Derek Clayton

I was told a story (not sure if it is true) that Herb Elliot used to do a workout where he would run 1200m at Mile world record pace and then run off a cliff into the ocean...

Those guys in the 50s and 60s did some weird shit. They were more psychologically tough than most runners of today. If they were on any sort of drugs, I'd suspect them of hallucinogens long before I'd suspect them of performance-enhancers...

And George Young. Not big on recovery/easy days. Long career. Great range. Hardware.

edelen: hard all the time too.

GY kicked ass! Read the RT piece on him by scott dougless, one tough sob! This drug thing should make young white believe they can compete with the best! Hardware great word! talk to you, jzs

Derek Clayton stated that he recovered when he was injured

and could not run.

It's hammertime.

[quote]Not Too Good wrote:

I was told a story (not sure if it is true) that Herb Elliot used to do a workout where he would run 1200m at Mile world record pace and then run off a cliff into the ocean...

[quote]Hilarious.

But heck, Elliott obviously wasn't trying right, at least according to Hodge.

miles_ryan wrote:

Resting heart rate of 35bpm?!?!?!?

Mine was routinely 35 when I was 19.

Clarke's was somewhere around 28. I'd be surprised if Clayton's wasn't lower than 35 too.

Mine is 38-43 and I'm 34.

Elliott must not have been 'training' right -- according to Hodge.

I mean, he did stuff besides just jog around all the time.

And Tergat, Geb, KK, they just don't realize how to train, the "Hodgie-San" way.

Fortunately we have Hodge here to tell us all that stuff they do is just nonsense.

What are you talking about?

I just don't understand how somebody can run that hard on 5 days of the week for an extended period of time. I can sometimes hold 4 hard days a week for 2 or 3 weeks tops before it starts to catch up with me. Then I inevitably start slowing down.

Yet this guy is pounding out 150+ a week with 5 hard days. How long did he hold this level of intensity?

I think that you can take a little bit from all of those "Great" names mentioned. My coach (Tom) supplies me with tons of reading material about the greats from the past. I really enjoy their autobiographies and stories of just "how hard they trained!" Good stuff. They were learning as they went. Didn't seem like ideas were shared that much back then. Some went Lydiard, some stayed on the track yearround, others just scratched their nuts and did whatever?!! I think we should all do some reading this Winter and try and incorporate some of those things that might work today (with your coaches permission, of course). I think that they (the greats) trained their mind as well as their bodies!!

Thanks for the refreshers on the reading. Time for a run in the dark now!

ty

Good to hear Brad is alive!

Are you guy's training or what?

I'm at either Boston/Falmouth/ NYC in 2004.

If I hit thu Megubucks, all three!

Ideas were shared, but there were barriers and not as much medium for it as now. E.g. it took quite a while for people to learn what Zatopek did because he was behind the Iron Curtain and there wasn't much information exchange between those on either side.

There was no running media other than Track and Field news and Long Distance Log. T&FN really just did results in those days and the Log was at the mercy of whatever people sent in, which was also true of Distance Running News/Runner's World for many years.

Lydiard was always willing to talk or write about his methods, but Igloi was very, very, secretive. Eventually, word of what Clayton did got around but there was no easy path to disseminate it.

The observation about training the mind as well as the body is bang on the mark.

there was a question about the length of the antwerp course...tfn ran an article stating it may have been short by 1 km

miles_ryan wrote:

Resting heart rate of 35bpm?!?!?!? Blood doping anyone?

I remember a thread here or maybe on another board (coolrunning?) about resting heart rates. It was a really long thread and something like three quarters of the respondents said that they had resting heart rates under 40. I know that is not an accurate representation of the typical running population, as it probably inspired all the people with low resting heartrates to respond, but really, among distance runners 35 bpm is pretty common.

My resting rate right now is is the mid-40's mostly, but when I was running higher mileage (110-145 vs 80 or so now), it was as low as 32 bpm.

Avg. Joe:

>I just don't understand how somebody can run that hard on 5 days of the week for an extended period of time. I can sometimes hold 4 hard days a week for 2 or 3 weeks tops before it starts to catch up with me. Then I inevitably start slowing down.

Yet this guy is pounding out 150+ a week with 5 hard days. How long did he hold this level of intensity?<

Clayton ran a 10 week cycle with one easy/(what he considered easy) day each week. He ran through alot of injuries and illness which in hindsight he knows this hurt him more than helped.

He was a big man for a distance runner and thought he should/could absorb more than many others. He experimented on himself, coached himself, learned a few lessons from others, including Cerruty and ultimately went his own way.

ed gee:

>there was a question about the length of the antwerp course...tfn ran an article stating it may have been short by 1 km<

My understanding is that the course in Antwerp was never re-measured due to construction of some of the roads on the course.

Considering his race in Fukuoka in 67 the 2:08 sounds well within his capabilities.

Don't want this to turn into a pulse rate thread, but RP taken in the early 70's was probably done with a stethoscope not a hear rate monitor. A montor will take a fewbeats and compute that to what it would be over a minute. Because the heart fluctuates so much, the monitor will give out the occasional low reading. Most of the studies done in the early 60's and 70's show that a RP of sub 38 was exceptional. Costill showed surprise at one nordic skier who registered a 28. If I remember corectly, Clarkes fluctuated so much, that it was cause for a closer look, whch led to his heart surgery.

I met Clayton several times. He was a mad man, no doubt. Rarely took his sweats off in even the hottest weather.(This might have just been my perception) But, is it possible that all the extreme mileage quoted here may have indeed been metric?