Claytons 2:08

Derek Clayton ran in that in 1969 when shoes, tracks, training, medicine, clothing, facilities, and etc. were not even close to what they are today. There were guys who felt that doing 40 x 400 in 65 would benefit the marathoner in those days!

Also who was running even close to that fast in 1969? No one!

feared the 'tude. wrote:

George Young still medalled. Ron Hill was sixth in the 10, barefoot.

Gammoudi was not actually from altitude.

Tunisia had altitude up to 3, 450 feet. To most people that's altitude baby!

mopak wrote:

Deek had the thickest legs I've ever seen. He was quite skinny in the upper body during his running days. He now weighs 90kg and looks fairly well proportioned at that weight.

He ran 210-220kms a week normally and for many years he hardly missed a session.

English please?

Butch Taylor wrote:

mopak wrote:

Deek had the thickest legs I've ever seen. He was quite skinny in the upper body during his running days. He now weighs 90kg and looks fairly well proportioned at that weight.

He ran 210-220kms a week normally and for many years he hardly missed a session.

English please?

????? Which words do you not understand Butch?

waltertompatton wrote:

feared the 'tude. wrote:

George Young still medalled. Ron Hill was sixth in the 10, barefoot.

Gammoudi was not actually from altitude.

Tunisia had altitude up to 3, 450 feet. To most people that's altitude baby!

It's where you were born and raised that counts , not what the country happens to have.

mo'pak wrote:

Butch Taylor wrote:

English please?

????? Which words do you not understand Butch?

The metric probably. Funny how some ole timers can't figure out kilograms and kilometers in 2018.

I thought this thread was going to be about Clayton Murphy running 2:08 in the 800m.

mark b wrote:

Regardless of the absolute accuracy of that course, it is clear that Clayton was capable of a very quick marathon. his training was at least the equal of any of today's runners.

Regarding his failure in the big Games, I suspect that it is a case of a runner training hard all year round, means he is capable of some outstanding performances but finds it very difficult to peak for one specific race. Ron Hill clearly had the same problem in the earlier part of his international career - read his autobiography for confirmation of this. Ron Clarke, arguably, had similar problems????

There's a new book from Oz called "Australian Marathon Stars" that has profiles of, surprisingly enough, Australian marathon stars, one of whom is Clayton. He says that he thinks big runners struggle more with heat than smaller ones do and that the weather for both of his Olympic marathons was too hot for him to run well.

In Hill's autobiography he wrote that it took him some years to learn that he needed two "rest periods" a year when he dropped to 30-40 miles a week for 4 to 6 weeks. He said those were the most important parts of his training and when he started doing that he improved tremendously.

I've always thought Clarke gets a bad rap for "not being able to win the big one." Tokyo was his first Olympics, there can be a learning curve, and he did come away with a medal. He thought that he would have won gold in '68 had the Olympics not been held at altitude. Of course no one can prove that he was right but the playing field there was tipped a bit. And he's convinced the damage to his heart was caused by racing the 10,000 at that altitude and that damage took him out of the mix for the '70 Commonwealth Games and the Munich Olympics. He said that if he could do things over he'd likely have skipped the Mexico Olympics and aimed for Munich. I think the only glaring "failure" was the '66 Commonwealth Games.

mo'pak wrote:

Butch Taylor wrote:

English please?

????? Which words do you not understand Butch?

Butch is probably from India:

not what I expected wrote:

I thought this thread was going to be about Clayton Murphy running 2:08 in the 800m.

Ditto

HRE wrote:

[ Clarke ] thought that he would have won gold in '68 had the Olympics not been held at altitude.

he's convinced the damage to his heart was caused by racing the 10,000 at that altitude and that damage took him out of the mix for the '70 Commonwealth Games and the Munich Olympics.

Clarke is totally full of it and continuing to make the same old excuses.

He was very simply already in decline in 1968. None of his pre Olympic racing indicated he was going to run well at Mexico City. In fact he had a terrible buildup compared to the two previous years. Check it out. His racing results are listed in detail in Ron Clarke Talks Track.

Clarke always ate a terrible diet, chocolate and all kinds of crap, which is caused his heart problems, nothing to do with running or altitude. In fact the running probably prolonged his life. He's a great fellow and I wish him well, but stop making excuses. The best runners won at Mexico City.

waltertompatton wrote:

Derek Clayton ran in that in 1969 when shoes, tracks, training, medicine, clothing, facilities, and etc. were not even close to what they are today. There were guys who felt that doing 40 x 400 in 65 would benefit the marathoner in those days!

Also who was running even close to that fast in 1969? No one!

Keep in mind when Clayton ran 2:09:36 at Fukuoka in 1967 he sliced 2 minutes and 24 seconds off the world record !!!!! The old record was by Morio Shigematsu from 1965.

That was a real destruction of the WR.

The fact that Clayton ran 2:09 in Fukuoka shows that his 2:08:33 in Antwerp a year and a half later was in the realm of his capabilities.

Of course you'd know better than Clarke what he ate and you'd know more about what caused his heart problems than his doctor who told him that there was a good chance the damage came from the Mexico City race. How does diet cause a leaking mitral valve?

Arguably, Temu might have been "better" than Clarke in 1968. Clarke was ranked #1 that year and again in 1969 in the 10,000. He was also ranked #1 in the 5,000 in 1967 and '68. That's not what a career in decline usually looks like. Temu may have been better than Clarke. He'd been ranked #1 in the 10,000 in 1966 and '67 and #2 in '68 and he had beaten Clarke in Jamaica two years earlier. But he had a big advantage in Mexico City as did other athletes who'd grown up at altitude.

You seem to have missed the news about Ron's death.

HRE wrote:

Arguably, Temu might have been "better" than Clarke in 1968. Clarke was ranked #1 that year and again in 1969 in the 10,000. He was also ranked #1 in the 5,000 in 1967 and '68. That's not what a career in decline usually looks like. Temu may have been better than Clarke. He'd been ranked #1 in the 10,000 in 1966 and '67 and #2 in '68 and he had beaten Clarke in Jamaica two years earlier. But he had a big advantage in Mexico City as did other athletes who'd grown up at altitude.

Mexico City's altitude of 7350 feet obviously had a huge impact on many of the runners. If the Olympics were at Sea Level that year Clarke would have medaled, most likely won the race. As this thread is about Clayton, look at how he suffered in the marathon at Mexico City. He had run 2:09 at Fukuoka and was the World record holder, yet he could only mange a 2:27 at Mexico City.

Most Sea Level athletes did not prepare for the conditions they would encounter at Mexico City. I talked many times to Alvaro Mejia, at the time he owned a running store in San Mateo Ca. and he suffered in that race (10th in 30:10) even though he was from Columbia. He later went on to win the Boston Marathon in 1971.

I also talked to Tom Laris as I used to train with him, and he did a little training in Alamosa Colorado but also suffered in that race running 30:26 for 16th.

mo'pak wrote:

Excuses, excuses `/ wrote:

Clarke is totally full of it and continuing to make the same old excuses.

He was very simply already in decline in 1968. None of his pre Olympic racing indicated he was going to run well at Mexico City. In fact he had a terrible buildup compared to the two previous years. Check it out. His racing results are listed in detail in Ron Clarke Talks Track.

Clarke always ate a terrible diet, chocolate and all kinds of crap, which is caused his heart problems, nothing to do with running or altitude. In fact the running probably prolonged his life. He's a great fellow and I wish him well, but stop making excuses. The best runners won at Mexico City.

You seem to have missed the news about Ron's death.

As well as Clarke running 27 49 for 10000m in 1968 at Crystal Palace under gale-force wind conditions ....

I need to read Ron Hill's autobigraphy.

I read Derek Clayton's book Running to the Top in 1985.

Upon running that 2:08 Clayton was once quoted, "...I was finished..."

meaning the run took an effort.

ExPatBrit wrote:

I often wondered about Derek Claytons 2:08:33. There's no shortage of debate about whether the course was short, but all the ones I've seen end " well, the roads have been rerouted so we'll never know...." Why not? Surely with Google Maps and a '69 street map of Antwerp I would think it elementary to get a pretty accurate estimate. I'm surprised no-ones done it. Have they?

What are the grounds for the debate that the Antwerp marathon course was short?

If it is short, how many metres was it short by?