Steve Jones

My favorite Steve Jones quote: "I'll get the next round."

I know the one you mean, but I can't quite place it.

Here are some others though:

"The money and the fame are irrelevant really. I'm just a hamstring away fr om oblivion; you've got to look at it like that."

"I just run as hard as I can for 20 miles, then race for 10K"

"I don't know about psychology, I'm a runner"

"I run with my head, my heart and my guts, because physically, I don't think I've got a great deal of talent or ability. I started at the bottom and worked up."

I've entered the Bristol Half Marathon in September mainly because the great man himself has agreed to run (along with Hugh Jones, Nick Rose, Charlie Spedding, Mike Mcleod, Tim Hutchings, Eamon Martin and Steve Cram). I'm hoping to get their nice and early to grab a photo or two. It's not every day you get a chance to beat a former marathon WR holder. Word on the street is that Martin and Cram are looking to get close to 70mins, H Jones and Rose will be around 75mins while he others will be doing about 80mins. I'll be looking for a sub-75.

And here's a nice piece about Jones' WR run...

Chicago '84

by Phil Stewart and Jim Ferstle

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Armed with a nearly $1 million war chest to lavish on invited athletes, Chicago's Executive Director Bob Bright spent the last year courting and making generous offers to most of the world's proven top marathoners. His objective was simple: to capture the limelight as the country?s most competitive marathon and garner the lucrative sponsorship and TV support that goes with it.

By mid-summer, Bright appeared to have a lock on many of the top runners, and after the LA Olympics he boasted about commitments from gold medalists Carlos Lopes and Joan Benoit. In addition, world champion Rob deCastella and bronze medalist Rosa Mota also enrolled in Chicago. With the action?as well as the money?tilting toward the windy city, other runners like Geoff Smith and Steve Jones climbed aboard.

Most of the pre-race speculation centered on Lopes and deCastella, with Jones considered to be among the second tier of contenders. "He?s the kind of runner I like," said Bright. "I invited him to run here last year after I saw him run a 10K on the track in England. He has real determination. He just, sort of, puts his head down and runs." In 1983, Jones stepped in a hole and twisted his ankle the night before the marathon. At 16 miles on race day, the pain returned and he dropped out of his first marathon attempt. Bright says Jones even tried to return the $1500 in travel money he had received, since he had failed to perform. Instead, Bright took a raincheck.

Jones had quietly, perhaps unknowingly, been assembling all of the ingredients for a major marathon breakthrough. In 1983 he developed his speed with a 27:39 for 10K on the track. In March, 1983 he proved his versatility with a third-place finish in the World Cross Country Championships. But in Los Angeles he wound up a disappointed 8th in the Olympic 10,000 meter final. His performance might have been affected by a parting of ways with his long-time coach. "When I sobered up (after the Olympics), I started to train again," Jones said. The Royal Air Force officer, who earns about $150 a week repairing airplane bodies, turned to marathoning not out of love, but for money. He upped his training mileage to 95 miles a week in the altitude of Park City, UT in preparation for Chicago. His training routine included fartlek workouts of 2-3 minute surges during longer distance runs over varying terrain every second or third day.

With his preparation complete, Jones?s biggest reservation was that he had never completed a marathon before. Fellow Brit and Olympic bronze medalist Charlie Spedding offered some sage advice gleaned from his three marathons-worth of experience: "I told him if he felt like making a move to forget about it and wait for a few moments. Then if he still felt like going, to have a go of it."

Under a steady drizzle, Jones and company took off from Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago. A few miles later the rain ceased, creating optimal conditions. Jones, keeping to his plan, remained tucked in a pack through opening splits of 4:59 at the mile and 24:36 at five miles. The large pack included Lopes, deCastella, Geoff Smith, Gabriel Kamau, Joseph Nzau and Simeon Kigen. Passing 10 miles in 48:47, Jones turned to Smith and asked if the split was correct. "It felt so easy," Jones admitted later. When the impulse came to break away at 14 miles, Jones quashed it.

Shortly after the 18-mile mark, Jones made his move, increasing his pace and glancing back to see how the others reacted. Only Kamau responded, while Lopes, deCastella and Smith lagged.

Jones?s performance over the next seven miles may be the greatest segment of a road race ever run. Between 19 and 24 miles he recorded a 23:46 five-mile split. His last 10K took only 29:37. Still, Jones was hardly confident. "The race changes dramatically when you are out there on your own. I was just trying to put as much distance as I could between myself and the rest of the field."

Trailing him and utterly unable to match his pace were the Olympic gold medalist Lopes and the world champion deCastella, who battled down the homestretch for second and third.

Jones tired a little over the last 2K, although he knew he was under world record pace. When he saw the clock in the 2:07s with 200 yards to go, he recounted later, "I thought I was going to run out of time. I thought the clock was going faster than I was."

Half a stride before the finish line, he broke out into a grin and raised his arms in triumph. He crossed the line, officially, in 2:08:05.

In sum, London Marathon director Chris Brasher said, "It was the most decisive destruction of a major field I?ve ever seen."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

(This article originally appeared in the January '85 Running Times)

For those of you who missed seeing Steve Jones in his prime, well you missed a treat. I was lucky enough to see his 2:08:05 and his 2:07:13 performances in Chicago from the press truck. Amazing.

He stayed at our house in the summer of 1988 and trained in the heat of an Illinois summer. Everyone had written him off by then. Even Reebok were waffling on re-signing him. I watched him train and told him he would win New York. His chest was out and he was flying on the track. I told him to wear a plain white singlet in NY and that that would get Reebok's attention when he won. They re-signed him after his demolition victory in 2:08:20 and he's still with them now. That time should have been recognized as the Course Record, because the old mark was about 400m short on reliable information.

Try to get some video of Steve Jones in his prime at Chicago. He was one of the greatest ever.

No one who knows the original quote?

Something like this:

" If I am still standing after the race, knock me down with a board, I didn't run hard enough"

He was talking about cross country. And yes it was If I'm standing at the end of a cross country race hit me with a board until I fall down. Because I didn't run hard enough.

However, when I ran cc against him he always looked fine by the time I got to the finish!

Summer of 1988 in Chicago was the hottest ever.

Just out of curiosity, Mr.Latimer, what suburb or part of Illinois did Mr.Jones train during the summer of '88?

Coemen wrote:

No one who knows the original quote?

It's in the chapter on Jones in Sandrock's book, "Running With the Legends."

... and I tell you what... some people say that guys back in the day were lucky there no Africans around, well I say the Africans are lucky that guys like Steve Jones aren't around today. He'd whip their ass.

Carlos Lopes was better.

If I am still standing at the end of the race, hit me with a board and knock me down, because that means I didn't run hard enough

I lived in Lake Villa, IL. at the time.

He would do workouts with Steve Plasencia at Waukegan track and in Libertyville.

Glen,

Thanks for the info. Jonesey was at Austin Motorola and was a gracious host, along with Paul Cristman, for an evening "piss-up" (as Steve called it) at various locations, ending up on top of a building in the wee hours of morning.

Jones is a stud with no ice baths, handlers, and physios (not that there's anything wrong with that...).

Hi Van. How are you?

My favorite Jonesy quote is still the second one on this thread -

"I'll get the next round."

No one has ever destroyed a good field from the start the way Jones did in 85 Chicago. He buried the pacemaker, Deke and several others. If he'd run a little more even and had more left the last 10k, that WR would have been his, probably close to 2:06:30, and it would have stood until that Costa guy ran 2:06:05.

Still, in my book, it's the best and ballsiest marathon performance ever.

I do some of my running on the treadmill, and one way I get pumped for harder runs is to put on marathon VHS tapes. Chicago 85 makes it a sure bet I will run hard that day, trying to "keep up" with Jonesie. An amazing race. Everytime I watch it I look for the corners on the course where maybe he coulda cut the tangents a little tighter and got the record....I'm sure the next time I watch it he'll break 2:07.

Damn, was it TWENTY YEARS ago, already?

Wow.