Review of Ron Clarke Book

Clarkie Fan · 2015-06-17T08:36:05-04:00

Review of Ron Clarke The Unforgiving Minute (1966) This is a fascinating study of the legendary World Record setting runner from Australia who had two completely different running careers with completely different training approaches and who always did it his way and with his own unique view of competition. If you read the book you will find a lot of surprises that will dispel many commonly held misconceptions in the running community about Ron Clarke. Clarke wrote the book with assistance from Allen Trengove between the 1964 and 1968 Olympics detailing his first career as a teen prodigy interval trained middle distance runner in the mid 1950s, his retirement in the late ‘50s and his second career as a record smashing endurance trained long distance runner during the 1960s. The forward is written by John Landy, the second man to break the 4 minute mile barrier and whom was a friend, idol and early mentor for Clarke. Landy summarizes that Clarke was an enigma of a man who could set mind boggling World Records but also could lose races to local club level runners and yet would show no emotion in the wake of either result. He points out that Clarke lost in the 1964 Olympics but “utterly trounced all his conquerors” the following year on the European Circuit. Landy says Clarke would race anyone, anywhere, anytime and over any race distance. Clarke begins the book by describing what his critics call his greatest failure, the 1964 Tokyo Olympic 10000. He says he was never confident during any race except this one. With 8 laps to go he, the world record holder, knew he would win due to the fast pace. Only 3 runners were still with him - Ethiopian Mamo Wolde, Tunisian Mohamed Gammoudi and American Indian Billy Mills. Clarke says he feared Wolde the most but when he surged it broke Wolde and he only had the 2 lesser known runners to deal with and Mills had fallen 15 yards back after the surge. However, Mills stormed back to win and Clarke would take the bronze. Clarke’s critics called it a huge failure and they were even more dumbfounded by his post race reaction. Clarke said he was very happy with 3rd and was not far off his best time and says those 2 guys were simply better than him in 1964 and he was fortunate to take part in such a spectacular race. Clarke then reveals his unusual attitude toward the sport. He says his many, many record runs only brought fleeting satisfaction. With a Schopenhauerian philosophy he stated that brief satisfaction was quickly replaced by “an engulfing depression shortly afterwards”. He said this was because he knew he and others would immediately now set their sights on breaking the new record. He also talks of his insatiable attitude towards competition. He differed from most people who focus on the results, while he lusted for the battle itself, the process of the race and thrill of the uncertainty of the outcome. He enjoyed the journey more than arriving at the destination. He said the “purity of the battle” was most important. He adds that “no victory is conclusive, there is always another race” and that “it is unnatural for a healthy young man to be remorseful in defeat for too long and you need to bounce right back”. He says “people fear failure, I have no fear. Deep lasting disappointment is caused by ambition and I have no ambitions.” He then adds the prophetic and ominous quote that “fear of failure leads people to cheat and take drugs” which he feels is neurotic behavior. Finally he states you shouldn’t make excuses because if they are legitimate they are obvious or known to the people that matter so there is no need to point them out. His biggest critic was Olympic 1500 champion Herb Elliot, his rival as a teen during his first career, who said Clarke “lacked the killer instinct to win championship races.” Elliot’s own career was carefully orchestrated by outlandish coach Percy Cerutty and he was able to make the claim he never lost an elite race before he retired. Clarke says there are 3 types of world class runners. One will race anyone whether they are in top form or not and he is that type of runner. Peter Snell was like that and later American Steve Scott was also that type of runner and American high hurdlers have been doing that for generations. A second type will race anyone provided they are in top form even if they know they can’t win. Clarke says he respects that type of runner. The third type is one who will only race when they are in top form and they know they can win. Clarke may be referring to Elliot and he says these runners don’t do the sport justice. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s Steve Cram and especially Sebastian Coe fell into this group. To counter Elliot and his other critics he says it “takes tremendous willpower to break the best in the world and despite the searing pain to continue onward alone into uncharted World Record territory where no man has gone before.” He covers his first career as a record setting teen middle distance runner. He was born in 1937 during the peak of the Depression to a poor but physically fit family of Irish decent. Clarke’s father was a professional Australian Rules Football player for 13 years and he encouraged both Ron and 4 year older son Jack to pursue a pro football career, but to also focus on a business career so they wouldn’t be poor like him. Clark’s mother’s father was a regional sprint champion. Their father also taught them to question convention at all times and don’t get upset about loses and instead immediately start planning on how to improve. Jack was middle school cross country champ 3 times and then went on to a long and successful pro football career. Ron was middle school cross country champ 2 times although he never trained for the races. Clarke focused on football in high school and was captain of his team, but also participated in track. In his first track meet as a 15 year old he won the 800 in 2:07, the mile in 4:59 and was second in the 200 on no training. By the end of his first season he had improved to 4:39 in a race in which he finished half a lap behind Landy who became his idol. Although he did no training, Clarke said he “became addicted to competing.” Cerutty saw Clarke’s potential and was constantly trying to recruit him to run on his club but Clarke always rebuffed him. Clarke said Cerutty was “driven, overbearing, craved recognition and could be quite bitter.” As time wore on, Cerutty’s wrath for Clarke increased. Clarke said Cerutty was constantly thinking and coming up with new ideas and theories. He said “9 out of 10 of his ideas would be worthless but 1 would be a brilliant innovation.” By age 16 the precocious Clarke was already 5’11” and 12.5 stone (175 pounds) and began the track season with an opening race of 4:27 in the mile still without any training. Shortly afterwards a short letter arrived from Landy imploring him to start training. He advised running 5 days a week minimum for a total of 20-30 miles per week (MPW) at 5:30 to 6:00 per mile pace during the pre-season. Early in the season twice a week do 8 x 440s in 65 seconds with a 1 lap jog recovery interval between each one. Late season run the 440s in 61 and once a week run 10 x 220 in 26-27. He began to follow the program or at least as best as he was capable. In his second race he faced Elliot who defeated him 4:20 to 4:22. In his next meet he ran a 4:19/9:50 mile/2 mile double. He ended the season just after turning 17 with a 9:17 2 mile. After the season he was approached by international coach Franz Stampfl who had periodically advised Roger Bannister, the first to break the 4 minute barrier. Stampfl was one of the pioneers of pure interval training and in ’56 Clarke began to take his advice and by now Cerutty, who said one should avoid the track as much as possible, “hated” him. Franz prescribed track workouts every day and his staple workouts were 10 x 440, 5 x 200/5 x 400/5 x 200 and 5 x 800. The program was purely anaerobic and there was no aerobic distance training element. Clarke assessed the program retrospectively by stating that his times came down dramatically initially both in training and in races but he said frustratingly, the times in practice came down faster than the times in the races. He set National Junior (age 19 and under) records in 1956 of 9:01 for 2 miles, 1:54 for the half mile and a World Junior Record of 4:06 in the mile at age 18. He said he got to the point where he could run eight 440s in 55-56, superior to Bannister’s best which should have been good enough to break 4 minutes in the mile but he couldn’t because he lacked the stamina to do so. As a side note he points out that numerous athletes careers were destroyed when they tried to duplicate the legendary Olympic Champion Emil Zatopek’s interval workouts which were said to be 40 repeat 440s in 65. He says the reality was that Zatopek was actually running 40 440s in 80 with a 90 second 220 for a recovery. Therefore Zatopek’s interval training was in stark contrast to what Stampfl advised. Zatopek’s workout was actually a high aerobic workout and Stampfl’s was a heavy anaerobic workout. Eventually the improvement stopped completely and he started regressing and “grew stale”. He also got frequent sinus infections that he couldn’t shake. The fading Clarke failed to make the 1956 Olympic Team but was invited to carry the final leg of the torch and to light the Melbourne Olympic flame. The fans cheered the record setting teen that they assumed would be Olympic champion in the 1500 at the next Olympics in Rome. Little did they know that Clarke was burnt out and would soon retire from the sport. Clarke said he was losing interest in the sport and was more interested in his career as an accountant and romancing Helen, his wife to be. He retired in early ’57 and he and his wife bought a house near the ocean and he pursued his career as an accountant. They had 2 children and he took up golf and continued to play football on the weekends. Periodically Cerutty would try to coax him out of retirement. He wrote some articles as a track reporter. The 1958 Commonwealth Games and the 1960 Olympic Games, meets that he had been expected to star in, came and went without him. After the Olympics he had a chance encounter with one of legendary New Zealand coach Arthur Lydiard’s pupils. He spoke to Murray Halberg who won the 5000 gold medals in both ’58 and ’60 and stated that he learned more in that 5 minute conversation than he had learned in a lifetime from anyone else. A couple of months after that conversation in late 1960, Clarke decided to come out of his nearly 4 year retirement. He was nearly 24 and at an age most “amateur sports” athletes retire and he was planning on starting back up again. He said he came out of retirement because “I didn’t want to be tantalized about what may have been for the rest of my life.” He would completely change his training program from the intervals in his first career to a purely distance based program. Clarke joined up with a club of about 20 runners, which included some of the best runners in the country. Clarke or “Clarkey” as his club members called him, tried to run the 10 miles on paved roads that the club members ran each night despite the fact the longest previous run in his life up to that time was only 4 miles. He couldn’t do the full 10 so he had to walk and jog for the first few weeks. When he started to run again he noted “it takes years to build up to world class form and you can lose it in a matter of weeks.” Gradually he could do the full 10 miles 5 days a week. After several more weeks he joined the club runners on their weekend longer runs. These runs consisted of a 12 mile loop on Saturday and a 23 mile loop on Sunday. Both loops were run on dirt roads and trails in the woods. They ran the runs easy but the courses were very hilly including an awesome 1 mile hill on the 23 mile loop. Clarke had to walk up most the hills in the first few months. In the first year of his comeback in ’61 he averaged 85 MPW, did zero interval training and ran 30:36 for 10000 and 14:23 for 5000 and he was about the 5th best runner in the club. In 1962 he ran 50:02 for 10 miles and a 13:31 3M (worth 13:59 5000) and a 28:11 6M (worth 29:11 for 10000) and he qualified for the Commonwealth Games. In a tactical race, Clarke won the silver medal when he was out kicked by Halberg who dropped a 53.9 final lap to win the gold. After the Commonwealth Games, Clarke decided to increase his training for 1963. He added a morning run of 2-3 miles bringing his total weekly mileage up to 100 MPW. He also added weight training to his daily regimen. He said “The vigor of the program would have been disconcerting, if not for the results I got from it.” Again off zero interval training, he opened the season with an 8:44 2 mile followed by a 4:03 mile. Although he did no interval training, he had tremendous aerobic fitness and he would gain anaerobic conditioning by racing himself into anaerobic shape. One of the many misconceptions about Clarke was that he was unbeatable in unimportant races and always lost big races. The fact was Clarke lost more races than he won throughout his career because he was always racing himself into shape so he would lose most early races, rise to a sharp peak and win the middle season races then fade from over racing and lose the late season races. The insatiable racer he was, he jumped in a marathon for the fun of it and won in 2:24 despite walking most of the last 3 miles. His performances in the ’63-’64 “down under” season included a 48:25 10M, defeating Peter Snell in a mile, a 5:09 2000, an 8:00 3000, an 8:35 2M and a 13:51 5000. After the 5000, which Clarke said was “very easy”, he hatched a brave plan. He secretly decided to go after the 10000 WR. He knew people didn’t think he could do it so he kept his plan secret so people wouldn’t think he had “illusions of grandeur.” He did only a 5 minute warm-up jog right before the race. He hit 1 mile in 4:25, 2 in 8:57 and passed by 5000 just 5 seconds off his personal best. “During the last 2 miles, each lap got harder and harder but I wasn’t slowing down.” He ran 28:15 for a new WR. He said brief joy was soon followed by an empty feeling which would be the pattern the rest of his career. He got his first Track & Field News #1 ranking in the world in the 10000. After his record he was invited for a whirlwind American Indoor Tour in ’64. In his first race he expected an easy win, but the 175 pound Clarke was dogged by “what looked like was a 100 pound 13 year old.” Clarke had to run an indoor WR 8:36 2M to defeat the boy. The boy of course was 17 year old Gerry Lindgren who ran 8:40 which nearly a half century later is still the indoor high school record. Lindgren claimed he was running as high as 200 MPW and he would have been a factor in the Olympic 10000 but an ankle injury hampered him and he wound up 9th. A couple weeks later Clarke set an indoor WR of 13:18 for 3M (worth 13:46 5000) at the famed Milrose Games in New York City. After Milrose, Clarke lost several races due to severe over racing. Heading into the Olympics, Clarke set a WR of 18:15 for 4M and ran a 13:38 5000, defeating rising star Kip Keino of Kenya. During a training run he fell and his knee swelled up. It remained a problem for months and he had it drained several times as he trained through it. Although Clarke never states it, this clearly hurt his preparation for Tokyo. After his bronze in the 10000 at Tokyo, Clarke also ran the 5000 in what he calls the most embarrassing race of his career and what he says is the only time in his career he quit during a race. The race went out painfully slow (2:38 first 800) and a frustrated Clarke began surging over and over. Each time he surged Frenchman Michel Jazy would match the surge and even go ahead then come to a stop and force Clarke to pass him. This rattled Clarke mentally and he confesses he quit and wound up 9th. Clarke then ran the marathon in which he also placed 9th in an Australian record of 2:20. After the Olympics, Clarke again increased his training. He was now running 4-5 every morning followed by weights, then he would go to work and then come home and run 10 miles with his club mates. He would do 12 on Saturday and 23 on Sunday for a total of 110 MPW. He also added what he calls several short sprints once a week at about 75% of full speed. Basically he was adding what we now call “strides” or “striders”. He says running form is overrated and that one’s form is dictated by one’s structure and attempts to change it would result in better looking form but it would be unnatural. This claim brought even more scorn and wrath from Cerutty who believed form is of paramount importance. Clarke says it is critical to run year round and 7 days a week. He stated “One day off a week is the difference between wasting your time and achieving your full potential, the gap is that great.” He also says one should work full time while training so that you don’t waste time thinking about running too much and putting off your runs because you can. Clarke also dispels another popular misconception that he ran alone. He said he ran with several guys every single day and he “always looked forward to the social aspect of another 10 miler with my mates.” He continued to eschew interval training completely. In his books, Lydiard says the Clarke could have been even greater than he was if he had a “balanced training approach”. Lydiard said his first career was all anaerobic intervals and no aerobic distance and his second career was all distance and no interval training. Lydiard said if he had followed his aerobic distance base training with a short period of interval training he would have run much faster than he did and could have timed his peak better at major Championships. In ’65 after several early season losses as he raced himself into shape, he hit pay dirt with a WR 13:34 5000. He said this was despite a trip that was not peaceful because the Rolling Stones happened to be on the same flight. Clarke also relates a story that defies belief. He lost a mile to 6’3” Neville Scott in 4:01 and claimed that Scott was a well known “terrible alcoholic” that “drank 40-50 beers a day”! Clarke followed the mile with a track 47:12 10M WR in which Clarke apologized to the meet director and crowd for running so slow. He didn’t mention it at the time but says a side stitch slowed him the last 2 miles. Clarke was now in awesome shape at the pinnacle of his career when he got on a plane to head to Europe for the ’65 circuit where he would face all the medalists from the Olympics and several new upstarts. He was now 28 years old with many years in a row of 100-110 mile weeks under his belt. He opened with a 5000 and just after the mile threw in a 59 lap “to flatten the field”. To his dismay there was still one guy only 10 yards behind who had not yet given up. It was American Ron Larrabie from California and Clarke gradually wore him down and won by 70 yards with Larrabie 2nd and Mills 3rd. His next race was nothing less than a WR 28:14 in the 10000 after which Clarke says was “very disappointing” because he expected to run much faster. In his 3rd race he lost to new mile WR holder Jazy over 2 miles in 8:22 to 8:24. In the next 2 races he defeated all of the Tokyo 5000 and 10000 medalists in a 13:26 5000 WR and a 7:54 3000. Clarke described both races as “poor” because he felt he should have been able to run much faster. Next up he went after the 3M WR but was dogged by 18 year old Lindgren yet again. Finally Lindgren dropped off just before 2 miles which Clarke passed in 8:36. Clarke said “I wasn’t sure if I would even be able to finish the race let alone win it.” He set a WR of 12:52 (worth 13:19 5000). Just 4 days later he set his sights on his 10000 record on the cinder track in Oslo stadium. It was a windy day but Clarke attacked the record and broke away from the best ever field even before 2 miles. Several of the best runners in the world dropped out. He hit halfway in 13:45. At 4.5 miles Clarke said he felt so bad and it hurt so much he was seriously considering dropping out but used the lapped runners as targets to keep going. He annihilated the WR with a 27:39. He also set the 6M record of 26:47. In the space of 4 days he became the first to break the 13 minute 3M barrier, the 27 minute 6M barrier and the 28 10000 barrier. In 44 days he set 12 WRs and 9 WRs within 21 days. Just how good was Clarke’s 27:39? According to experts a cinder track is about 1 second per lap slower than a modern synthetic track so his time is worth about 27:14 on a modern track and he did it with no competition and no pace makers and he went wire to wire alone on a windy day. He ran his time a few years before steroids and other drugs started to invade the sport. A time significantly faster than 27:14 was not run until a generation later when EPO became first became available to cyclists and distance runners in 1989 after which time scores of runners primarily from Ethiopia, Kenya and Morocco bettered it. More than 50 cyclists and runners have tested positive for EPO since then and one can safely assume hundreds of users have escaped detection. Just 2 days later Clarke defeated Gammoudi and Keino in a 5000 in 13:32. Clarke predicted that Keino will become one of the greatest runners ever. At this point the book ends as it was written in late ’65 and was published in early ‘66. Subsequent to the publication of the book, Clarke’s incredible career continued unabated with a WR 13:16 in 5000 in’66 (worth 13:04 on a synthetic track) and an 8:19 2 mile (worth 7:42 for 3000) in 1968. He ranked #1 in the world in the 10000 in ‘67 through ‘69. He won silver in both the 10000 and 5000 at the ’66 Commonwealth games in the blazing heat of Kingston, Jamaica. At the ’68 Olympics at the high altitude of Mexico City he (and American Jim Ryun) could not compete with the athletes who were born and raised and trained at altitude. He finished 6th in the 10000 despite blacking out and not even remembering the last lap and collapsing at the finish. One sensationalistic doctor proclaimed Clarke has suffered permanent heart damage which can’t possibly be true but to this day remains part of Clarke’s legend. A few days later he took 5th in the 5000. In a controversial decision, T&F News citing the absurd distortions caused by the altitude at Mexico City, still gave Clarke the #1 ranking in both events that year. In 1970 he won silver in the Commonwealth Games in the 10000 and was 5th in the 5000 and unable to wrest the Gold Medal monkey off his back, he announced his retirement at age 33. He had set 17 World Records and had a total of seven #1 World Rankings and was the 1965 T&F News Athlete of the Year. Years later, Zatopek gave one of his 4 gold medals to Clarke stating “you deserved it more than I”. He is still married to Helen and continued on as a successful businessman, including owning an island resort hotel, being a sports commentator and writing several more books. In the late ‘80s and ‘90s they lived in Europe, predominantly in Ireland. He returned to Australia and in 2004 was elected Mayor of his seacoast resort hometown called Gold Coast.

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10 years ago 06/19/2015 9:55pm EDT

re: HRE

HRE wrote:
Cerutty looked at Joe's hand, then at Joe and said, "Only homosexuals touch other men."

A long time ago I had respect for Cerutty until I read his book 'Why DIe?'

Then realized it was all about Perc. He had to be the center of attention.

I loved the story of how he ended up in the Emperor's box at the '64 Olympics.

10 years ago 06/19/2015 10:26pm EDT

re: KYtrack

KYtrack wrote:
HRE wrote:
Cerutty looked at Joe's hand, then at Joe and said, "Only homosexuals touch other men."
A long time ago I had respect for Cerutty until I read his book 'Why DIe?'
Then realized it was all about Perc. He had to be the center of attention.
I loved the story of how he ended up in the Emperor's box at the '64 Olympics.

And there's the one where he visited Zatopek in the Olympic Village in Helsinki and stayed so late that Zatopek gave Cerutty his bed and went outside to sleep.

10 years ago 06/19/2015 11:08pm EDT

re: Clarkie Fan

Here's the cheapest price I could fine online for the book:

http://www.runnerstribeshop.com/ron-clarke-the-unforgiving-minute-soft-cover/

10 years ago 06/20/2015 6:09am EDT

re: Shawn H

To a running fan it is worth the price.

10 years ago 06/20/2015 10:55am EDT

re: HRE

HRE wrote:
stayed so late that Zatopek gave Cerutty his bed and went outside to sleep.

Everything I've ever read of Emil over the decades has shown him to be absolutely nothing but the total definition of class.

He and his wife were born on the same day and won gold medals on the same day.

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