I don't think what you keep saying about these 'talents of the 70's', the main reason for the decline in British distance running is lack of endurance, yet everyone you talk about was running about 40 miles per week. They were either phenomenally talented or kidding you when they discussed their training.
my own anecdotal evidence is that runners tend to undestate the amount of mileage they do - partly out of a sense of modesty and partly because they don't want to come across a complete saddo.
I've never know anyone say they were doing 60mpw when really they were doing 40mpw but i've known plenty of runners say they are only doing 40mpw when I knew for a fact that they were doing much more than that.
I was there in Wimbledon from the early mid 70's to mid 80's and saw people like Mike Fuller every day, and saw exactly what he did in training at Lauriston and at Hyde Park.
I used to go to Mike's house quite a bit, even saw some of his notebook diaries. You can ask the people today, they will confirm what I wrote. Talk with Pete Mulholland - he also knows how they trained and what they ate. He was privileged to work as an insurance agent and had a lot of time.
Guys like Mike Barratt (Ealing and Southall) could fly on the roads and country on only 35 miles a week. Mike would go to Lauriston every day at lunch and run 5 miles flat out, with a group trying to hang on (including me a few times). It was basically a progressive run which got faster and faster. Mike was County standard on just 30 mins a day.
It is all true. The thing was those guys were consistent, and the regularity really helped them.
It is puzzling why people in the UK now have trouble running what these fulltime workers ran on relative low mileage. There is a missing link in the puzzle somewhere.
Ghost in South Korea
Well, I can confirm everything this Ghost writes.
As would anyone running during those days.
As he was running in thee Wimbledon area at that time, he clearly concentrates on the talents of runners in that area during that period.
But it’s worth noting that at that same time, there was an equally huge amount of talent nationwide.
Just look back at the sort of times that the average club runner was running then in such clubs like Gateshead, Tipton, Birchfield, Bolton, Bristol, Aldershot, Belgrade and many others - even areas like Portsmouth and Reading had their moments.
With such a huge base, it’s no wonder that the equivalent of sub - 29 min 10K was commonplace - and I can’t remember a single professionally paid runner at all at that time.
Packs in athletic clubs trained hard for the intense competition involved and for the sheer please of running.
In order to give a balanced viewpoint, if you take a look at the Gateshead or Bristol teams of the 70's you will find that the vast MAJORITY of those guys, like Brendan Foster, John Caine, Max Coleby, Chris Garforth, Charlie Spedding, etc... were doing high volume and very tough training sessions, likweise if you read Ron Hills book, and other guys from the 60's like Jim Alders book, Buddy Edelens excellent book you will see that those guys were running 100+ almost every week of their careers, these guys Ghost mentions were very much the exceptions, not the norm.
I cannot think of anybody in the last twenty years who ran sub 29 for 10k off 40 mpw, and I'm sure nobody else can...
It reminds me of some of Horwill's ridiculous claims, like the one recently in AW that it was possible to run a sub 2.20 marathon off less than 40 miles per week.
Max Coleby was racking in well over 100mpw. I find it hard to believe he was training more than Brendan or Cainey. Spedding sounded like he may have done less miles but still 90-100mpw (see link below).
Ron ran up to 200mpw. Andy Holden certainly clocked up some mileage.
Not sure why some people are so fascinated by keeping their mileage low or high. Why not just try to find the optimal level of training?
As one coach put it: "Run all your key sessions at the necessary intensity and do whatever steady and easy running you can around that. For Hugh Jones that was two runs of 10M in 56 and 54 min in a day. For someone else it may be 6M easy."
so, I ask again, what's your point? Yes some of todays' runners that you mention may not be as fast as some of the people you're talking about (although as has just been pointed out the very top of the tree was people like Foster etc running 100mpw +, not the ones you're on about), but maybe thats because that's what they're capable of. 'Back in your day' im sure there were many 30 min 10k guys (or equivilant), but they didnt happen to be at the front because other people ran quicker. Don't slag off guys who are doing their utmost, just because other people, for whatever reason, arent around to beat them.
To use a football anology you're slagging of the winners of The Championship for not being better than a Premiership team. They can only beat the people in their league, and if that league happens to be the current UK distance running standard than so be it. You should be criticising the clubs who are mid table or the ones who folded / gave up playing.
ghost busters wrote:
so, I ask again, what's your point? Yes some of todays' runners that you mention may not be as fast as some of the people you're talking about (although as has just been pointed out the very top of the tree was people like Foster etc running 100mpw +, not the ones you're on about), but maybe thats because that's what they're capable of. 'Back in your day' im sure there were many 30 min 10k guys (or equivilant), but they didnt happen to be at the front because other people ran quicker. Don't slag off guys who are doing their utmost, just because other people, for whatever reason, arent around to beat them.
To use a football anology you're slagging of the winners of The Championship for not being better than a Premiership team. They can only beat the people in their league, and if that league happens to be the current UK distance running standard than so be it. You should be criticising the clubs who are mid table or the ones who folded / gave up playing.
It's like listening to a broken record. Why don't you go for a run and cool off...
Andy, you could combine your journalistic skills, running knowledge, commonsense, and perhaps a willingness to do hundreds of hours work for no money and possibly little thanks, by puting together all the wisdom, anecdotes, evidence etc posted on these boards into some sort of definitive book on UK Endurance running (male). Then, having got the definitive document released, we'd never have to have another thread on the subject again and could have a bit of quality time with our families. I now feel almost like I lived in SW19 in the 1970s thanks to Ghost.
Anyone know the psychology of so many runners being so coy on their 'real' mileage'? It always strikes me as a bit childish - doing the odd 100mpw and still not making the Olympics isn't necessatily something to be ashamed of.
must admit I enjoy reading Ghost's posts, always interesting. I am one of those 30 minute 10k runners but I don't get offended at all like some of you overly sensitive chaps.
Back to the subject at hand. Will Frank Tickner be doing the 10k trials? Or is he focusing on the steeplechase this season? Based on his 3:45 1500m this past weekend he seems to be honing his speed nicely. Would not be surprised to see a 28:30 out of Frank
davidch wrote:
Anyone know the psychology of so many runners being so coy on their 'real' mileage'? It always strikes me as a bit childish - doing the odd 100mpw and still not making the Olympics isn't necessatily something to be ashamed of.
Well, I ain't nothing special. I do 33min 10ks off about 50mpw but I only tell people that I do bit of jogging. People in my office think I go for a littel run three or four times a week at most probably - if they think about it all. If they knew I was running nearly every day they'd expect to be in the olympics!
Funny how half of them had poor track times and decentor very good road times (including the Ghost himself).
I wonder which one provides the only accurate comparison to today and is the only one which matters... hmmmmmmmm.
I think that you will find that none of that money is going to UKA, but all to either counties, regions or home countries. I am sure that UKA get none at this stage, so why dont we ask the people who do get it, what they are doing with it ?
I meant runners telling other runners what mileage they were doing. EVen Martin Duff's reports, in between helpfully slagging off the Brit guys who are slower than a few other Brits used to be, talks of runners ' admitting to' or 'confessing' to 80 mpw or whatever, like it was shoplifting or coke dealing.
If you are doing 33 for 10k you have the chance to romp home victorious in various local road races and tell your colleagues that you are just one notch, barely 5 minutes, below Olympic selection - and nobody will get out their Power of 10 Lists to question you.
davidch wrote:
I meant runners telling other runners what mileage they were doing. EVen Martin Duff's reports, in between helpfully slagging off the Brit guys who are slower than a few other Brits used to be, talks of runners ' admitting to' or 'confessing' to 80 mpw or whatever, like it was shoplifting or coke dealing.
If you are doing 33 for 10k you have the chance to romp home victorious in various local road races and tell your colleagues that you are just one notch, barely 5 minutes, below Olympic selection - and nobody will get out their Power of 10 Lists to question you.
yeah, I know. But I also have to listen to the old gits at my clubs telling me that 'back in their day' my times wouldn't even get me in the top 20 of the races that I now win!
davidch wrote:
EVen Martin Duff's reports, in between helpfully slagging off the Brit guys who are slower than a few other Brits used to be, talks of runners ' admitting to' or 'confessing' to 80 mpw or whatever, like it was shoplifting or coke dealing.
Duff probably detects a certain reluctance to talk and attributes it to coyness about their training. In fact people just don't like talking to him because he's a total c***.
No No no - please not the ultimate C word as it must massively increase the likelihood of this vibrant thread getting entirely cut.
davidch wrote:
No No no - please not the ultimate C word as it must massively increase the likelihood of this vibrant thread getting entirely cut.
My Grandad used to sometimes refer to someone as being a "card", as in "he's a card" meaning to be a wag or a joke.
The description fits Martin Duff to a tee
martin always seems to get under peoples skin
I remember Martin Duff in the late 70's when he was a good County Level runner, and (sorry Martin!)much slimmer than now.
He used to go to Lauriston Cottage every day at lunchtime and would usually run a fast 5 mile run with Mike Barratt. Your truly would often try to hang on, but Barratt (especially) would try to burn me off with surges around the horseride area on Wimbledon Common. Another guy in the group was stocky Richard Samuels, another County Level runner, who worked in Putney and had a basic training schedule like many of the good runners at the time - 5 miles at lunch, and 5 miles in the evening after work. Those guys were able to run around 30 minutes for 10km or faster on that kind of training. Some of the runners just ran one fast 5 mile per day, like Mike Barratt, and could run around 23:30 for 5 miles road on that kind of training.
Martin was a twice a day man at the time, but usually short distances like two 5 mile runs per day. But he did not hang about.
As Martin became older and less fleet of foot, he took to writing reports which eventually developed into a quasi total time commitment, despite having a fulltime job as well.
Martin is passionate about the sport, and I have always enjoyed his race reports. I don't see what all the fuss is about.
Ghost in Korea