malmo wrote:
Looks like a clay track to me? Who knows? Mr Tubb, speak up!
If you're talking about the track in San Diego where Ryun beat Snell, it was Grasstex, or at least Snell says it was in No Bugles, No Drums.
malmo wrote:
Looks like a clay track to me? Who knows? Mr Tubb, speak up!
If you're talking about the track in San Diego where Ryun beat Snell, it was Grasstex, or at least Snell says it was in No Bugles, No Drums.
gddmg wrote:
HRE wrote:Why does everyone say that Hill couldn't peak for championships when he won gold at both the European Champs and the Commonwealth Games in an era when those meets were second only to the Olympics?
When preparing write ups on the marathon athletes, you come across a lot of sentiment about Ron Hill underachieving. One of the reasons for this perception is that he was considered vastly superior to his peers of the time, however was unable to win the one that counted, The Olympic Marathon.
The Olympic Marathon was considered the Alpha and Omega of marathons in those years, with the Fukuoka Marathon of Japan rated as the next best.
Frank Shorter won in Japan on 4 occasions and the organisers felt it would destroy the lure of their marathon, so they didn't invite him back after his 4th win in a row.
Such was the standard of Fukuoka that in those days winning there would almost assure you of being voted the Marathon Athlete of the year.
Hill finished 2nd there in 1969, the same year he won Boston and The Commonwealth Games .. and for the 1st time [in that period] they voted an athlete marathoner of the year who hadn't won there.
Just a little background to marathoning in those times.
ps.. We are preparing a write up on Hill, thus the reason for echoing the sentiment ... this is how the write up will begin :
The most contradictory statement one could make about Ron Hill is to say "the man didn't win anything". People like to talk about Ron Hill as a person who could have done better "IF"
Yet this very same man was the 2nd person in history to crack sub 2Hr 10, a winner of the Boston Marathon as well as winner of both the Commonwealth and the European Championships. No mean feat.
Yeah, off of the above I believe Hill was the prohibitive favorite in Munich. Shorter had won Fukuoka the year before, but aside from that, he didn't have the credentials of Hill. What he did do was peak perfectly. Running the 10,000 before the marathon really helped him, I believe. Also, perhaps he could concentrate better at the task at hand when other athletes were distracted by the terrorist tragedy.
gddmg wrote:
Les wrote:Maybe Clayton just did not run his best in the summer, when the major championships tend to be held. Some people are just better in the winter/spring marathons.
The 1970 Commonwealth Games and the 1972 Olympics were at sea level so Clayton has no one to blame for those poor performances except, probably, himself.
Often when an athlete trains at a high tempo and continual high mileage they are not able to peak at exactly the right time.
Championship races are the events where athletes with similar talent are all trying to achieve the same goal. Being the best on the day is the secret.
Ron Hill has also been considered to have fitted into the category of not achieving at Championships.
Whereas, if you look at Shorter, he was the ultimate Championship performer and is not known for fast times.
Yeah, and also some world record holders are great when they don't have to worry about any competition, but don't run well when they have real competition - i.e. people as good as they are.
I've thought I've heard of all the surfaces. So what is "Grasstex", green clay?
SD - Balboa Stadium - ran on it a few times (3-4-5, and I don't recall it being 'fast') - pretty sure it was that 'grasstex'. Black and shredded tires. As I recall it was the first (or near first) move into the artificial surfaces. I think Balboa soon went to the next generation surface. 'Rubberized' was more even than dirt cinder clay. but I'm not sure how much if was actually any faster. - Definitely artificial and definitely NOT clay. I have a pic and a movie of that race (pic at finish movie the whole thing). That rubberized stuff was marshmallowy in the heat not to bad at night. Pic hides Grelle- I think its the one in Ryun book. I'm lookin for the movie (.mov) Memory serves that race was at dusk/early eve. That race, once again, shows how under-rated Jim Grelle was as a guy who was in so many big races, winning some and right there in most all. Dyrol Burleson in that category too, in my book. I saw all of em run but no full appreciation til when I become a 'more real runner'
scroll down to bottom
Movie shows a coupla things - the lines and numbers are not messed up by running (especially the lane on stripe) - even though they are not well defined like tracks now - that's the grasstex (or other) stuff). And no chewed up laned one/inside lane two. And Jim Beatty doing play by play 'color.' When you watch the feet there is no dirt coming up from spikes with strides. And the movie will also not show me, unless you look very closely ... and then still no.
So the verdict is - artificial
malmo wrote:
I've thought I've heard of all the surfaces. So what is "Grasstex", green clay?
It was a short-lived synthetic sort of track. I ran on many Grasstex tracks at Pennsylvania Conference schools. As mentioned, it was a mixture of shredded tires and asphalt laid, I believe, over concrete. It was hard, especially in the cold and it didn't give any of the energy return that say, Tartan did. Given my choice between running on Grasstex and running on cinders, I'd choose cinders unless the cinders had been subjected to either a flood or an artillery barrage in the hour before the race. The one attraction it seemed to hold, other than cheapness, was that it was supposed to give a more consistent surface than cinders, i.e. if there was a monsoon, you could sweep the puddles off and the track wasn't soft and slow like wet cinders could be. But it also turned out that it degnerated pretty quickly and needed resurfaced every few years.
I think it may also have been called an "asphalt composition track."
HRE - now that you mention - I recall getting several bruised heels .... At SD. I have a bro who was a TJr and he (you might imagine) didn't like that surface (SDs). When Bakersfield put in their artificial surface - it was far superior. Have to start somewhere I spose.
And I've looked at the movie again - what a race. If you look verrrry close ...
yo hodgie you come on here every day saying how high mileage (epitomized by the greats of the past) is the key to a quick 'thon. so then what the f*** do you say to LOSERS like Chad f***ing Johnson who run 160 a week and cant break 2:25?! huh?
adam ...mmm say:
>yo hodgie you come on here every day saying how high mileage (epitomized by the greats of the past) is the key to a quick 'thon. so then what the f*** do you say to LOSERS like Chad f***ing Johnson who run 160 a week and cant break 2:25?! huh?<
I say get back on your horse, cowboy. giddy-up.
Dunes shut the f*** up before I bash your f***ing teeth out of your limp wristed, pussy ass, jaw. When you start to make any sense at all we will all start to listen. Until then don't post.
Hodgie-san continue to post great stuff, Thank you!
jzs
"what the f*** do you say to LOSERS like Chad f***ing Johnson who run 160 a week and cant break 2:25?!"
This is dimwitted. How about you go to the gym for a year and do the same weight training as Lee Haney and see if you ever bench 450. If you don't, it isn't the training's fault. It is that your aspirations don't match your talent.
How hard is this to grasp. Higher mileage is the way to succeed in distance running, the way to get the most out of oneself is to actually look for what level of mileage works for you (how many folks claim low mileage is better when they have never made an earnest effort to try high mileage? People will maximize their potential at different mileage levels, but it would seem one should actually experiment to figure out what that is.). If your body can't handle higher mileage, then too bad for you. If you can't handle the training that is required to be great, less training isn't going to make you great either. And if you can't handle the pounding in the race itself, then tweaking your training isn't going to make you great either. Some people just aren't meant to be marathoning. Hats off to C. Johnson for not looking for short cuts and giving what it takes a shot before he declares it ineffective. There is obviously a cuircularly beneficial relationship between being able to handle the training to required race well and being able to race well on race day.
If only we could get the right guys doing the right training.
Anyone know what shoes Clayton trained in? They may have contributed to his injury problems.
Seem to remember adidas. I may be wrong, but there certainly weren't many options.
As a side note: I don't think the shoes had anything to do with his injuries.
Wow! Gravedigging must be someone's trade here. How old is this thread? Anyway, I've seen photos of Clayton training in what looked like addidas Gazelles. I've also seen race photos where it looks like he was in the Gazelle, though I can't tell for sure. I've never seen photos of him in anything but addidas when he was in his prime.
"how hard was "hard"?
I have "hard" written in my ancient log book and used it as a measure of effort rather than speed. I didn't know the exact distance of any loops. I suspect that was the case with Clayton. I also had a characteristic that I think is fairly common. When I trained alone I could never run anywhere near as fast as with others so what I called "hard" alone may have been a manageable pace if run with others so not as stressful as the short hand "hard" implies.
Tom
There was a post on a fairly recent thread, I think it was the one about whether a sub two hour marathon is possible, about Clayton. Whoever wrote it said he had a tape with an interview with Ron Clarke who said that he (Clarke) would only rtain once a week with Clayton because Clayton trained way too hard way too often, in Clarke's opinion. That run was a 17 miler and was one of Clayton's easier runs. I'm just repeating what I've read and have no firsthand knowledge.
word, fact legend, myth has it that Clayton was running so 'hard' on one run that he virtually passed out and ran into a tree. word, fact legend, myth - I don't know - but I know I heard it.
Kinda funny but there was a time when runners just ran 10 miles, 17 miles, 20 miles what ever. No "work-outs", no threshold this and lacctate that. They just ran...