Hey Ghost, about Tony Simmons

That's right. Tony Simmons used to run about 60 miles a week in his good days (sometimes less). And the lunchtime run of 4 miles was usually done in about 30 minutes with a group of 'joggers' at the Technical College where he worked as a Lecturer.

The evening run would be done a bit faster (6.30 mile pace or sometimes faster).

Tony did not like to train alone and did most of his training with people (at Luton Athletic club) who were much slower than him.

Tony was an extrememly talented athlete at a time (in the mid to late 1970's) when there were many sub. '28' minute 10.000 runners (Rose, Ford, Foster, Black etc...) most of whom did not run much over 70 miles a week.

Tony was very small (about 1.70 centimetres) and had an extremely quick leg turnover.

I recall being in a race with Tony - the 'Finchley 20 mile classic' (April 1978) - this was Tony's debut over that distance. I went through 10 miles in 52:30, and Tony was still behind me - and then a couple of miles later, Tony came by me like I was standing still - he was literally sprinting (or almost) and covered the next 5 miles in about 23 minutes....and went on to win the race in around 1 hour 41 minutes ( I went on to finish in 1:50.49 for my club Hercules Wimbledon).

For more information on Tony and other elites. Watch this page from time to time.

chris.moulton@mail.mcgill.ca

4 and 4 ? Was that it? No intervals or weekend long runs or follow the British tradition of a club race most weekends?

ghost wrote:

Tony was very small (about 1.70 centimetres) and had an extremely quick leg turnover.

haha

No Intervals?

So lets get this straight.

You are stating that a 27-xx 10 runner and a 13-xx 5k runner ran 4 miles in the momring in 30mins (slower than 7 mins mile pace), and a 5-6 miles evening run at 6-30 mile pace for a total of 60 miles a week.

Please don't post this sort of rubbish on the boards. There is enough "false information" out there about the training of great runners as it is.

In fact, for those who want to be better informed, there was an article written by Frank Horwill about the training of Tony Simmons in Athletics weekly a year or to ago. It was all high mileage, think 10 mile runs in the morning and 15 mile runs in the evening. It was this training the article quoted that enabled Tony Simmons to win a silver medal in the European champs 10k.

I never saw the Horwill article in AW. But I did see a feature in AW about Tony Simmons, I think it was shortly before Montreal in which he described his training as a four mile run in the morning and a six in the evening.

Haha, don't mess with Ghost!

You really believe Horwill-Articles?

Better ask Tim Hutchings!

I'll ask Hutchings next time he drops by.

I do know that there were many Brits in those days who ran pretty well without interval work, but who did steady runs at a good pace and would have raced quite frequently.

I didn't mean you but the other guy that questioned Ghosts post!

Yeh, wasn't Simmons coached by Harry Wilson & used to do some sessions with Steve Ovett. Can't imagine Harry Wilson prescribing only 60 mile a week - I used to have a copy of his book - schedules for 5k/10k runners were 80/90 a week.

Ghost continually comes on here and talks about how athletes in the 27.40-28.40 range were doing 'schoolboy' training back in the day, supping 10 pints every night and probably doing a Karate evening class into the bargain, aswell as running a handy sideline in bricklaying.

It seems strange that in an era known for the intensity and heavy workload of those who were successful, Black, Foster, Dixon, Walker, Quax, Puttemans etc... Simmons would be tootling along running a couple of 4 milers a day and no doubt stopping off on the way home for a packet of Marlboro's and a keg of Double Maxim.

To say Ghost lives ina fantasy world is understatemnet, there are many athletes out there who are a little, shall we say economical with the truth about their own training. This feeds the legend and sometimes there are people gullible enough around like Ghost to actually believe it.

Hopefully the care home within which Ghost currently resides will increase his medicaton to help with the dementai and we won't ahve to hear anymore fantasy stories.

While you're right that in the 60s and 70s distance runners were piling on the miles, it was also true that many British distance runners were going their own ways and not doing as much as other folks were and that way involved less volume, and often little or no interval work.

Simmons ran for the Luton AC and I had a friend who knew several Luton runners. I asked him about Simmons and the 4 and 6 training I saw in the AW article. He told me that that was indeed what Tony did but added that the 6 miler was "bloody fast" which is a bit different than what ghost has put here.

The other thing that was a feature of many of the low mileage Bits was very frequent racing. I'm hoping ghost will come back and address a bit more of this.

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I was part of the early to late 70's generation in England, and ran for Hercules Wimbledon (London) during that time.

In Hercules Wimbledon we had runners like:

1. Dave Clarke - ran 3:39/1500, 13:22/5000, 27:56/10.000 and 2:13/marathon.

Dave Clarke used to run about 100 miles a week and sometimes more, and he was 'high mileage' - but when Clarke was at a high level as a Junior he ran much less, and did well on low mileage (around 50 miles a week).

2. Bob Holt - 3:51/1500, 7:59/3000, 13:48/5000, 28:39/10.000, 2:16/marathon.

Bob never trained more than 60 miles a week - except when he was on a three month buildup for the Harlow Marathon (October 1975) when he ran an early morning 5 miler for a few weeks to increase his mileage. But Bob did a lot of tempo running, and also a some strides down on the playing fields at Putney Vale. He was always a 'once a day man' training at Lauriston Cottage after a full day in his London Office.

3. Mike Fuller - 8:13/3000, 14:17/5000, 29:22/10.000, 1:44/20 miles.

Mike was always a twice a day man - but rarely ran more than 30 minutes in one run. He always did 4-5 miles at lunchtime in Hyde Park (changing at Imperial College) and then would jump on his motorbike after his day of work at the 'Royal College of Music' (he was in Admin.) and run another 5 miles from Lauriston Cottage. Mike just did his thing, with very little track work, but just tempo running 30 minutes in duration.

4. Mike Barratt - Super Road and Cross Country runner in England. Could easily run in the 29-30 minutes range for 10km road races, and around 23 minutes for 5 mile road races.

Mike never ran more than 35 miles a week. His training was always an 'eyeballs out' tempo 5 miles run from Lauriston Cottage (Wimbledon Common) at lunchtime - often with people like Richard Samuels.

5. John Roberts (South London) - the 'thin man' (about 6 feet tall/60 kilos)- an accountant by profession, John was a phenomenal performer in cross country, often beating men who were worth around 28:30 for 10.000 track.

John ran for England in a couple of International Cross Country races in Belgium.

John typically trained about 50 miles a week, never ran twice a day, and often only ran about 30 miles a week in the summer. He had a very long career, and at age 38 I witnessed John run 14:18 for 5000 track at Crystal Palace.

I could go on and on about 'low mileage men.' Suffice to say that Britain at that time had many other quality guys, and the ones I am mentioning are all people I saw and interacted with on a daily basis. I was privileged to see them in action, how they trained and what they ate, and they all lived very normal lives. They were very fit and raced almost every week.

Now things are not the same, and standards have gone down.

Email:

chris.moulton@mail.mcgill.ca

Teacher English/French Teacher, Chia Yang High School, Taichung, Taiwan.

www.cysh.tcc.edu.tw

the counteraction to this is:

Dave Bedford - loads of Miles, 27.30

Brendan Foster - loads of Miles, 27.30

Jon Brown - Loads of Miles, 27.18

theres obviously lots of other examples in both camps. its horses for courses.

one thing i would say - unless you spent all day everyday with these people you cant genuinely know what they did or didnt do - they may say things like 'nah, I never do a morning run' when they could be doing 10m each AM!

most times you turn up to a race you;ll hear tales of 'nah, i've not been doing much', 'ive had an injury', 'im really unfit' - often from the guys who win the thing.

at the end of the day its irrelevant what other people do in training - everyone has to find what works for them. The only thing that counts is race results - obviously the guys youve quoted had good ones, as did the guys I've quoted. We could play tennis with names all day regarding training methods.

ghost wrote:

Now things are not the same, and standards have gone down.

Email:

chris.moulton@mail.mcgill.ca

Teacher English/French Teacher, Chia Yang High School, Taichung, Taiwan.

http://www.cysh.tcc.edu.tw

Ghost, you have posted this sort of stuff many times, but I'm still no sure exact what your point is. What are you advocating? What were people doing then that they are not doing now which you think made the difference?

No way - I knew those guys and often travelled to Central London for work with people like Bob Holt (he would step on the train at Clapham Junction)....and I knew exactly what those guys were doing.

The reaction is a common one from people who cannot run fast like those guys. I understand where you are coming from, but those guys really were low mileage guys and so were many others who ran well. Truth be spoke.

chris.moulton@mail.mcgill.ca

www.cysh.tcc.edu.tw

fine - but the more general point is a lot of people play down what they are doing. not sayign these guys did that (although i contend that unless you're at a guys house at 6am to see if he goes out the door or not you cannot be 100% sure) you have to admit that there are other examples of high mileages guys (including every British record holder from 1500m up) (the coe debate rages on and gets rather dull....)) who ran well and better than those you quote by doing high miles. Perhaps simmons would have caught Foster for that Olympic medal if he'd done more than you claim he did!

I think the end of this argument is simple. We have advocated lower mileage in this country for probably about 15 years, this is for many reasons, time, differences in opinion, scientific reasearch etc... however what the lower mileage approach has brought in this country is decline.

Compare this period with the 70's when guys like Foster, McCleod, Black, Bedford, Ford, Hill, Alder, Freary, Tagg, Stewart, McCafferty etc.. were doing great things and if you ask the question Whats changed? Its mileage... fortunately people are now seeing this is the reason and are changing their ways.

How many of the top Kenyans/Ethiopians are running 50 miles per week? Zero.

How many of the worlds top athletes above 1500 run 50 miles per week? Zero

On a final note, the reaosn why people get so fed up with Ghosts posts is that he does not offer any reason for the success of these guys, in other words his argument is simply that these people were 'more gifted' that has to be the only conclusion but its bollox.

He complains about the current generation of runners yet most of us are doing more than what he advocates as the best approach, we are genetically the same as our 70's contempiraries, most of us are training harder than 'Bob Holt', so what do you suggest, either these guys were possible Olympic Champions who never fulfilled their potential and could reach international level with meagre training.... the only answer I can see.... or somebody somewhere is talking out of their backside.