Well, that's not what I am saying...
And it's not at all accurate to say that we had no national funding.
Here's what we had from the National level.
1) Carding money, and in those days $ 400. or $ 500.
went a long way towards paying some monthly bills, and freeing up a little more training time. I can't remember the maximum number of distance runners that we had carded during the 1980's in any one year, but it was a large number - I think about half of all the available cards...
2) Fully funded National teams to all events, including most importantly in my opinion, the World Cross Country Championships. And when I say National teams, that means every Canadian distance runner that made the appropriate
IOC/IAAF standard went. No A+, or A++, or top 8 or stay home nonsense --- none, not a chance, we wouldn't have allowed it...We would have banded together and left the Association, and in fact had to threaten to do just that, on occasion.
3) A small stipend paid to have someone in charge of, and responsible for the overall development of distance running in Canada. That happened to be me, and when I started in 1978, I was paid $6000 from UVIC to be their distance running Coach, $ 6000 from BC Athletics to be their Provincial distance running Co-ordinator, and $ 6000 from Athletics Canada to be, initially, the Western Canada Distance Co-ordinator, and then the Canadian Distance Running Co-ordinator. It gradually grew into a livable salary, which was fine, because I had a job that I loved...
The key thing though was that we were able to work towards consensus amongst a growing number of coaches and their runners, who thought that we were doing the right thing, and so they bought in, and the rest is history as they say...
Another thing we had was that for a certain 12 year period, we managed to convince (over some serious reservations of certain coaches and branches) the Coaches that we should host a National Cross-Country Trials on the first weekend in February every year in Victoria because the weather is the best in Canada then, and I would be able to co-ordinate and manage the event, as part of my duties. So the cross-country season didn't end in November for most of our top distance runners. For something like 80 of our top men and women, and 60 or 70 of our top Junior men and women, it became very important to maintain good distance training and fitness, and be ready to race well at Cross-Country distances into February.
And of course, then teams were selected, and the best kept in top Cross-Country shape until the end of March, at the World Championships. I think this is a key component that was common to all the top distance running countries at that time, and it is something that is sorely needed in Canada, again...
Later,
Ron