At long last, I've been indirectly accused of doping. A life ambition achieved! (Just kidding.)
For the record, I DID improve a lot from Boston in April, 1968 (2:22:xx) to Fukuoka in December (2:14:xx). One race was warm, sunny, early in year, tough course, and I had to do all the leading the second half. The other, Fukuoka, was December, cloudy, cool, with a group of studs running steady 5:00 pace from the get-go. I simply tucked in with the pack, and hung on as long as I could (25K). I finished fifth overall. Winner Bill Adcocks ran negative splits to a 2:10:48.
At the time, I was running many New England 10 mile to 20K road races at sub 5:00 pace. I had a 2-mi best of 8:45. I finished sixth two times in what would now be considered the D I NCAA XC.
I didn't set a ridiculous WR. Chepngetich did. Nuf said.