60 years ago today, the world record in the men's 5000 was.....

rojo · 2025-01-16T16:50:29-05:00

[i]On January 16, 1965, Australian middle-distance legend Ron Clarke made history by breaking his fourth world record. This time, he took down Vladimir Kuts’ long-standing 5000m mark by a fifth of a second with a time of 13:34.8. Clarke’s time was set on a grass track in Hobart, Tasmania, where he dominated the race from start to finish, almost lapping all of his competitors. At the time, Clarke was no stranger to the world record books. Already holding the records for the three miles (13:07.6), six miles (27:17.8), and 10,000m (28:15.6) distances, he became the first athlete since Finland’s Taisto Maki (1939-42) to hold all four records simultaneously.[/i]https://athleticsweekly.com/blog/60-years-on-ron-clarkes-world-record-breaking-year-1039996422/PS. He'd end up setting 11 WRs that year, eventually running 13:25 that year.

Pro News/Info/Results Distance

Reply New New Thread

Moderation Moderation Information Moderation Information & Rules

Page 4 of 4

1 3 4

Next Last

1 year ago 01/20/2025 5:36pm EST

re: Big Red

Big Red wrote:
I don't know if anyone in the thread has pointed out what Ron Clarke's best WR run achieved: He was the first to break 28:00 in the 10,000. He didn't run 27:59. He ran 27:39. That is INSANE!
Clarke could have been a good marathoner; his training was simple. He ran 10 miles per day, pretty quick. Mostly 5:00 pace. He said he occasionally would do 10 x 400 intervals to keep the speed up. I was a kid in the 70s, and read a book called Ron Clarke: Runners and Races. That is how he described his training. It's not exactly marathon training.
The great Australian visited Emil Zatopek in '65 or '66. Emil slipped Ron a package when he was stepping onto the plane to leave. It was his 1952 Olympic 10,000 gold medal. Gifted to Ron.

Maybe Ron would have been a good marathoner had he kept at it. But nothing about the ones he ran suggested he would have been good at marathons. I'm inclined to believe him.

1 year ago 01/20/2025 7:19pm EST

re: HRE

Clarke revived his career when two Australian runners ( Vincent and Cook?) had been racing in NZ and were absolutely crushed by the NZ They asked the NZ guys what they were doing in training and learned about the long, not too hard running. Clarke started running with Vincent and Cook and really came into his greatest form.Lydiard once said that Clarke was the greatest distance talent he had ever seen.

1 year ago 01/20/2025 9:31pm EST

re: a pain in the weltschmerz

a pain in the weltschmerz wrote:
Clarke revived his career when two Australian runners ( Vincent and Cook?) had been racing in NZ and were absolutely crushed by the NZ They asked the NZ guys what they were doing in training and learned about the long, not too hard running. Clarke started running with Vincent and Cook and really came into his greatest form.Lydiard once said that Clarke was the greatest distance talent he had ever seen.

Arthur told and wrote about this story a lot. I've checked it out with both Ron and Trevor and neither of them remember that sort of thing happening. By the time Trevor and Tony Cook were on that trip the group they and Ron trained with had gone from imitating Zatopek's training, fairly slow reps with fairly quick recoveries, to steady runs. Trevor told me they told Arthur that's what they were doing and Arthur told them it was fine.

What they were doing was running for about an hour at a horse track each day after work. It was a bigger group than just Ron, Trevor, and Tony. Everyone started out together and easily then picking the pace up during the run.

1 year ago 01/21/2025 12:48pm EST

re: HRE

Lydiard must have been prone to what Tolkien describes in Farmer Giles of Ham..

"The tale grew in the telling"

1 year ago 01/21/2025 9:47pm EST

re: a pain in the weltschmerz

a pain in the weltschmerz wrote:
Lydiard must have been prone to what Tolkien describes in Farmer Giles of Ham..
"The tale grew in the telling"

Arthur was not above massaging the truth a wee bit to make a point. But I think it's also possible he misunderstood what Trevor and Tony said to him or just remembered it somewhat incorrectly.

1 year ago 01/21/2025 10:03pm EST

re: RonClarke

RonClarke wrote:
Kids Are Soft These Days wrote:
With super shoes, modern tracks, and pace lights, Clarke’s performance would be an 11:56.79 today.
Ron Clarke was time trialer that never won gold.

Yeah? What did you ever do?

1 year ago 01/22/2025 1:58am EST

re: Man Moth

Man Moth wrote:
Ruxton Towers XC wrote:
I upvoted you because you are correct. My numbers were off.
My thesis was that a mid-distance guy from 1980 would still be running in the Olympic Final and the Diamond League with NO changes to their training. They put on the super-shoes and they run on the super tracks. They are instantly competitive.
Whereas the 5000m and 10,000m guys would be exposed. Running 28:09 in the 10km would look stupid compared to Nico Young and Grant Fisher's times (for example).
The improvement in the long distances has been much greater than in the middle distances is what I was trying to say.
Aside from technical innovations, I think the proliferation of threshold training is largely responsible for this.
And I'm not talking about double threshold, though that has obviously helped recently.
However, when I started running in the mid-2000s, no one was doing any sort of threshold training at all in Australia. Some may have been doing in in the US, but it didn't get talked about a lot, and it wasn't a weekly/twice weekly staple like it is today.
From reading the books of a lot of the top guys in the 70s and 80s, it's clear that they ran a lot of mileage, did lots of short fast intervals, and the occasional "hard" 10 miler, but they weren't doing any kind of formalised threshold training.

Having run with Rob (Deek) towards the end of his career here are few things I found: Wednesday was always a solid 16-18k run. On Saturdays surging hills but threshold in there as well.

I remember going for a morning run with him over 8-9k and by the last few k's we were running 3:05-3:10pace.

In reading Ron's book as a junior very interval based but when he returned to running at the age of 23 most of his training was on the caulfield racing track knocking off very hard continuous runs.

A great athlete.

1 year ago 01/22/2025 4:20pm EST

re: HRE

I would guess that a lot of runners and coaches were asking Lydiard a lot of questions after the performances of the local boys he coached in the Rome and Tokyo games.

I was lucky enough to go for runs Kenny Moore once, and Frank Shorter once. I was full of questions for both while we ran.

1 year ago 01/22/2025 6:38pm EST

re: RonClarke

RonClarke wrote:
WhoHadWR wrote:
Ron Clarke was great time trialer who set 17 WRs. He won a Bronze medal in the Olympic 10,000m.
Fixed it for you. You're welcome.
Half of his world records are in imperial distances that are never contested today. Also, breaking a record multiple times shouldn’t count because anyone can take half a second off and call that another WR. It is basically only 1 or 2 rather than 5.

Kind of like Mondo in the pole vault...

Page 4 of 4

1 3 4

Next Last

What People Are Talking About On LetsRun

No top threads at the moment. Check back soon.

Reply Replying to

Username

Password

Leave the password field blank to post anonymously.

Post Preview

By posting you acknowledge that you have read and abide by our Terms and Conditions.

Remember me on this device.

60 years ago today, the world record in the men's 5000 was.....

This thread has already been deleted.

You have been subscribed.

60 years ago today, the world record in the men's 5000 was.....

Jump To A Page

Follow HRE

Block HRE

Follow HRE

Block HRE

Follow HRE

Block HRE

Follow coahc

Block coahc

Follow dmob8848

Block dmob8848

Jump To A Page

This thread has already been deleted.

Reply Replying to

You have been subscribed.