I met Seb Coe today ... and I was wrong

You weren't wrong. You're a letsrun poster - you're never wrong.

That definitely puts the lie to the worthless mileage totals in "Better Distance Running" by his father. If Peter Coe were an accountant, all his clientswould bein prison for tax evasion.

i'm sure no one will believe you anyway!

i think as much he was talking his mileage down during his career he is now exaggerating "oh i did so and so much and was such a beast", the truth is probably somewhere in between, my guess:60-80mpw during base and 40-60 during track like most other middle-distance cracks.

That is quite surprising as people have always told me that he was a notorious low mileage trainer..... high miles is always better is seems!!

Everyone here always knew you were full of shit Martin. Thanks for the confirmation.

Charming.

Martin

"Well -- that's it. From the horse's mouth, as it were, to the Let's Run board. Seb ran mileage. Lots of it."

100 is not a lot! Shorters reported 170 mile weeks is a lot.

Thanks, Martin.

Shorter = marathoner

Coe = half-miler

Interesting to hear this from him. You've got my respect for bringing this out here. Thanks.

This is something to chew over.

Thanks Martin,

Well like most posters I am very surprised and I have to say that certainly is more or less the oposite to what I have heard from so many sources. Frank Horwill, Marius Bakken on these boards and all of the books that I have read about Coe point seem to say the contrary, perhaps 60mpw in the winter and then low mileage in the summer.

It won't be long before trackhead is all over this thread ...

i believe you (and coe) martin.

i met seb and his dad on a couple of different occasions. it was clear to me the full story wasn't being told.

without question, his quality work was exceptional but the low mileage thing makes great print.

Thanks for coming clean, Martin.

You were wrong about Iraq, too... :-)

People were mystified as to why British/American milers were struggling after the mid-80's to run even close to those previous marks. They and their coaches bought into the "quality only" BS and were trying to run sub-3:50/3:30 on 40-50 mpw. What a crock!

The catch is that there are those logbooks in Coe's own handwriting that Marius and others have seen, the comments by Peter Coe, along with Horwill, in the various BMC Journals saying that 70 mpw was tops, and some of the comments that Seb himself has written--for attribution that say otherwise.

And against this we have the word of a single letsrun poster the Lord Coe to HIM something different.

Unless there's independent corroboration, I have to call the whole thing bullshit.

Not very confusing.

It would be easy enough to figure out who he is, and I can't see why Martin would be motivated to come on here and lie, just to make himself look wrong.

As for the logs, I know many runners, at least 800/1500 runners, who record only workouts -- the morning 5-8 miles for fitness doesn't need to be annotated.

I have to say, I was really looking forward to today's lunch, in part because I wanted to put this whole mileage argument straight once and for all.

I was fully expecting to be exonerated by Coe himself (and, as such, was fully expecting to gloat on this very message board, if I'm honest).

That didn't happen. As the previous poster said, I don't really have a motivation to lie about this - especially since I'm made to look rather silly.

Coe may indeed have exaggerated slightly for effect (although we had been talking about running and he knew I was clued-up) but I suspect the larger point remains true: he wasn't the 50 mile per week guy I thought he was.

Martin

Thanks for a great post.