Whatever happened to BRUCE KIDD, Canadian Phenom in the early '60s? A pre-PRE!?

Back then, I did a 15 to 17 mile run most weeks. Some runs I did with Bruce were probably fast after half way. I often could not keep up for the last few miles. Other times we just cruised along or ran with others and enjoyed it. Running with a club like that can be a real advantage. Except for Bruce and Bill, we all aways had someone better to run with.

In the 70s, in California, I ran 20 to 28 miles most weeks with a 15 miler the next day and with another 4-8 that night on occassion.

I had one of my MOST MEMORABLE races against Bruce Kidd. I had beatten his age-group 2-mile record indoors (8:48 to 8:40) and met him, Schul, Bill Bailey, and others at Compton Relays.

Being a rather dumb high school kid and never having run 5K before I took off like I was in a mile. Bruce had a strategy for that race that involved quick pick-up and just as quick slow downs. The first time he tried to race around me, I thought it was me slowing down rather than him running faster, so I picked up my pace and held him off. The second time he tried to come around he led with his elbow. I recovered and sprinted back around him to be greeted by his other elbow (how could I know he had two elbows?) For nearly 9 laps at world record pace Bruce and I fought for the lead until Bruce fell back with two laps to race and eventually finished last. I kept going until I got to the bell lap, than realized I was out in front of some world class runners. I slowed to wait for them.........finished 4th! (13:44.0)

Gerry,

That was one of the all-time great 5k races ever run on this continent. You all deserve to be congratulated. Schul, Ron Larrieu and the new Youngster, you, all broke the US record of 13:45. Ron, my roommate for 9 years after the 1964 Olympics, ran 13:44 which placed him eleventh on the all-time world list. Weren't those great days? We all had great fun!

Gerry, I am sorry for my error above. As you know Ron ran 13:43 and YOU ran 13:44 on that June 4th, 1964 day. Bruce ran 13:58.8. Bob Schul won in 13:38 which at the time was just 3 second off the world record.

I just noticed that Track and Field News states that that race was the 4th open race of your career. You ran your last lap in that great race in 60.5. You were the first high school boy to break 15 or 14 minutes. You became the 13th best 5K runner in world history in a man's event at age 18! Track and Field News also said that Gerry Lindgren, "led most of the race, a la Kuts"

Gerry,

Do you remember that in that same Compton meet on June 5, 1964 there was a 17 year old high school boy who came 8th in the mile only 1.6 seconds behind winner Dyrol Burleson and only 4.6 seconds off the world record? That is the day when Jim Ryun took 4.5 seconds off the existing high school record. He ran his last lap in 56.2 after running an even paced race.

You and Jim Ryun plus your coaches and 16 year old pole vaulter Paul Wilson (a 16.0 foot pole vaulter) and his coach were together on the front page of the T&F News June 1964 issue.

Orville you have a good memory! It was actually called the A.A.U. Cross Country Championship in '61(i actually have the top 50 results from that race) my father actually finished 14th place overall and second runner on the second place team (Southern Illinois Track Club). the field was not as strong as the '63 Champs, that had Bruce Kidd defeating Billy Mills, Ron Larrieu (Francie's older brother), Pete McArdle and others. In '61: notable finishes

1. Bruce Kidd

5. Peter McArdle- Olympian

6. Joe Thomas (Southern Illinois)- NCAA College Division XC National Champ

10. Pat Clohessey(Houston)- former coach of Rob DeCastella

14. John Flamer(Southern Illinois)- 2time NCAA College Division/NAIA XC All-American, my father and grandfather of Colorado's multiple NCAA ALL-AMERICAN sub 4 miler Stephen Pifer

17. Bill Cornell(Southern Illinois)- 2nd place NCAA mile

18. Hal Higdon- Runner's World columnist/Author

20. Brian Turner(Southern Illinois)- 3rd place NCAA 3mile

23. Phil Coleman (Southern Illinois Alumni)-'56 Olympic Steeplechase

32. Orville Atkins- LETSRUN message boarder

33. Ron Delany- '56 Olympic Champ 1500m

34. Jim Dupree-(Southern Illinois) NCAA champion 800m

Keep the historical messages flowing!!

It is interesting how people remember events in different ways. This is my account of the 1964 Compton race and comes from my log wich was written the day after the race.

"Ran in 6th place for first 1 3/4 miles, felt very easy. Lindgren and Kidd did the leading. At that poin moved up to 3rd for two laps. With 3 laps left I took the lead and upped tempo. My last quarter was in 56.1 sec. Last 188 yards was 22.4.

In my autobiograpy I wrote that coming into the last lap Baillie was back of me and I was thinking where I would begin my final drive. As it was night the lights were casting shadows and around the turn I could see Bill's shadow. As we came into the back straight the shadow disappeared and I made the decision to go.

I regretted the fact that the timers were not giving us lap times as I truely believe if I had known we were that close to the world record I could have easily run three seconds faster over the last three laps.

It was a beautiful night without polution so my asthma was under control and I felt great going into the race. That is after a trainer worked on my back to get a kink out. Stub Evans was his name and he was great.

Three is an audio of the race as a Washington station sent a person to Compton to broadcast the race back to Washington so the people could follow Gerry in the race. I did have a copy and I hope it is around some place.

I'm afraid that you just gave up your amateur status, Orville! Perhaps you need to return that voucher!

Thanks for the post Bob. I always enjoy hearing about your experiences. I have been giving copies of your book to runners from those days I enjoyed it!

old canadian, I'll bet that you are not old. I spent many hundreds of dollars while competing so it is a wash. In addition, all of the road races had costly merchandise prizes in those days. A voucher and a suit is merchandise. Heck I won lamps, electric frying pans, sets of china, watches, a yellow pair of wool socks that had one toe darned, a hassoc that my sister still has, carving sets and much more. I always tell people that I gave the best wedding presents to a new bride in those days. I gave away the stuff and kept the memories.

Thanks for the great post Southern Illinois guy. Hey, I beat Delaney and Dupree and I was lousy at cross country. I do not lift my feet so I fell a lot.

Brian Turner was a teammate of mine when we both ran for Coach Igloi and the Los Angeles Track Club in the mid 60s.

My dad was responsible for getting Oscar Moore to attend Southern Illinois since both were from NY and really good friends. Wow had he been on that team, they would have been amazing. Gerry Lindgren told me that when they were on the Olympic team together Moore "scored extremely high" on physiology tests. I personally know or have met most of the top distance guys dominating in the U.S. today and i respect them immensely but im more intregued by the "older-timers" and what they did without the advances of today technology wise. THOSE GUYS WERE TOUGH!!!

What an amazing thread guys. To have the 'elite' of 1960's American distance running comment here is phenomenal.

As a Kiwi who was lucky enough to hang out and run with the

likes of Bill Baillie and hear the stories of various races, makes me appreciate even more what was done back then. None of this 'pacemaker' rubbish just good old fashioned "Man to Man" Racing.

The likes of you guys and Bruce Kidd were definitely "The Men to beat". There was a lot of respect by our guys back 'in the day'.

I can still remember sitting with an ear to the radio as Murray Halberg ran that 3 miles at Perth. I believe he had 3 million Kiwis pushing him along that day.

As for 1964, the names of Lindgren and Schul were thrown into the mix and of course Billy Mills.

New Zealanders really 'sweated' on what was going to happen at Tokyo and how our guys were going to handle it all.

Of course History does not need repeating.You guys wrote it !!

Please keep up the posts.

Orville, thanks for all the great info. I have a couple of questions for you.

Did your training vary throughout the year, or was the sample week you described pretty typical of the whole year, in terms of the amount of interval work?

How did you decide to focus on the marathon? (I think you said that the marathon was your preferred race distance, but please correct me if I'm wrong)

Threads like this that appear every half year or so make it tolerable having to wade through the typical crap that appears on letsrun on a daily basis. Thanks to all the older elites on this thread for sharing.

georun wrote:

To veer off the subject a bit, I have a good friend here in town, Ab Morton, who was the Canadian Marathon champion in 1947. He was a 2:32 marathoner and is now 91.

Wow.

Pete,

In my training post on page 4 I tried to indicate that we divided the year into the four seasons. We did Summer, Fall, Spring and Wlinter training. Most involved repetitions ar interval training.

When I began training with Coach Foot, Bruce was 16 years old and I was able to handle most, if not all, of his workout. We would start out to do a particular workout with several runners in our group. As the workout progressed some runners would drop out as planned or not always intentionally. As the months went by and our shape improved, the number of repetitions and the speed increased. Then the time came when I could not handle Bruce's improving strength and especially his speed. I think I remember running repeat miles during which we ran, lets say 75 or 72 second quarters for three laps. I would steel myself to run the last quarter faster. Bruce would run many seconds faster and I would run what I could. I remember finishing long repetition workouts with Bruce and I holding raised hands as we crossed the finish line in glee. Eventually I did many of my own workouts, often with others in my group. The quality of Bruce's workouts became too much for me and I gradually took to the roads more and more (especially in the winter).

I just came across my workout from Monday, August 8, 1960. It was "8 x 1 mile with 880 jog-Relaxed-5:11, 5:17, 5:10, 5:05, 5:05, 5:03, 4:57.6 and 4:57.8)" That must have been with Bruce.

Although I never accomplished much in the sport, I grew up as a track coach's kid and there were always copies of Track & Field News on our end tables when I was growing up in the 60s. It was at this time that I developed my love for the sport, and being privy to a thread like this brings back some wonderful memories. I feel like a wide-eyed baseball fan having stumbled upon a roundtable in a room full of Hall of Famers.

Southern Illinois Guy wrote:

6. Joe Thomas (Southern Illinois)- NCAA College Division XC National Champ

Was this Joe Thomas from Uniontown High School in Pennsylvania?

That's him !! you know him?

Bottom picture on the left.

http://www.serjracing.com/