What was it like being a 1990s runner?

Letsrun was only about fve years behind in UI.

I'll tell you this much. Where I live, in New England, there were fewer races. This meant that it was much more likely the better or best runners would be at almost every single race.

And, 5k's were just becoming a rage. But, not nearly as common as today. So, it was more common to see 10k's. And, they had TAC rules before USATF rules for road races. And, one rule stated there was no water to be supplied until "after the 10k mark.." This meant, many times you ran a 5k, 5 mile, even a 10k, there was a good chance there was no water. And , it was fine.

runlongandhard wrote:

We ate steak before every race. Track meets were run on cinder tracks. Racing singlets were made out of cotton material. You got handed a popsicle stick with your place on it when you finished a XC race.

OP asked about the 90s, not the 60s.

ESPN2 wrote:

I'll tell you this much. Where I live, in New England, there were fewer races. This meant that it was much more likely the better or best runners would be at almost every single race.

And, 5k's were just becoming a rage. But, not nearly as common as today. So, it was more common to see 10k's. And, they had TAC rules before USATF rules for road races. And, one rule stated there was no water to be supplied until "after the 10k mark.." This meant, many times you ran a 5k, 5 mile, even a 10k, there was a good chance there was no water. And , it was fine.

Same where I live. There might have only been one race per weekend within an hour's drive of my house (and sometimes not even every weekend), so pretty much every serious runner in the area would show up. I was running my lifetime PRs back then, and I knew I had to come with my game face on or get my doors blown off.

20 years later, I'm WAY past my prime and MUCH slower, but I often place HIGHER in local races than I did when I was running PRs.

Some weekends there are a dozen races in the area, and fields just get really spread out.

I ran high school track from 1996 to 1998. What I remember:

- Our coach would give us these magazines talking about the top runners in the country - Michael Stember, Gabe Jennings, Sharif Karie, Jonathan Riley.

- These guys seemed like gods since they were chasing the 4-min mile which hadn't been broken by a high school kid since the 60's

- Times were a lot slower than they are today. In my small state (CT) these were all good times: 2:00 800, 4:30 1600, 10:00 3200

I'm not even exaggerating here are the State Open results from 1997:

http://files.casciac.org/TournamentBracketsArchive/bot1997open.pdf

1:55 winner / 1:59 6th

4:25 winner / 4:30 6th

9:21 winner / 10:01 6th

Compare to 2017:

http://content.ciacsports.com/ot17o.shtml

1:51 winner / 1:55 6th

4:16 winner / 4:21 6th

9:16 winner / 9:25 6th

- Low mileage training but we didn't know any better, we just did what coach said. It wasn't until years later after reading Letsrun and Dyestat that I found out the real way to train and my age 33 5k was 1:30 faster than my age 18 5k.

MC Hammer wrote:

7. Before the new-fangled internet thing came about, you waited with baited breath for the latest Track and Field News to see race results from three months ago. Nothing like finding out who won NCAA cross country...in January.

That is so true.

I wonder what my running experience would have been in the internet age.

You didn't throw shoes out until they were repaired at least twice with Shoe Goo.

Biggest difference was running fabrics. Everything was cotton. I never saw a tech fabric until '99, and it cost my friend a week's paycheck from his after-school job. Only lined shorts I owned were the school-issued uniform. 100% nylon. Horribly chafing after half-an-hour. Girls probably had it 10x worse. Good thing mileage was super-low.

Watches recorded 8-laps, max. So you'd have to write down your times for 400 repeats on a clipboard. The Nike 50-lap watch in the late 90's was a game changer, even though it was way too expensive and lasted about a year until the battery died, which was impossible to replace. First GPS watch I owned in 2006-07 was ridiculously inaccurate. As a result everyone thought they were faster, and it wasn't as shady to claim a PR on a short course. But nobody ran laps in the parking lot like a moran trying to get to exactly 7.00 miles.

All race shirts were oversized. Not that you'd ever wear them because of the Ultra-heavy-cotton. But you'd have to arrive at 5:00 am if you wanted a Small or Medium. No shortage of XL's. Though you couldn't complain too much because entry was literally $10-15. (I think my first tech fabric race shirt was mid-to-late-2000's, and it was in a $70 race.)

The 5k was the dominant distance, which was cool for High-Schoolers. You could find a 5k every weekend in the summer if you were willing to drive an hour or two. The half-marathon was a rare distance and would get you universal scorn for not running a real marathon.

To register, you picked up a flyer at your local running shoe store and mailed in a check. Any questions were asked by phone. Results were announced, not posted online.

Trail runners wore old running shoes, never $200 trail shoes. Trail races were rare. Barefoot and vegan runners weren't an obnoxious subculture.

Hydration vests and belts didn't exist, and only fruit-cake tri-athletes wore camel packs.

Finish medals were rare, but top 3 always got something (usually small gift certificates).

Athleisure did not exist. On cold runs you could have mistaken me for a hobo.

I did thoroughly enjoy layering a cotton sweatshirt over a long sleeved cotton t=shirt on top and then throwing some Hind Munich Tights (still the best running pants around) or some Sport Hills with stirrups on bottom to brave the low-teens temperatures on a cold January day in Albany.

Different Time & Culture wrote:

To register, you picked up a flyer at your local running shoe store and mailed in a check. Any questions were asked by phone. Results were announced, not posted online.

I remember it well. Those tri-folded flyers were just about the only way to find out about upcoming races. They'd be stuck under your windshield wiper when you returned to your car after a race. If you ran the race last year, they would mail you one the following year. You mailed in a check along with the entry form. "Please write legibly!" would be printed on the entry form.

The really fancy race directors would mail you a postcard with your results 2-3 weeks after the race. I think I still have some of those postcards.

Out of modesty, women would wear a long-sleeve tee tied around their waist to cover their asses. Not so much these days, right?

A lot of comments here about how the hobby joggers then are the sub elites of now. That's only partially true - road races had more depth because there weren't as many races. Also the fattys stayed at home because they knew they were fat, there was no pride in "finishing" a 5k.

There days on any given weekend I have a choice of at least 10 different races to run. I remember Grandma's marathon was friggin' awesome because there were few other options, so tons of people including college kids that weren't even running would come out just to party that weekend.

It was rare to meet another runner away from a race. Now it seems like half the people you meet have done a marathon.

Kinney (foot locker) only took top 8 and there was no NXN to water it down. If you ran under 4:10 in HS you were top 5 in the country. Arkansas was unbelievable. We couldn't send full teams on the track to World Championships in the 10k because we didn't have three with the standard. Bob Kennedy was God, only faster. Most college distance runners trained like milers with a longer long run (sometimes). 14:00 5k was really really good. You knew what was going on by reading a hard copy of track and field news and memorizing the top 15 lists once a month. Nobody knew anything about anybody else. You had to make plans with people in advance and show up on time or you would miss them.

Different Time & Culture wrote:

To register, you picked up a flyer at your local running shoe store and mailed in a check. Any questions were asked by phone. Results were announced, not posted online.

In my area the results from all the local races were published in the newspaper, in little tiny type next to the box scores from the ball games in the sports section. That was how I got my race results. That, and in the monthly track club newsletter.

Ha - I had forgotten about the newspapers printing some of the local race results!

Todd Williams was almost as big as Kennedy at one point, then Kennedy became the be-all and end-all of American distance running.

I ran High school cross country for 4 seasons (92-95) and track for two seasons (95-96). While we raced a lot in school (2 or so meets per week), we never ran races outside of school. Out in the country, there really weren't that many races going on. Now it seems like every little town has a 5 K or 4 miler charity race. I do remember the Midland run 15K race in Farhills NJ which attracted real talent. For a 5 K cross country guy, running 15 K seemed almost impossible and running a marathon was unthinkable.

We had no GPS watches and often times no watches at all. We would use the car odometer to measure out running routes and then look at the clock at the house when we started and finished to get an idea of what pace we were running. We also had no idea how many miles we were running per week. We would start of with a .9 mile par course loop as a warm up, do a bunch of static stretching and foot strengthening drills, then we would do our work out. Workouts were like a race. We were competitive with each other. I remember constantly being sore. On easy days before big races, we would often goof off, play capture the flag, climb up cliffs in the gorge, try and see how close we could get to cows, etc.

Cross country races were like war-we would go out hard, push and shove as a wide course narrowed down to a trail, red line after two minutes, and then try to survive. Coach would call out our first mile time and we would realize we were running too fast (particularly if the first mile was below five minutes) and we would do it again the next race! No GPS watches to monitor pace! Mid to high 16:00s would win most meets, top 7 varsity spots were usually in the 18:00s and below. If you couldn't get below 20 min, you were really slow and had no hope. Sub 16 was seen as mythical. It was fun riding the big yellow buses to meets with the girls team. We ate as much as we wanted at all times, but somehow we were always scrawny.

Late 1980s and 1990s - I found out about upcoming races from Runners World, Runners Gazette (mid-Atlantic magazine), and bigger races would have a rack of race flyers for all the upcoming races.

I measured out my regular training courses with the car, sometimes marking the miles on the road with a dot of spray paint.

If I missed ESPN's monthly running and race show narrated by Marty Liquori then I was bummed out.

Most of my singlets and shorts were bought at race expos. Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers had their own clothing brands which was decent for its time. Also, Sub-4, Hind, and Sporthill.

In late 1980s Nike Air Max was a status symbol before it was commoditized. A lot of shoe companies were experiencing with gimmick cushioning techniques such as Nike Air, Asics Gel, and Brooks Hydroflow. I loved my Brooks but after a couple hundred miles the goo seeped out of the shoes.