We need a summary thread of Percy Cerutty's training. Overall philosophy from "Schoolboy Athletics" to "How to Become a Champion", workout examples, interpretations, etc.
His books are very rare and it'd be a shame not to learn from him.
We need a summary thread of Percy Cerutty's training. Overall philosophy from "Schoolboy Athletics" to "How to Become a Champion", workout examples, interpretations, etc.
His books are very rare and it'd be a shame not to learn from him.
His classic line says it all, stated following a series of all out 400's he was going (him, not his runners), shrieking and clawing at the air at the end of each one, only to start another following a 200 meter jog "Seek suffering, as I do". Nuf said.
Also, a move to Portsea where one can run lots of hills on the local sand dunes was a training staple of his, as was a strict dietary regimen.
Another classic Cerutty line "It's only pain."
I once posted a week of Elliot's training taken from Lore of Running, but didn't identify it as Elliot's, and got lots of responses that it was an insane week. From memory, it was as follows;
M 10 mi hard tues. sprints. wed. hard intervals-800s and 400s. Thurs. 5 mi full speed .Fri ? sat rest.
In other words, at least 5 hard days. That was at age 18.
In his pre olympic year it was even harder. I read that he covered 50mi on Fri sat sun which included lots of hard running plus weights swimming and hills. Nothing like a relaxing weekend!
I have three pages from percy cerutty's book that describes his philosophy on long distance running specific to 10K to marathon.
Indeed.............Insane is the word.
Cerutty's training program wasn't any harder than Merle's
I know for a fact that you did harder and longer workouts!
Hey SOB,Do you remember the Holloween party in 83' with
Doug and Tom Schmalzreid? Tom was the very tall gentlemen
who played basketball at Stanford in mid 70s.I was so drunk
that drove around the same block for an hour and a half
trying to get home! Twenty says I ran the next day!
"A runner stood at the Pearly Gates,
his face was worn and old,
he bravely asked the man of fate
admission to the fold.
"what have you done," St Peter said?
"To seek an entance here."
"I trained at Portsea, that wasmy task,
For many and many a year!"
THen wide the gates did open,
The angels clanged their bell.
"Come in and take a harp, he said,
"You've had enough of Hell."
page 140 of Beyond Winning by Gary M. Walton
the poem is attributed to Bill Lacy and Elliott.
"A runner stood at the Pearly Gates,
his face was worn and old,
he bravely asked the man of fate
admission to the fold.
"what have you done," St Peter said?
"To seek an entance here."
"I trained at Portsea, that wasmy task,
For many and many a year!"
THen wide the gates did open,
The angels clanged their bell.
"Come in and take a harp, he said,
"You've had enough of Hell."
page 140 of Beyond Winning by Gary M. Walton
the poem is attributed to Bill Lacy and Elliott.
bump
Thanks to Magness: http://magstraining.tripod.com/Learning_From_The_Past.html#Percy_Cerutty:
TooTired wrote:
We need a summary thread of Percy Cerutty's training. Overall philosophy from "Schoolboy Athletics" to "How to Become a Champion", workout examples, interpretations, etc.
His books are very rare and it'd be a shame not to learn from him.
Cerutty was a notorious maniac. Even by the standards of the 1950s.
Still, you losers could all do with some forceful "Stotanism" in your daily lives. Your collective inability to find the boundaries of self-discipline and apply them rigorously is why, to quote the guru Lydiard, "you Americans finish last."
From my observations/correspondence with the man and confirmed by many that trained with him.....very strong runners mentally and physically. Some speed may have been sacrificed by not emphasizing that energy system and doing an overwhelming amount of speed/strength on soft surfaces.
This poem is mine & came from book about Herb Elliott's running days called " The Golden Mile".
Bill Stacey
It comes down to boiling vegetables in teflon pans and drinking the leftover water.
Stotan
Hi Runners
My small publishing company (my wife and I) are re-publishing Percy Cerutty's books - Athletics: How to become a champion is now available on Amazon.com as a paperback. We're at
I trained at Percy Cerutty's Portsea camp as a schoolboy athlete in the mid 1960s - I was inspired by Herb Elliott's win at the Rome Olympics in 1960. My event was generally the 800 - but injury meant I couldn't fulfill my potential.
I write a foreword to the new edition, recalling my time at Portsea. I took an after-school job selling newspapers in Sydney city to raise the money to go.
Anyway, happy to take questions via my email address and we're planning to re-publish all of Cerutty's books. He was a great inspirational coach who challenged established practice.
I think his ideas are still as relevant today. The book has lots of detail about training for different events.
Good running.
Peter
Thank you, Peter. I will check the book out.
Not a Percy Cerutty quote but summarizes him well:
Top results are achieved only through pain. But eventually you like this pain.