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

track dude wrote:

If anyone wants to see what the depth was like in the late 70's or early 80's, check out the results of the Maryland Marathon and keep in mind the course was anything but flat. The top 339 finishers broke 3 hours. Compare that to any of the current regional marathons and you get the point.

Track dude, did you run that year (1980)? I watched it at Satyr Hill. It was a perfect day, eventually got up into the 60s (early December). I got so amped up I went home and put in a 25.5 miler to start off a 177 mile week.

No, I was only 6 at the time but my dad ran it.

Is it true that back in the 70's Bill Rodgers believed that Garry Bjorklund's 2:13:46 was the best marathon ever run, given the conditions of the course?

Johnny Rotten wrote:

Can anyone here vouch for the accuracy, in general, of road race courses from the era of the Running Boom? Now, of course, we have certified courses that we can reasonably assume are accurate (if run as certified). When did that begin?

I ask, because when you look at road race results from this era, when I first began running, you find many, many small 5K's or 10K's being won with relatively fast times--under 15:00 or under 31:00. Were so many runners of that time really that much faster, or did they merely race more (and faster) than your garden-variety elite of today?

Were a lot of those times run on short courses?

Not trying to cause an argument, although undoubtedly we'll get one. I'm just curious.

Thought it might prove helpful to bump the original query to the end here. We've had some measuring heavyweights chime in here: Pete Reigel, Alan Jones & Chess Club president David Katz.

I've had my say about 70's & 80's course accuracy on pg 1: courses during the first Running Boom, for more than the most part, where short. Compared to the # of races available back in the day, the # of certified courses couldn't have been better than 10%...leaving you w/a ton of short & a handful of long courses.

I'd say the upswing in certified courses really got going in the mid-80's, at the same the SCPF was adopted and a few other loose ends were tightened. I'd guess that for every certified course in a community currently, there are 4 that aren't. That, my friends, should make you wonder a bit about one of the most basic tenets of racing: running the advertised distance.

All of my PR's were set long ago during the period in question...and I feel uneasy because of this. The PR's fall pretty much in line w/my fitness level based on training but...heck, I can't say for certainty those PR's are verifiable. I think I did...but did I really run that fast?

Whilst it may well be the case that many road race courses were not that accurately measured in the 80s (and 70s), isn't it also the case that guys in the 80s just trained a lot harder (and with greater abandon back then). It was the 'throw the eggs against the well theory'. If you didn't break, you'd adapt to the stressors and run very well.

Some posters on this thread have stated that there were 200+ sub-2:20 marathoners in a random year in the 80s. Stating such stats adds nothing to this discussion, since the length of those marathons is the very thing that is under a cloud of suspicion.

But the great depth in 5K and 10K running in the '80s would tend to lend support to the theory that the recent proliferation of USATF-certified courses in the last 15 years cannot, or should not, account for the decline in performances.

I have at my disposal a decade or so of Athletics Weekly magazines. I picked up the first issue I found that had the UK rankings (1985). The drop off in depth over this 21-year period is quite staggering.

A comparison of 1985 and 2006 UK rankings:

3000m S/C

Time..........Athlete...................Rank....Time........Athlete

8:13.50....Colin Reitz.................1.......8:28.43....Adam Bowden

8:34.77....Kevin Capper.............5.......8:43.86...Luke Gunn

8:46.97....Nick Peach................10......8:47.86...James Bailey

8:55.67....Gordon Russell.........20......9:05.02...Chris Warburton

9:00.0......Geoff Wightman.......30......9:18.28...Adrian Holliday

10,000m

Time..........Athlete...................Rank.....Time.........Athlete

27:53.91...Steve Jones................1.......28:32.92...Andrew Lemoncello

28:42.01...Mark Scrutton............5.......29:41.77...Gavin Thompson

29:05.9.....Martin McLoughlin....10......30:07.11...Richard Kay

29:20.6.....Graham Smith...........20......30:50.16...Neil Burton

29:36.42...Mike McLeod.............30......31:42.04...Louis Jones

I wonder whether the curve went in the other direction for Africans.

Wait. Duh.

I been everywhere man wrote:

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.

Good to know, I'll take your word for it. But are you that much slower (in your finish times) than you were in your 20s--not by much, I'll bet. If the field seems shallower than it used to, I wonder if it's because a) road races have a lot more competition now, and b) they were enjoying a bump in those days because of Frank Shorter and Boston Billy.

Incidentally...as to NE races being notoriously inaccurate: I just read somewhere that the Falmouth RR always advertised itself as 7.1mi without ever being measured, and when they finally got an official course certification a few years ago it turned out they were an inch under 7 miles. And this is something that went on for over 30 years before they caught it.

Seth Pecksniff wrote:

Incidentally...as to NE races being notoriously inaccurate: I just read somewhere that the Falmouth RR always advertised itself as 7.1mi without ever being measured, and when they finally got an official course certification a few years ago it turned out they were an inch under 7 miles.

That's not true. Falmouth was always 7.1 miles until road repairs after a winter storm altered the course, it was then that they re-measured the course at 7.0 miles, at which time they lengthened the course to maintain the traditional 7.1 mile distance. They recently decided to go back to the original finishline for some elbow room so the course now stands at 7.0 miles.

malmo wrote:

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?

While I don't disagree that 5ks were few and far between in the 80s, the first one I remember running was in Shelby Michigan, 1981. The National Asparagus Festival 5000 meter road race. I still have my top ten medal. Mostly high school runners, a couple of local runners who were on summer break, (Dave Dumonte, Spence Peterson both of the SVSC fame). I still remember that Dave had on a pair of Nike Eagles, (black and grey) and I had to have a pair!

Fast forward to 1984, I was on active duty in San Diego, my first road race in San Diego was the Balboa Boogie 5k,(I recall a young Marc Davis kicking everyones @ss) my next race was The Resolution run, same course, 5k.

Mandingo wrote:

The other thing I was thinking during my run was not only were the runners faster back in the early 80s but if you ran low 31 then you were only 4 minutes off the world record whereas now there are less guys running low 31 and they are running relatively slower compared to the world record of 26:19.

That's crossed my mind. At some level it may be a huge factor, e.g, a guy who got under 29 for 10,000 meters in 1975 was a minute and half off the record. Today that time is two and a half minutes off the record. But how much of a factor is that for a 30-31 guy? Realistically, a 30-31 guy today knows he's running for something other than a WR. A 30-31 guy in 1975 knew that as well.

I think the sport and the people in it have changed. In 1975 that 30-31 guy was probably just hoping to get as fast as he could and might have fantasized about sub 29 and din't see working on those things as wastes of time. Today a lot of people seem to think that if you don't have a chance at a national team you're wasting your time, so you don't run 100 mpw anymore to try to get from 31 to 29.

I'd venture to say that 3 miles/5k was avoided by race directors in the '70s because they lacked the ability to score that many runners in so short a time. The running boom was gearing up and more and more folk were on the road.Peak finishing flow of over ??? a minute would tax the manual score/record systems in use by most regional races so 5 milers became the lower end because it stretched the finishers out more. Runners raced 5-6 miles or 10K while the jogger ran 2-3 miles. As the technology permitted those joggers had a RACE they could graduate to and off they went went talking to themselve about race pace and PR's and MEDALS to collect.

BTW off topic a bit... but

I remember NYCM gave out a 2 1/2 inch gold medal with a long neck ribbon to the top 100(?) finishers and a 1.25 inch pewter colored lapel pintype medal to the other finishers.

Top 100 finishers on the new First Ave course in the '70s were pretty much all sub 2:32/33 I'd think.

THe other thing I was thinking is that the faster the fields were the faster you had to run to not look like a total loser and the faster fields pulled you along. YOu were driven to run low 31 to be at the back and not look totally out of it.

IF you even look at races that don't exist anymore that were on standardized courses like Springbank Road Races in London Ontario from early 70's to mid 80's. It got guys like bill rogers, salazar, top british , top US varsity guys running the same course for either 4.5 miles or 12 miles I think. Those were some kick ass fast races. The times got slower after the mid 80's. In many ways the real running boom was mid 70's to mid 80's.

In the central Ohio area in 1981 when I was a sophomore/junior in high school, I ran the following races

1-2 mile (fun run)

6-3 mile/5k

4-4 mile

3-5 mile

7-6 mile/10k

1-Hour run on the track

These were mostly small races with 100-200 runners. A couple might have had 500.

Like slaps said, you could run a 10k about every weekend if you wanted to. Now you can pick from 5 different 5k's every weekend.

Wineturtle - I ran the NYCM in 78, my second marathon, and I believe it was the first year on the five borough course (and a "huge" field of 11,000). 2:39.21 placed 181st, so you are probably right on what it took to break into top 100. Very warm day, no crowd control - I remember going up First Ave, you could fit three abreast, max.

Absolutely. There is a long standing five mile race in my town. It's nothing special, just your basic local road race. That's all it's ever been. But there was a year sometime in the early 80s when NO ONE ran slower than 28 minutes. Now it's got the usual range of people who finish in about an hour. Of course the fields are bigger and it's probably a good thing in general. But it does change the complexion of the sport.

Mandingo,

I need to check but I think McCloy's college years were 82-86. His last two years I believe he won both the CIAU XC titles and the indoor 5,000m titles.

Bicentenial race in 1976 was the first out of the park but the course went up East River Drive from 60 St to 77 St using the pedestrian footbridge to exit then up York finally connecting with First Ave in the 90's I believe.Then it got part of First Ave from the 59St Bridge on up with traffic on the otherside and finally all of First Ave was Raceway.

1978 saw a tad under 10,000 go to the line with about 1,000 of them being women. Grete ran 2:32xx and just missed being in the top 100(105th if memory serves) Boston Billy wone by two minutes over Ian Thompson and The Brits took the team (Top3 scorers) Honors by about 1:30. On the domestic side Billy lead Greater Boston TC to the Team title with NYAC second.

Congrats on your race!!

ninetonite wrote:

Mandingo,

I need to check but I think McCloy's college years were 82-86. His last two years I believe he won both the CIAU XC titles and the indoor 5,000m titles.

Hi nintonite,

I was actually standing around with Paul and Steve Boyd at Jericho beach this past december at Canadian Cross. We had done the masters race and we had all run the junior race on the same course 25 years earlier! TIme flies! We were discussing were the finish was and pointing saying it was over there, and someone walks by and tries to direct us but I said "I'm talking about 25 years ago, not today, we already raced." I realized I sounded like one of those old timers I never thought I'd be!

Anyway, Paul won CIAU in 1981 when he was 18 but Shorter beat him in the junior race at Jericho but I think he was getting over an injury. Here is a CIAU link:

He won in 1983 and his last XC was against Ray Paulins in 1984.

I think the first time the ontario guys saw paul was in halifax in 1980 when he won the junior race and we couldn't believe one of the ontario hot shots didn't win.Paul wasn't just good he was good in a very strong year.

malmo wrote:

Track dude, did you run that year (1980)? I watched it at Satyr Hill. It was a perfect day, eventually got up into the 60s (early December). I got so amped up I went home and put in a 25.5 miler to start off a 177 mile week.

How many guys here, racing now, have run a 177 mile week.

"How many guys here, racing now, have run a 177 mile week?"

I once did 105 miles in a week that included a lot of hard runs and I was fried. I know a 2:14 marathoner that does 140 miles sometimes. 177 is another level for sure.