Half of the stuff on here is exaggerated. Clothing and shoes were just as high tech as today in most ways.
Even in the 80's we had tech fabrics.
Half of the stuff on here is exaggerated. Clothing and shoes were just as high tech as today in most ways.
Even in the 80's we had tech fabrics.
stop with the hyperbole wrote:
Half of the stuff on here is exaggerated. Clothing and shoes were just as high tech as today in most ways.
Even in the 80's we had tech fabrics.
Yeah, I'm not sure where all the "cotton shirts and shorts" comments are coming from. Some of these descriptions fit the 60s, not the 90s.
Track and Field News was The Bomb!
The only things more advanced now than in the 90s are socks and watches.
Shoes were just as high-tech then as now, only we've had the ridiculous minimal and maximal things going on these days. Shoes have been just shoes for 25 years at least. And I actually had better running shorts in the late-80s than now. I weigh the same, so it's not that.
Socks have boomed big time. I never ran with socks back in the day, but I would have, if I had so many excellent socks for 10-15 bucks. In 90s money, that would have been what, $8 or something?
And GPS watches are a thing that actually works, but your phone does everything better. We didn't have that, of course. (And too bad, I too said everything was a 7 minute mile, but my five mile courses from back in the day are only 4.2-4.4 on Google Maps now! I guess the world has shrunk.)
The biggest thing about much of the 90s that has already been mentioned is true. Roads were ruled by older dudes with 70s and 80s pedigrees who hammered, and all the younger guys believed was that low mileage was the way to go.
cotton was the bomb wrote:
In the late 90s things like the Prefontaine bonanza (movies, book), Running with the Buffaloes, Dyestat, and HS elites (Ritzenhein/Hall/Tegenkamp/Webb) started the resurgence.
I feel like this stuff changed everything.
Plus Bob Kennedy inspiring white people that they could compete.
crafty and nefarious wrote:
rojo was thin
Wow 🔥
art vandelay the fake one wrote:
American elites were slower. American hobby joggers were faster.
This is exactly how I remember it too. The gap between the two, if any, was tiny.
Training was also more about low-mileage. The internet helped change that with the exchange of knowledge.
crafty and nefarious wrote:
Remember the "New Breed"? Mid 90s marketing of top runners like Todd Williams and Steve Holman, and there were one or two others.
Some Americans also made "remarkable" improvements from age 28 to 35, like dropping 30 or 40 seconds for 5000 meters; from journeyman pro to Olympian. Regina got caught.
The Runner succumbed to Runnersworld in 1989 so, and the latter promised to bring good reading for competitive runners. They lied.
There were only two or three message boards available, and they weren't all that populated.
Trackandfield list serve, where thread messages were delivered as emails.
TnFmedia.com sort or ruled for a few years, and it was a precursor to this place.
rojo was thin
By the end of the decade "A" standards for the Olympics were difficult to achieve, and the US often didn't field full teams because so few male runners were making the standards (ca. sub 3:36, 13:30, 28:00, 2:14)
Something like 6 high school runners ran sub 9 3200 from about 1990 to '98, compared to a dozen or more in the 70s and 50+ today.
Nobody talked about hobby joggers and they didn't serve hot chocolate after most races.
Note that it was a dozen or more per year going sub 9 70s, and up to 50 per year now.
The Nike International line of singlets and shorts was pretty sweet, but only the rich kid on my college team had that stuff. The rest of us ran in cotton t-shirts and long sleeves and sweatshirts, but our shorts were all fairly modern fabrics, and tights and Sport hills and Hind Munich tights are pretty much the same today as they were then.
I ran D III though, so my first uniform in 1990 was a mesh shirt and nylon shorts.
"* Low mileage was a killer. Predominately meant we were way too hot on intervals and speed. Mentality resulted in threadbare results for many folks. Injuries were plenty."
In hindsight, it worked best for me. I tried "higher" slow mileage after I started to run again (old age, past 40) and it didn't do jack squat. Ran anywhere from low 50s to mid 60s in college but the intervals did the trick. I never improved so fast and ran faster ever. If I blew off school work like many on the team, I would have ran much faster. Just didn't get enough rest/sleep to recover from the fast intervals.
I still remember clear as day that day I did 3 x 1600 at 5 min each with 800 jog in between. I don't know if I can even run 2:30 800 all out now.
There is no such thing as tech fabric. It was nylon back then and they didn't give it a fancy name. Now, they put micro holes on Nylon and call it by all kinds of tech names.
Besides Athletic Attic being bough by Just for Feet, entry fees a lot cheaper, training getting a bit more scientific than the 70's or 80's , wait for the Sunday or Monday newspaper to check race results and Eddy Hellebuyck cheating his way to elite status? Not much has changed.
topperharley wrote:
It was the same as now except women had pubes
I giggled.
This is what running looked like in the 90's.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/387201/BILL-CLINTON-AL-GORE-SHORTS.jpg
I never saw anyone say NO CHIP TIMES.
At marathons you had 4:00 runners edging up to the line to get their BQs, because they didn't want to lose 3-4 minutes on the way to the start line. The corrals were zoos.
Sometimes half marathoners get testy, but marathon only events have no jostling at the start line.
When you looked at race results it was Kenyans for the top 7 and other countries for 8-10. Pretty demotivating.
stop with the hyperbole wrote:
Half of the stuff on here is exaggerated. Clothing and shoes were just as high tech as today in most ways.
Even in the 80's we had tech fabrics.
this. running in the 90's was not that much different. big mileage, low mileage, expensive clothes, cheap stuff, enthusiasts, joggers, you name it, it was all there.
big difference: more good performers even in local races. in my club a 10k in 34min was not good enough to qualify for the both top teams, now a 35min runner will be the local hero for sure. a hint of weenie-mentality?
Runner in 70s, 80s, 90s, etc. wrote:
(And too bad, I too said everything was a 7 minute mile, but my five mile courses from back in the day are only 4.2-4.4 on Google Maps now! I guess the world has shrunk.)
Finally an honest runner, props to you! I've seen 10-15 runners start using GPS watches and find out that their courses are much shorter than they thought. But most oldies still claim they run their 100 mpw super fast.
LRC Historian wrote:
No cell phones or iPods, hobby joggers had to carry around big clunky walkmans.
There were mp3 players in the late 90s.
Sara Palin wrote:
I never saw anyone say NO CHIP TIMES.
At marathons you had 4:00 runners edging up to the line to get their BQs, because they didn't want to lose 3-4 minutes on the way to the start line. The corrals were zoos.
Sometimes half marathoners get testy, but marathon only events have no jostling at the start line.
I remember the first time I ran a chip timed race (early 2000s), and thought it was SO WEIRD that I had to tie something to my shoe to get timed. It seemed so sci-fi like, and I remember cracking some 1984 big-brother jokes.
