Mihaly Igloi

Drizzly,

I was 16-19 years old during my Igloi years. In those years he had all age groups and included top master distance runner Peter Mundle. Igloi coached at Loyola High School and he always had good middle distance athletes. During those years he had Mark Rafferty who ran 4:18 as a freshman and went on to run 1:49/4:01 at Arizona State. Generally, since the training was so structured, I would say if you were going to run fast, you would get there sooner with his program, and perhaps move on. That was the case with Ole Oleson, USC who was one of the top collegiate athletes. Though Ole may have kept running if Igloi had stayed in this country.

Igy

Thanks for the reply tho u avoided most of what I asked I suppose it's cuz you're unsure.

My opinion which might be biased but I believe ppl in general are aging slower living longer and performing well at older ages then in the 50s and 60s so I would believe this generation of 30 somethings will thrive at a high level for longer than the 30-something in the 50s and 60s but would love the opinion and perspective of someone who ran and competed during those times to validate what I'm saying. Benard lagat running 7:37 3k at 41 yrs old that's surely gotta back up my claim slightly

i suspect it has less to do with humans evolving over the last 50 years, but with money in the sport. if a guy like herb elliott and others could have made more money, perhaps they would have continued to compete longer. amateurism--and all of its crazy rules and restrictions--pretty much made it impossible to stay in the sport for a long time before the 80s started to move t&f out of the stone age--of course, joe douglas, an igloi athlete, helped lead this movement....

Drizzly,

I did run fast times as a 55-59 year old masters track athlete. Peter Mundle, mentioned in the previous post ran masters times that would still be great today. However, I can see some reason to support your thesis.

Igy

I'm with socal cush on this one.Evolution happens over many generations. You wouldn't see the effects in that short a time span. Circumstances change much more quickly.

One of the big reasons athletes retired in the 50s and 60s was because of money. I don't know if Lagat would still be running if he'd needed to get a full time job 20 years ago. Maybe he would. Some people did. I believe Pete Mundle was one of them and he ran well for quite a long time. Hal Higdon was another. So was Ted Corbitt and there were others but you knew who these guys were because they were the exceptions.

But even for those who stayed in the sport in those years it was different than now. Competition was not easy to find if you lived away from a handful of areas that were sort of hotbeds for the sport. And when you found competitions you pretty much had to pay your own way to get to them. You were less likely to have training partners available because so few people kept on. It's just much easier today to keep on in the sport than it was 40 plus years ago in many ways.

The first Chicago Windy City Marathon was run on Sunday March 11, 1962 with 15 starters. Nine finished. Ninth place ran 3:30:15. Marathons were not run in 4 hours in those days.

I ran for a couple of weeks in my 3rd year of high school and then did not run again until I was about 20 in 1956. In the meantime I was working in a gold mine and in the woods diamond drilling. I remember running a ten mile race won by Hal Higdon in 1959.

Pete Mundle and I travelled to at least 4 Olympic venues together Pete Mundle was Bill Bowermans' first runner and learned together before Pete began running Coach Mihaly Igloi's workouts.

The one thing we had in those days was coaches who did not charge the athlete. I ran under Coach Fred Foot and Coach Mihaly Igloi without ever paying a cent. In the 1950s and early 1960s I hitched rides to races and at many races would see runners from Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, Boston, New York and other places along the border and Coast. We all got to know each other.

We worked full time jobs.

I think the guy you are talking about had the last name Sailors. I just now came across this thread. I too, trained with Igloi for a summer at the Santa Monica track...It was a very huge honor, still remains a fond memory.

Hi everyone,

This is a fascinating thread. I am a PhD candidate in History at the University of Florida. My dissertation is on elite athletes in socialist Hungary, but I am also working on a project tracing the lives and influence of Iglói and Tábori on running in the US and California (I noticed at least a few people mentioning how something needs to be written about them) I am hoping to find out what happened after they left the Santa Clara Youth Village. I have read Tabor's biography and looked at documents at the Santa Clara University Archives so far.

I would like to know how Iglói and Dick Bank got the funds to start the LATC, who Bank was (I have very little information on him), what happened to the LATC in 1966, why Iglói left the US for Greece, etc. I know that it was difficult to keep track clubs open at that time, and for post-graduate athletes and runners to support themselves financially and have enough time to train at an elite level.

I also saw that someone said that Tábori had a big influence on female runners in the 1970s. I'd love to hear more about that. I am in touch with Jacqueline Hansen, and am looking for more stories in addition to hers.

If anyone would be willing to speak with me on the phone, hear more about my project, and share their experiences and memories with me, please shoot me an email at

johannamellis@gmail.com

. I am an experienced oral historian, having done 30 interviews with coaches, athletes, and sport leaders in Hungary for my dissertation. I prefer face-to-face interviews, but I live in FL and it is probably only feasible to speak over the phone.

Thanks!

Johanna

http://history.ufl.edu/directory/graduate-students/johanna-mellis/

Orville and So Cal Cush,

I emailed Johanna. I believe you have some contacts that may be helpful.

Igy

thanks igy--i emailed her as well with joe douglas' contact info...

cush

I have been experimenting with Bobs training with a HR monitor. I have had sessions of 2 hours of running where the HR stays between 75-90% max HR.

If the system is ran correctly, your body creates a super compensation period and little to no workout fatigue.

2-4 days in a row of these repeat sessions arent that bad. The mental game is hard though to pound that many repeats

Could you give us some examples of the workouts you've done so far or if possible a week or two of your training? Thanks

Bob Schul Country wrote:

I have been experimenting with Bobs training with a HR monitor. I have had sessions of 2 hours of running where the HR stays between 75-90% max HR.

If the system is ran correctly, your body creates a super compensation period and little to no workout fatigue.

2-4 days in a row of these repeat sessions arent that bad. The mental game is hard though to pound that many repeats

Schul training was set up in sets. Between set there was a jog break and 10x100 strides that weren't sprints. Most people do the in between sets work too hard and they can't finish the workouts or they can't recover the next day.I usually do about 1/2 of what Bob did in his workouts. Still 7-8 miles a session.I did a 3 set workout the other day consisting of 4x300, 2x600 and 6x200. There was also sets of 100 meters, about 30 of them total throughout the workout.

Examples please wrote:

Could you give us some examples of the workouts you've done so far or if possible a week or two of your training? Thanks

Bob Schul Country wrote:

I have been experimenting with Bobs training with a HR monitor. I have had sessions of 2 hours of running where the HR stays between 75-90% max HR.

If the system is ran correctly, your body creates a super compensation period and little to no workout fatigue.

2-4 days in a row of these repeat sessions arent that bad. The mental game is hard though to pound that many repeats

Going to la tomorrow to visit my musician son, and looking forward to visiting santa monica college where I trained with mihlay igloi over 50 years ago- will bring back old memories of training with merele mcgee and my roommate joe lynch, and my girlfriend mary limer- other memories would be appreciated- mike spino

Mike,

I am sure I probably met you many years ago. I do remember training a bit with Joe Lynch in 1968. I recall how disappointed he was to not make the Olympic team. How is Joe by the way? My wife and I met at the Fosters Freeze across the street from the track. This spring we went back for a visit since we both grew up in Santa Monica. So much has changed. Have fun.

Igy

I'm sorry, but neither Joe nor I remember you.

Michael,

Not surprising. I started running with Coach Igloi when I was 16. During 1968 when i was 17, I was a 9:29 high school 2 miler. Coach would put me with Joe for a set or two when he was tired.

Igy

Sorry, but we don't think so. You must have Joe confused with someone else.

How can you say that when you don't know who I am?

I think you are just one of many trolls.

Nothing special.