and a chance to represent your country.”

Twelve hundred Olympic athletes will meet Aug. 26 at San Jose State’s processing site, boarding three days of 11-hour flights, getting settled into the Olympic Village in Beijing, though Vigil and the track and field team will travel out the coastal city of Dalian where there is less pollution.

“This will be unlike conditions we’ve ever had,” he said, describing, just as one example, pulmonary function tests they’ll conduct for five contaminants and how they may restrict airflow.

“Some may be bothered (by the heat, humidity, and pollution) a lot,” he said, “and some not at all.”

They’ll increase the intensity of their workouts and arrange them ideally to the exact time of the competition. All have, and will continue competing and training and keeping in touch with him right up to the time they leave for China.

“The fitter you are, the quicker you adapt to any stress,” he stated, emphasizing the importance of training over lots of races.

“It’s also going to be a culture shock,” he said, so he advises his athletes to read up and be ready, since they are all ambassadors for their own country.

“Their culture is honorable; the backbone of their culture is respect.

“Our youth are more readily accepting, I think,” he added.

Always coaching

When he isn’t traveling the world or tracking the dozens of runners currently under his watchful eye as contenders for the coveted spots for the men’s 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters, marathon, and walking events, he’s coaching in this year’s Games, Vigil is fielding calls at his Green Valley home from coaches, exercise scientists, and athletes.

Named to 11 coaching halls of fame, including the NCAA Hall of Fame, and dubbed Colorado’s track and field Coach of the Millennium, he’s most recently known for guiding marathoners Deena Kastor and Meb Keflezighi to what many thought was impossible, winning bronze and silver in Athens, ending an American drought in the event that goes back a couple of decades.

Brian Sell, Ryan Hall, and Dathan Ritzenhein are the three men in this year’s marathon. Qualifiers in the other events are yet to be named.

Although Vigil is confident it’s their strongest field since he was hired in 2001 to improve American distance running, he experienced one of the most difficult down times in his career when he lost close friend and prot/g/ Ryan Shay, who collapsed and died in the marathon at this year’s Olympic Trials.

He delivered the eulogy at the memorial service.

“He never complained. He was a marvelous athlete.”

After a 29-year career at Adams State College in his hometown of Alamosa, Colo., which includes 12 NAIA championships and 19 national collegiate titles, 15 in cross-country, 425 All-Americans, 87 individual national champions, and coach of the year 14 times, and with a doctorate in exercise physiology, Vigil has evolved into coaches’ mentor and an expert in preparing world class runners for competition.

High altitudes

Formerly a consultant for Reebok International and now Asics running shoes in Irvine, Calif., Vigil is particularly valued for his high altitude training knowledge, evidenced by his years of coaching experience at 8,000-feet Mammoth Lakes with Team Running USA, which won 49 senior championships.

“Ninety-five percent of medals are won by runners who either train or live at high altitudes,” he said, explaining the 21 variables affected by altitude, the most critical an increase in red blood cell mass, assisting oxygen carrying capacity, which produces aerobic energy.

Vigil is first and foremost an educator, he admits, proud of the 95 percent graduation rate for college athletes he’s coached in his storied career, and sought after by coaches for his training methodology expertise and experience.

“I recruited students, and not athletes, and I consider that my greatest accomplishment.”

He conducts coaching clinics and speaks at schools and seminars, and has been a running federation high altitude consultant in Finland, Italy, Japan, Korea, and Spain.

As an international coach at the World University Games, Olympics, Pan American Games, and World Cross Country Championships, he continues to work with athletes and interact with coaches from every continent in the world.

“I love to visit coaches from other countries,” he said.

“If I can help a young coach or athlete, I want to do that.”

A believer that you’re never too young to learn, he keeps up on things like gene research and lactate dynamics, often fed information through the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

“People won’t let me slow down,” he said.

The first recipient of the USOC Jim Councilman Award and recently inducted as an inaugural member, along with legendary runner Frank Shorter, into the Colorado Running Hall of Fame, Joe Vigil can look back on a lifetime of accomplishments in his field, but he’s still just as excited about whatever’s around the next corner, still living a life that “never gets used up.”

Mike Touzeau is a freelance writer for the Green Valley News.