How He Trained: Steve Ovett

For weight, I meant usually true, from what I have seen, not "from my evidence." Because I don't have any "evidence" besides what I seem to find.

This is a great debate and one in which is difficult to resovle. we can't very well go back in time and alter ovett's training.

However, it is interesting to note that Ovett was significantly better than Coe when they were younger. Coe only ran like 3.48ish when he was 17-18 year olds. in my opinion this time does not indicate par excelence. Indeed, it shows great promise but suprisingly slow for someone who would produce world record performances (Cram ran 3.38 at the same age).

it seems clear cut that Coe got the most from his body and the plyo's and drills he did gave him great running economy!!

shame he is a conservative little shit!!

i remember with both cram and coe, that when their training was mentioned it was stated as xx miles a week plus interval sessions ie. 65 miles a week plus interval sessions. in the base phase, that could mean upto 15 miles a week or more if warm-up warm-down was included.

Only a brainwashed weenie is afraid or hateful of conservatives. Then again, your cowardly liberalism is reflected in your cowardly philosophy, which is why you will never reach your potential, you neo-bolshevist fruit. Liberals are closed minded people, hateful of those that aren't, always wanting to revoke the rights that aren't, while agitating for special rights for individuals and groups they can manipulate.

four-minute-mile----thanks for posting the link.

bazza---- thanks for all you offer regarding english running. i lived there, it was a great part of my running life. it offered a different prespective (non US) that improved my attitude on the sport.

i watched ovett and coe run at crystal palace in 1981. coe won the 800 and ovett the 1000, i believe. as coe was about to receive his award on the podium, ovett snuck onto the track to do his warmup. he put a finger over his lips to quiet the crowd but jogged up the homestraight as seb was about to wave to the fans. when the fans saw ovett, the cheering was awesome. there was no question it was

for him, not seb. i think the comment earlier about his "devil may care attitude" was accurate. he was wearing a red hat with devil's horns on it that day in crystal palace.

ovett had a personality that athletes in the sport enjoyed, many fans did too, the press did not.

i have a BBC or ITV video about ovett. it was the year (1982) he hurt his knee running into a church fence. it is great. it was recorded in england and a friend of mine had it copied so i could watch it in the US.

i can't wait for the book. someone please keep us updated on its progress. thanks.

bhagwan

Certainly British male competivenss in international distance running has cooled off a bit since the days of Coe and Ovett (kind of like the US men). Maybe we are drinking the same tea?

perhaps, but i think it is atmosphere and attitude. just reading the posts, especially the non running posts, gives me the sense of non focus currently prevalent among many distance runners of this forum. people did a lot of work. lots of running can not be avoided to be successful. too many people want the shortest, least painful route to success. ovett wasn't afraid of work. or what people thought of him.

bhagwan - thanks for the kind words. I'm just sad that it seems only Americans are interested in the life and times of Britain's great runners!!!

On a slight tangent I found this pretty good interview with Steve Cram, Peter Elliot, John Walker and Ron Delaney here:

http://www.coolrunning.com.au/editorials/1999e016.shtml

includes an interesting story from Cram:

CRAM: I'll tell you a story that is anecdotal about the 1500m Olympic final in 1980. As you are probably aware, Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe were huge rivals. Steve Ovett won the 800m when Coe was meant to.

The idea was Coe was favourite to win the 800m and Ovett was meant to win the 1500m and much to a lot of people's enjoyment, Steve won the 800m. So going into the 1500m final, a lot of us were assuming Ovett was then the big favourite to win the 1500m too because he'd won the "wrong" event if you like and this was meant to be his event.

I was the third member of the British team and I was 19 and took to observing these two athletes at very close quarters. Steve was a pretty confident, cocky character at the best of times and he was quite chirpy when we were ready to leave the Village to warm up for the final of the 1500m. We got in the lift and we went down one floor and we were with Harry Wilson, Steve's coach, and the lift opened and in comes Seb and Peter Coe and I thought, "Well, this'll be fun!". It was like the Waltons when everyone says goodnight to each other. Everyone said hello to each other in the lift except Steve and Seb.

Anyway, we went outside and got on this team bus to go to the stadium and Seb went off somewhere and Steve was like, 'Where's he going? Why isn't he on the bus?' So that was the first thing I noticed. Seb had a private car to take him to the stadium. We arrived at the track early, so we lay down under some shade somewhere. And the whole time we were there, every 5-10 minutes, Steve would say to Harry, 'Where's Seb? Why hasn't he arrived yet? Where's he gone? Where's he warming up?' Even as a 19-year-old, I started to think, 'Hang on a minute, this guy's a bit too preoccupied with the other athletes.'

So we warmed up and then we had to walk down into the depths of the stadium into this call room, which was tiny. There were only 10 guys in the final and we all sat around the edge of the room - no body said anything - you're wrapped up in what you've got to do. We were kept in there for about 30 minutes and Seb came in last after Steve had asked about four times where he was. Seb stripped off to his singlet and he just paced up and down in the middle of the room - he didn't sit down - just paced leisurely up and down the room - very focussed. Most of the rest of us felt like we were at Wimbledon - watching him go back and forth. Steve got up and, at the time, I thought this was great psychology, but it actually worked the other way: you know when you feel in a situation where you feel very insecure or uncomfortable and you want to have friends to talk to.

Well, Steve tried to talk to Seb and at first I thought he was trying to psych Seb out, but as I realised afterwards, it was more a result of Steve's slight insecurity and he said something like, 'Where'd you warm up?' Seb just kept walking. There were a couple of questions from Steve and they weren't answered by Seb, so Steve sat down again.

The point I am making is that Steve had gone from being immensely confident, to allowing himself, in that race, to became very preoccupied with Seb instead of concentrating on himself. I don't think he reacted very well during the race and I don't think his mindset was necessarily the way he would have liked it to be. Seb was exactly the opposite. Someone was going to have to kill him not to win that race. Often psychology is what makes the difference between winning and losing a race.

Another element to consider at the Moscow games was that ovett had a gold medal in his pocket, he said he found it very dificult to raise himself for the 1500, he said he wok up the morning of the 1500 heats with a hangover after a ppretty heavy night with some Irish supporters and his first thought was that he just wanted to go home. Coe always dismissed this attitude until 1986 in Stuttgart when he won the 800 and then found it very difficult to raise his game in the 1500 where Cram easily beat him. He then said he could understand what Ovett had said.

Ovett was a fantastic talent, in the mid 70's he was finishing in the first 5 in the national xc over 9 miles when we were probably the strongest distance running country in the world, Bedford, Ford, Simmons, Black, Foster, Rose, McLeod the list goes on and on.

Interestingly today he has chosen a very different lifestyle to both Cram and Coe, he has retired and emigrated to New Zealand, he is an intensely private man, a good bloke who loves the family life. cram and Coe have remained in the public eye and have both just recently had high profile affairs which ahve been exposed in the press. It seems that they still hanker after the adulation they recieved on the track whilst Thta was something which genuinely never interested Ovett.

Cram had an affair?? I knew about Coe, but didn't know hear about Crammy. Blimey!

with none other than alison curbishley, it was in sundays papers

Flippin 'eck! He's supposed to be coaching her! Cheeky git!

So Allison moves up to the 800, develops some abs and Cram takes a run at her? I'd have fancied Sinead Dudgeon myself, but it's horses for courses I suppose.

Here's the Mail story, I prefered the Express headline: "Love Cheat Cram Does a Runner!" but this one's a bit seamier.

'Mr Clean' Cram runs off with blonde pupil

LECH MINTOWT-CZYZ

761 words

26 May 2003

Daily Mail

1ST

23

English

(c) 2003

THE 20-year marriage of Steve and Karen Cram seemed one of the strongest in sport.

He is the clean- cut former middle-distance runner, now an athletics presenter for the BBC.

She is the mother of his two children and even acts as his manager and spokesman.

Yesterday, however, Mrs Cram was not returning calls when it emerged that her husband has left her for a glamorous athlete 17 years his junior.

Cram, 43, is believed to have begun an affair more than a year ago with blonde runner Allison Curbishley, 26, who is renowned for her revealing outfits on the track. He became her coach two years ago.

Miss Curbishley has described Cram as one of her childhood heroes and told how she used to queue for his autograph when she saw him at athletics meetings.

Sally Gunnell, who is a close friend of both Miss Curbishley and Cram, confirmed they were together and said they had stayed overnight at her Sussex home.

'I have known about Steve and Allison for a few months but I only found out after his wife knew,' said the Olympic gold medallist.

'About six or eight weeks ago Steve and Allison came to stay at my place but they've only been here the once.' Miss Curbishley is known in athletics circles as a vivacious free spirit who is determined to have fun away from the track.

' The word most people use about Allison is "bubbly",' said one friend.

'She is a great, fun girl and a bit of a tomboy. She has always mucked in and been known as one of the lads. She can certainly hold her own in any company and I think it's fair to say she is a bit of an extrovert.' Miss Curbishley, who won a silver medal for the 400 metres at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, linked up with Cram when she decided to switch to running 800 metres and asked him to coach her.

She moved from a house in Bath, which she had been sharing with Welsh hurdler Colin Jackson and several other athletes, back to her home town of Stockton-on-Tees.

Cram's pounds 750,000 family home is 70 miles away in Morpeth, Northumberland.

At the time Miss Curbishley, who competed for Britain in the women's 400-metre relay at the Sydney Olympics, said linking up with Cram had fulfilled a dream.

'It is amazing the circle which life takes,' she said. 'Steve was such a star, one of my heroes and now he is guiding me. Incredible.' Shortly after he became her coach she credited him with reviving her love of athletics.

'There's just so much more enjoyment in what I'm doing now,' she said in 2001.

'I am already looking ahead to next year. It is the Commonwealth Games again and, after a full winter's training with Steve, you never know what might happen.' In fact she had a knee operation and did not compete.

Miss Curbishley has been linked with several other sportsmen in the past, including Olympic swimmer Mark Foster, 1,500-metre runner Johan Boakes and former Olympic hurdler John Ridgeon.

Yesterday she was away from her pounds 120,000 home in the village of Long Newton, near Stockton.

Neighbours said they had not seen Cram visiting her home.

Although he never achieved Olympic gold, Steve Cram was part of the unrivalled British middle- distance running team that also included Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe in the 1980s.

He won the 1,500 metres at the inaugural World Championships in Helsinki in 1983.

In 2001 he suffered heartbreak when his 39- year- old brother Kevin died when out running after slipping and hitting his head on a paving stone.

His marriage has survived some tough tests, including financial pressures.

With injuries seriously hitting Cram's earning power in the early 1990s, his wife's upmarket sportswear and fashion business also began to go to the wall.

Selling a mix of satin-trimmed tracksuits, hand-painted leotards and vivid skiwear her boutique, Breathless, in the centre of Newcastle, finally collapsed in 1992.

It took much of the family's savings with it.

'They came through that intact so I can't imagine what has gone wrong if this is true,' said a friend.

'Steve has a lot to lose by getting the wrong sort of publicity.

'He is a political animal and has made sure his image has always been clean.'

Cram looked a bit rough on the Beeb. Showing his age a bit. Good commentator though.

Alison Curbishley was our Guest of Honour at our Club Presentation Evening, this was before her and Steve Cram became the gossip. I was the only one to kiss her whne she handed out the Trophies, I made her blush hehehe

I was wondering what happened to Ovett cause everytime I see a recent picture of him, he looks like he has liver disease or something while Coe still looks fit....

http://www.times.co.nz/images_features_hp/jwalker.jpg

I did not know that Ovett was involved in a car accident damaging both knees? When was this?

http://www.bloomhill.com.au/kokoda_team.php#steve

Ovett was very much the early developer, whereas Coe was not an early developer. Therefore Coe is bound to be ageing better.

I don't know about a car accident though, he likes to keep a low profile and we don't hear much about him these days here in Britain.

Age

15 2:08(i know at least 10 guys who ran faster at 15y.-

16 1:59 -without regular training)

17 1:56

18 x

19 1:53(wow, after more than 5 years of hard training)

20 1:47

21 1:44

22 1:43

23 1:42

24 1:44

25 1:41

..

33 1:43

Coe didn'train as much anaerobic as everyone thinks, from Nov to March he only did one Vo2max-Session per week, the rest was fast distance running and working a lot on running economy.He did tons of sprints, short hills, plyos, weights and he became more & more efficient, year after year.

During his prime he was flying, he looke more efficient then the best african runners of today.

His 1500m progression was similar with 4:10 or so with 16years and about 3:45 at 19.Progressed dramatically during his early twens.

JonnyO wrote:

Ovett was very much the early developer, whereas Coe was not an early developer. Therefore Coe is bound to be ageing better.

WTF are you on about?