Running and Racing Sure Have Changed in 48 Years

Thanks for posting everyone.

The Cherry Tree and Yonkers are for mountain goats. I have run both. I counted 77 hills in the Cherry Tree Course. Today's elite runs a very flat course with at least one pacemaker for fast times and good bonuses.

Tom, I do not remember any joggers anywhere on the roads at all in the beginning.

To race we had join the Canadian A.A.U. They kept a tight control on we amateurs. I had to get an International Permit each time I raced in the United States. After the race we had to return a form to the A.A.U. detailing our expenses, where the money came from and any awards won and their value. The East York Track Club paid half my airfare to Boston in 1962. I paid all other expenses.

When I got to the airport in Toronto after Boston that year I had two good sized trophies. Customs wanted to know the value. I said I did not know. After we dickered back and forth for a while about duty I said that I would leave the trophies with customs and call the newspapers when I got home. My prizes were let through.

Tom, we trained on an eleven and a half lap indoor track at Hart House on the University of Toronto Campus all winter. That is one of the reasons why Bruce Kidd and Bill Crothers were so good indoors in the early 1960s.

Geoff,

In the Long Run

it's the

Long Distance Log

I have a couple of them from 1962.

When we first arrived in a town for a race we immediately headed for the business section to find the store front displaying the race prizes. Each of us then decided which one we wanted. I won lamps, end tables, luggage, sets of dishes, silverware and a bright yellow socks that had been darned. I helped my Mother furnish her house and gave great wedding gifts. Watches were not popular because first place on the indoor circuit usually meant a watch. Bruce kidd gave me one early in his running career. Everyone in our club had one.

I remember driving to Seal Beach to buy Tigers from a teenager named Jeff Johnson. He sold them out of his bed- room. In 1971, Jeff Johnson came up with the name "Nike" when Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight were looking for a new name.

Orville,

I was wondering what you thought about professionalism in racing, especially whether it's been good or bad for the sport.

Wayne

Tom, don't you mean 11 lap tracks, i.e., 160 yards (40, 40, 40, 40)? In the early 70s Iona College got a used wooden one and placed it on a field.

I am a while after you guys, born 1956. I remember our high school coach bringing in bags of blue Tigers for us and we would share pairs of adidas spikes for track meets.

Nostalgic as we are, though, the sport retains its essence. Here in the NYC-area, and probably wherever there are people, we have a good club system, and so I am often running in Central Park with a bunch of like-minded (albeit younger and faster) guys for my long runs and pretty well do what we've done with like-minded folks forever, even if we're not hitch-hiking for an indoor-track circuit. The Park is more crowded than it was when I started running there 30 years ago -- large groups of (slow) charity runners didn't exist then -- but going along chatting about who-knows-what for ninety minutes or two hours doesn't change. Nor does the post-race warm-down with guys from other clubs against whom you've just competed.

Right, the 11 laps were more common, 10 laps, luxury. Eight laps to a mile would have been too much to dream.

Tom

In my previous post I mentioned McCombs Dam Park across the street from Yankee Stadium. On week-ends the small coterie of hard core runners in the City met there. A friend/rival from Hicksville L.I. high school (I went to Roslyn) told me about it and we went in together one Sunday in March of '54. In the lockerroom pervaded by the smell of liniament these grizzled old guys (or so they seemed to me at 16) were talking about their planned runs for the day. "I'm going 12" "Well I want to do 20. Gotta get ready for Boston." It boggled my youthful mind. They were talking about MILES - not laps of the track. We high school "distance" runners did 2-3 miles a day - or less. Heck, a common Track work-out for the milers at my school (there was no 2 mile yet on Long Island) was 2 laps warm-up jog, some stretching and calisthenics then 4x440 - with a loooong rest in between while the coach went off to work with the field events guys. No wonder our times were pathetic.

P.S. I still have the LIFE magazine picture story about Bannister's breaking four minutes - and also a 1964 Sports Illustrated article about Buddy Edelen working and training in England prior to the brutally hot (mid-'90s) as well as nastily hilly Yonkers Marathon that served as the Olympic Trails. Edelen won by 20 minutes!

And Norm Higgins (+ others, I guess) ended up in the hospital after that 1964 Olympic Trial race. Rumour had it that Norm ran into a telephone pole.

US Marathons used to usually be run on the toughest courses in mid summer and in the hottest part of the day.

While still in Canada, I always said that the US trained montain goats not International Marathon Runners.

I have had a little experience with heat stress. It is scary to have a very high temperature, to not be able to stay on your feet and to have your whole body packed in ice after a marathon.

Wayne B wrote:

Orville,

When was the first time you saw a woman running a marathon?

Well,I am not Orville though we do have a few things in common,such as old age, experience in Canada and similar marathon performances.

I was privileged,as I later realised,to win a marathon race in Canada which featured a new World Record by a woman.

Well,she was still a teenager actually,either thirteen or fifteen years of age.Orville probably knows the story of fellow Torontonian Maureen Wilton,who ran 3h15m22.8s on MAY6,1967in Toronto.

To my mind,the greatest change in running since those early days has been the massive increase in womens racing and performance improvement.

It was amazing how backward in their attitude to womens running were most athletic bodies in those early years.In Australia women could not race officially with men as late as the mid 1970's.Yet by the early 1980's Aussie gals,just like their American counterparts, were cracking records at every race distance.Ithink that it took the UK ladies a little longer to get into the act but then whammo! Paula.

Thanks for filling us in Judy.

Here are some times I am aware of:

10-3-26 3:40:22.0--Violet Piercy--GB--Chiswick

12-16-63 3:37:07.0--Merry Lepper--USA--Culver City

5-23-64 3:27:45.0--Dale Craig-----GB--Isle of Wight

7-21-64 3:19:33.0--Millie Simpson-NZ--Auckland

5-6-67 3:15:23.0--Maureen Wilton-CAN-Toronto

Someone I know is thinking about putting on a race called "That 60's Race". He wants an odd distance. Popsicle sticks with places for finishers. He's even thinking about getting an old ditto machine to print results.

The post race party will have burgers, hot dogs on charcoal grills.

Two things come to my mined-

1. All those road courses where short by today's standards

2. If Ted was alive (and he knew how to work a computer instead of his Remington Typewriter)we would have been graced with a beautiful reply detailing the history of the sport!

Ted, Joe K and Sgt Kurt sitting around the Westside Y`s office talking about yesteryear with other "old running shoes" guys-priceless

Hi Orville,

youare a true running legend treasure.

I enjoy reading your posts and reading about our sport.

When does your book come out?

We need it!

Love you!!

-.

patti wrote:

Hi Orville,

youare a true running legend treasure.

I enjoy reading your posts and reading about our sport.

When does your book come out?

We need it!

Love you!!

-.

Patti Lyons?

Orville and all the others,

I'm a young guy by your standards (31) but I absolutely love reading all of this. Some of this is still alive, as friends (former college runners) and I have done a lot of the same traveling to races and having those great experiences. The professional circuit is much different now (probably more good than bad) but there are still plenty of "running bums" out there.

David Katz wrote:

Two things come to my mined-

1. All those road courses where short by today's standards

David, do you know how short the Trevira Ten-Mile course was?

David

Running misses Ted!

Nice Post Orville.

Hi Patti Dillon!

YOU are the treasure.

I enjoy reading your thread on the Legends' Lounge at least once a day.

I am retired. A book is hard work.

T Money, thank you for posting. I am anxious to see that the roots of running today are not lost. I want to see the legacy of the great Coaches and runners I have known or been around preserved. Many of us on this thread have stories to tell.

Wayne B, that is a very hard question to answer. I am still thinking on it.