Not nearly as good, however, as "The Unforgiving Minute" by Mr. Clarke himself. There are also some great pictures in that book of the "Ferny Creek Gang" busting it out up in the Dandedong Hills. Looks like a great place to train.
Not nearly as good, however, as "The Unforgiving Minute" by Mr. Clarke himself. There are also some great pictures in that book of the "Ferny Creek Gang" busting it out up in the Dandedong Hills. Looks like a great place to train.
Jack, are you running the Brighton 10k next week? Is Joe gonna be defending his title?
Ryun on rubberized tracks was not the Ryun of cinder tracks. Everything was on cinders until 1968, post-mono.
Ryun's 3:55.3 as a senior in HS beating Snell was on a rubberized track, in San Diego, 1965.
tunes:
>Ryun's 3:55.3 as a senior in HS beating Snell was on a rubberized track, in San Diego, 1965.<
You are a glutton for punishment:
http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/general/ryun/installment_01.pdf
Clayton's a great example for today's runners of hard training, but probably not smart training. He has been quoted as saying 'If I had my competitive career to run over again, I would change some of my attitudes to injuries. I would show them more respect. Because, after all, injuries weren't some unknown barrier I was trying to break through. Injuries were simply my body telling me that something wrong was happening'.
His record in major international races was not good. Perhaps he overtrained to the point of injury or simply did not know how to peak. (He was self-coached.) Or maybe it was just an Aussie thing. Ron Clarke would break world records and also did not do well in major races. He would train the same way all year.
Clayton major championship races:
1968 Olympics - 7th (2:27)
1970 Commonwealth Games - DNF
1972 Olympics - ? (not in the top 8)
1974 Commonwealth Games - DNF
Have you ever run on grasstex? It's not really the sort of surface people mean when they say a synthetic track is a second or two faster per lap than a cinder track. I'd go as far as to say grasstex is the worst surface I've ever raced on and that's what the San Diego track was.
But even if it was a good surface, you're using his performance as a high school runner as a reference point. His best races were in his best years, 1966-67, and all on cinder.
Going back to the original post giving a sample week of Clayton's training, I'm a little confused. Here are just his hard workout's for the week:
mon: 15mi hard
wed: 10-15 all out
thu: 15 fast
sat: 22-25 hardest run of the week
sun: (17 easy a.m.) p.m. 10 mi flat out
I want to know what the difference between "flat out", "all out", "hard", "fast", and "hardest run of the week" is. I don't doubt the overall mileage of around 150miles for the week. But I don't see how this could be in any way a typical week for any sustained length of time. It sounds like 4 or 5 race or near-race efforts of 10-25 miles. I know readers get all offended when someone dares to question the training of the gods, but come on, do you really think anybody, 2:08 marathoner or not, can take that much of a beating?
TomM say:
>I want to know what the difference between "flat out", "all out", "hard", "fast", and "hardest run of the week" is<
I agree, he does not really specify. I think that is the beauty of it. Through trial and error he found what he hoped would work out best for himself. He gauged his effort.
To give you an idea, he ran a 2:17 marathon in warm weather only 11 days before his 2:08. He had a remarkable abilty to recover mainly due to the ferocity with which he prepared. More runners need to throw caution to the wind and just pound it. What have you got to lose?
He admits that at times he was his own worst enemy not resting when he should have, but he accomplished a great deal.
The week that I posted was at the "beginning" of a 10 week period and not his highest/hardest week.
He ran as much as 200m in a week in some of these buildups.
keep in mind those descriptions are Clayton's, from his training log. I don't find it hard to believe those are actual descriptions of his percieved effort. That's not to say the pace is actually that fast (relatively speaking). I could see him describing 5:45 to 6:00 pace as very difficult given his cumulative fatigue. As far as training like this for any sustained length of time... he apparently didn't given his injury and surgery descriptions. Nowadays, some coach or physiologist would use different language to describe effort. Clayton was like an Eskimo, he had a lot of different words to describe the same thing. (and he wasn't talking about snow)
TomM wrote:
I want to know what the difference between "flat out", "all out", "hard", "fast", and "hardest run of the week" is.
Clayton was quite prone to exaggeration.
I met him once and he said about 50 times that he loved potatoes.
But he wasn't eating any at the time.
Hodge you sure do have a lot of excuses.
Barney Burner wrote:
keep in mind those descriptions are Clayton's, from his training log. I don't find it hard to believe those are actual descriptions of his percieved effort. That's not to say the pace is actually that fast (relatively speaking). I could see him describing 5:45 to 6:00 pace as very difficult given his cumulative fatigue.
Obviosly you haven't ever put in the kind of sustained mileage Clayton did. If you'd had you'd know that 5:45-6:00 pace is hardly an effort at all. Culmulative fatigue? Did the Penguin tell you that?
The human body is capable of amazing things. Just because you haven't tested the limits doesn't make your reality our reality.
Get out and run some.
OK, Malmo, so 5:45-6:00 pace is hardly an effort at all for really high mileage guys like you and Clayton. So what does constitute a hard effort for you guys? 5:00 miles? 4:00 miles? It would seem reasonable that for someone who found 5:45-6:00 pace easier than easy, running "hard" or "flat out" or whatever would at least mean 4:45 to 5:00 pace. So he was doing 5 runs a week at this pace, or a total or 70-80 miles or so at that pace? I wouldn't go so far as to say it's impossible, but it seems that somebody capable of that would run faster than a 2:08 marathon.
TomM wrote:
Going back to the original post giving a sample week of Clayton's training, I'm a little confused. Here are just his hard workout's for the week:
mon: 15mi hard
wed: 10-15 all out
thu: 15 fast
sat: 22-25 hardest run of the week
sun: (17 easy a.m.) p.m. 10 mi flat out
I want to know what the difference between "flat out", "all out", "hard", "fast", and "hardest run of the week" is. I don't doubt the overall mileage of around 150miles for the week. But I don't see how this could be in any way a typical week for any sustained length of time. It sounds like 4 or 5 race or near-race efforts of 10-25 miles. I know readers get all offended when someone dares to question the training of the gods, but come on, do you really think anybody, 2:08 marathoner or not, can take that much of a beating?
Right TomM. You've established on the Lindgren thread that no one actually really did anything in the old days. So please leave us to fantasize about how guys back then managed to produce excellent times on short road courses and tracks without doing very much training.
Actually you're wrong. I think that overall, there were probably more guys willing to work hard back in the "old days" than there are now (at least among Westerners). Just because I don't believe Lindgren did 350 mile weeks and a weekly 88mile long run as a HS senior doesn't mean I don't think he trained hard. I'm sure he did. I also am sure Derek Clayton trained hard. I even buy in to some degree that these guys were "maniacs", willing to lay it all on the line in training every day, etc etc blah blah blah. There just comes a point where you have to question things. I mean, if Clayton said he used to run a daily 50-miler at 5:00 pace, would you believe him? If not, why? The point is that I think no matter how mentally tough someone is, there are physical limits to what they can accomplish, and also that training claims can become so exaggerated that you start to ask the question "why weren't they better, then?"
And anyway, I wasn't really disputing Clayton's claims, I was more just questioning the terminology he used to denote how hard he was running. I was really just throwing out the question, "how hard was "hard" in Clayton's training?"
malmo - no, I haven't been able to sustain the mileages Clayton did. but I have been able to sustain 140mpw for months on end for about 8 years(in the 80's). I suspect you haven't done nearly the mileage either otherwise you would know in your heart that culmulative fatigue tends to show up around Monday or Tuesday when you've run over 50 miles hard during the weekend. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and not consider you a liar, perhaps you just misinterpreted my comments. I'm very comfortable knowing I've tested the limits of my human body. I suspect I've done so more than you have but "my reality" is not as egocentric as yours. Cheers mate.
... and I don't get off by bashing the Penguin, I just ignore him. Maybe you could learn a little from me.
Clayton was 13th in Munich 2:19:49
In Mexico City he fought the altitude.
In the 74 Commonwealth Games he was suffering from bronchitis.
TomM (et al.) "Hard miles"? given that Malmo's track times are quite similar to mine - I'm thinkin that his workout deal was in same ball park. so, as is my (whatever) ...
There were a few times I remember 'timing' the end (2-2.5miles)of 10-14 milers - that we ran 9:20s - timed / measured. I also know there were a few instances (untimed) that I am sure we were going faster than that the last 3 m or so. And even a fewer times (handful) that 15 or so miles were run (an estimate) @ 5 min pace. these actually ended up being unplanned time trials - that I pushed myself absolutely as hard as I could go - for as long as I could sustain - Some I would very much like to know what I ran - time/distance. Given the company I'm quite sure some of my PRs would have been dif (woulda coulda shoulda)
Likewise there were other times when 6 min was a gutbuster.
I would say normal 'fast' mile pace was (for me) 5:15ish +/-. all of this occasionally by design, other times by default. Memory recalls a pretty good ride tho.
All variables of my running deal was manipulated a bunch, depending - no surprise I think. And my career' was quite brief compared to most on this board - 1 yr post college.
my story stickin to it.