Accuracy of Road Roace Courses During the '70s and '80s

Ninetonite wrote:

By the way back in the day Tinkham was maybe the only Canadian collegian to ever beat McCloy in a college race, I think it was a XC event in like 86/87.

Paul McCloy is absolutley one of the greatest runners in Canadian history. I think his last Collegiate XCrace was a victory in the 1984 CIAU XC champs but I could be wrong. (85 Rice, 86 Halvorsen). However I think that Paul Williams 1980 CIAU XC Champ and Brian Rhodes 1982 CIAU XC champ may have something to say about an undefeated McCloy! Paul may have sat out one of those years and because Newfoundland only went to grade 11 then he was certainly a lot younger.

Adrian Shorter beat Paul at the 1981 Junior XC champs as well but not a collegiate race. THe ontario guys were stunned when Paul burst on the scene the year before winning junior national XC in Halifax. "Who is that guy?"

Okay, late 80's.

The 5K distance was rarely run back in the 70's early 80's except as a "fun run" distance to compliment the real race distance of 10,000m+. Oh yea, they were all in meters back then, no k's.

The times were faster, because overall, everyone trained much harder! Don't try to excuse today's lack of depth to "short" courses. It was very common back in the 70's an early 80's for even the novice runner to log 70+ mpw, hence, there was much greater depth back in those days.

Ninetonite wrote: If you check the Run NS website look for juniors all-time list under 8 miles and I'm there, near the bottom, with a 50:45 for the Wolfville 8 miler aka the Apple Blossom race back in the day (my PB is a 45 and change on another 8 mile course with tons of hills).

They've reorganized their records section and made things damn hard to find, so I can't track you down. That's OK. If you ever talk to Ralph, ask him if he had a running buddy named Pete and he'll be able to tell you who I am.

btw, I got roped into RD'ing that 8 miler a few years back, and was on the race committee for it a couple of other years. The last year I helped out, the Gaspereau bridge was out so we had to pick a new course, which I had to map and measure. If you recall anything about the terrain, the only way to keep the run partly in Wolfville and partly in the valley would have been to make the route even hiller. Hillier! Can you imagine? I liked it, but a couple others balked at the idea. (I wouldn't have been running anyway...)

Instead, we ran it out along the dykes, so it was nearly dead flat. It was on packed dirt - not as good as pavement, but not too terrible either.

Of course at least one guy had to complain that we took away the hills. You can never please everyone! :-)

sebcoe59 wrote:

Okay, late 80's.

The 5K distance was rarely run back in the 70's early 80's except as a "fun run" distance to compliment the real race distance of 10,000m+. Oh yea, they were all in meters back then, no k's.

The times were faster, because overall, everyone trained much harder! Don't try to excuse today's lack of depth to "short" courses. It was very common back in the 70's an early 80's for even the novice runner to log 70+ mpw, hence, there was much greater depth back in those days.

What do you mean they "trained harder"? Give me an example of what YOU think it mean to "train harder"? More mileage?

More mileage? Yes. But there was also not the emphasis on "recovery runs" that has taken hold now. So if you hammered yourself on Tuesday and planned to hammer yourself again on Thursday, you still might get going at a pretty good clip on Wednesday. Most people, at least the faster ones, seemed to race more then than now. This was especially true of the marathon.

You were on the elite circuit, good for you, but indeed there were 5ks throughout the 1980s for lesser beings. They seemed rare in the 1970s, when even 4 and 5 milers were more common and 10k, 1/2 marathon (fairly rare), and marathons were the standard.5ks made an insurgence in popularity in the early 80s, about 1983-84, but they were often the weaker competitive companion to a 10k or 10 miler.They had road race certification dating way back at least to the late 1970s and early 80s.

malmo wrote:

Johnny Rotten wrote:

Uh, there were plenty of 5K races back in the day. I remember running one the week after the state track meet in 1984, in fact. In fact, in the archives of several large track clubs (such as the Chattanooga Track Club) are loads of 5K results, in addition to many 10Ks and other off-distance races.

I've never ever heard of a 5k road race (other than Carlsbad) until the 1990s. How did I miss the wave of the future?

Great thread. Extraordinary how ostensibly knowledgeable and experienced people come out with this stuff. No 5k's in the 1980s? Oh right. Unless of course you were there.

I check the earliest year in nyrr.org's Results database (1987) and see at least two 5k's in there. Then there was MHT Corporate Challenge, popularly referred to as a 5k though in Manhattan it was just a hair under 3.2 miles.

I can hear the back-and-fills already: "Oh, but they weren't serious Olympic-trials-caliber races." "Oh, but they were in the mid-to-late 80s, and I meant the EARLY 80s." So we'll dig up something from '81, and it'll be, "Oh, that doesn't count because that was just done as a junior fun-run accessory to the 10k going on at the same time." Blah blah.

I raced in the 80's and I am still a fairly competitive master now.In Massachusetts in the mid 80's I don't remember any 5ks, and there were tons of races almost every weekend. I moved to Florida in 1987 and almost every thing was a 5k. So I think it depends where you raced. As far as course accuracy New England road races were famously inaccurate. I don't count any of my best races as pr's because you never really knew. Lots of fun races and weird distances though. No doubt the depth of talent was far better then. I finish higher placed in most races now at 45 then I ever did in my 20s, that shouldn't be.

where are they?

i will tell you...

they are all rock climbing!

The accuracy didn't matter unless you were running a time trial. All that mattered then was winning.

Well spoken.

back in the good ol' days there was usually a real race ... 10K, 10 miler, half marathon - where people actually raced, and then there was the "fun run" for the walker/jogger types usually 1mile, 2 mile, or 5k.

Hi JR

Back in the mid-80s I remember guys not wanting to admit that their marathon PR was between 2:16 and 2:20. Compare that to today- I know guys who've run 2:20 and they think they're gods and others agree with them.

As for 5ks and 10ks, I ran a few decent ones with prize money and travel budgets big enough to bring in serious talent. Usually if you couldn't run under 14:00 or 29:00 you wouldn't get paid, and the same runners were running seven faster times on the track. I always figured that if the mile markers seemed accurate, then the course was probably accurate. Back in those days an awful lot of guys were almost good enough to measure mile markers with their own sense of pace. That's an exageration but not much. I mean, if you do 6x1mi in 4:35 with 4 minutes rest, and a week later run a 29:00 10k, you tend to think it's an accurate reflection of your ability.

By the mid 90s guys who'd been barely making any money in the 80s were cleaning up on the pro circuit and running slower. The faster runners were gone, retired, injured, or something. I remember once in the Arb running with a few pros and they were laughing at how easy the money had gotten- as long as they ran in the second tier of races (too small for Kenyan domination).

Another factor- the end of fast runners from Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela. Those guys used to really push the pace at a lot of races. I'm out of the day-to-day news cycle now, but I don't seem to be hearing much about fast Colombians anymore. Remember when the 10k world record was held by a Mexican? I think the biggest factors there include economic difficulty, civil war, and general unrest.

One thing we used to talk about here was the weather. I remember having long stretches of perfect running weather, but then things changes and it seemed that, for a few years, we'd get the worst winters, and then the worst summers. I heard one Olympian call our terrible humidity "poor-man's altitude." It was just harder and harder to get your base miles in, during winter, and then almost impossible to get the speed work done in the spring.

These are just my opinions and I sure don't want to argue with anyone.

Raced a lot on the tracks and roads in the 80s. Don't recall too many quality road 5ks until the late 80s and early 90s. I was looking for 'em because I was more of a 1500-steeple-5k guy on the track.

In regards to the differences between runners of the 70s/80s and now -- I just don't think we knew as much back then and did a lot of stupid stuff. Some of which paid off big time and other stuff that led to plenty of crash and burns. I ran plenty of weeks with mileage between 85-100 mpw (and I thought I was a low-mileage guy!) with two interval days per week, a race and a long run. My "easy" days I just ran how I felt and probably ran too fast on many occassions. Had some big PRs and plenty of bad days as well!

There were just MORE serious runner back then. That's why there was greater depth in performances. Just a lot of guys who graduated from college and kept training seriously without any apsirations of making a living out of the sport. We just wanted to keep running faster. We also raced alot more than guys do today. I remember stretches of racing six out of eight weekends on the roads in the summer. Then trying to focus on racing as much as possible in the fall Xc season, winter indoor season and spring outdoor season. I don't see as many "average" guys (3:44-46 1500, 14:00-20 5k) running unattached in meets like we used to. I used to go out of my way to find college meets that let post-collegiates in back in the day. It wasn't until the 90s that I started going to road races with big fields and started thinking "where did all of the good runners go?"

I sometimes wonder if I would have done things differently if I knew then what I know now about training and physiology or if more guys should be doing things the way we did it back in the day? Not sure, if there is an answer.

I started running in 1980. I started to notice 5k's on the local scene around 1985 when a 5 miler nearby dropped down to 5000.

Between 1980 and 1985 10k's were the only game in town. Every single weekend. I ran 5- 10 road races the summer after my freshman year in High School.

There simply were no other distances raced at that time in mny area.

Today in my entire state I know of only about 5 10k road races all year.

I meant to say 5 10k road races. I can't imagine your average high schooler doing that in the off season but if we wanted to race that was about the only choice.

Everywhere man, I think you might be on to something with the geography angle, I was thinking about that on my just-completed run. As I said in an earlier post, I ran many races between '76 and '85, competing for a club of about 100 individuals, in the Phila area. Both genders, and ranging from that 2:16 marathoner to some very competitive masters runners. For about a year and a half I reported on everyone's results for the club newsletter, and I'll give you the races for which I reported results, every race... this for 1981 and 82:

Collingdale 5 miler

South Jersey AC Loop Race (8.4)

Mike Hannon 20 Miler

Middle Atlantic RRC 10 Mile

Phidippides 5 Mile Run

Prevention Marathon

New Jersey 10 Mile (Cherry Hill)

Lansdale Marathon

Race to Atlantic City (from Philly)

Provident Marathon

Ceasar Rodney Half Marathon (Wilmington)

Penn Relays Marathon

Boston

Nike Team Race (15k)

Phila Masters 5 Mile

Long Island Marathon

Princeton Corp Challenge (10k)

Lansdowne Run (10k)

Radnor 10k

Holy Redeemer Hospital 5 mile

Manayunk 5 mile

Bonne Belle 10k

Broad Street Run (10 miles)

Natural Lite 5 mile

William Penn Classic (10k)

Oxford, MD Triathalon

Diet Pepsi 10k

MARRC Team Champs (8.4 River Drive loop)

Washington Crossing State Park Revolutionary Run (10k)- note that 100 yds short

MARRC Summer Series 6 mile

MARRC Summer Series 4 mile

Emmaus Triathalon

Downingtown 10k

Pepper Martin 5 mile (Staten Island)

Greensburg 50

Sea Isle Beach Patrol Half Marathon (usually about 12.4, depending on tide)

Main Line Mini Marathon (10k)

Polly Brothers Great Phila Race 10k

Frankford Hospital 10k

Dannon 10 Miler

Radnor 5 mile

YMHA Loop (8.4)

Tanamend Turkey Trot (10k- Fanelli in Blues Bros outfit)

Camden 10k

Lower Merion Education Assn 5 mile

Turkey Trot - Memorial Hall (10k)

Phila Marathon

MARRC Champs - 5 miles

Central Park 10 mile

Collingdale 5 mile

Avalon Beach Run - 5 mile

Sea Isle Half Marathon

Main Line Mini Marathon 10k

Medical College of Phila 5 mile

Community Memorial Hospital 5 mile

Atlantic City Elks 10 mile

YMCA Loop Race (8.4)

Hawaii Ironman Triathalon

NYC Marathon

Marine Corps Marathon

City of Camden Street Run 10k

Run Wild for the Zoo 10k

Nary a 5k in sight... maybe that was just Philly... but, again, I do not remember there being ANY 5k's in the area in the 76-85 timeframe... and I was an active racer in a large and competitive club.

Illinois in the early 1980's had a very generous prize money circuit called the Illinois Grand Prix. Some of the races: Steamboat 4 Miler, Oglesby 10K, Monticello's Sage City 10K, Nick's Dolton 10K, Park Forest 10 Miler, Bix 7 Miler, Vertels 10K, Chicago Marathon (then sponsored by Beatrice), Itasca's Octoberfast 12K. I do not remember a 5K race.

The two men's winners in 1983 and 1984: John Wellerding and Joe Sheeran. Women's winners: Marybeth Spencer and Karen Bukowski (I think). Some other money winners included Carey Pinkowski, Phil Coppess, Cindy James, Tim Warneke, Tom Fitzpatrick. Pinkowski used his winnings to go to Hawaii for a vacation.

100

hi peaches