I remember Katy Schilly ( as she was when I met her) as the gracious winner of the Bonne Belle 10km in Atlanta GA, she presented the original bell awards after the race and it was a real priviledge to meet her, I never forgot her name, and also wonder how she is doing and where she is now, someone let us know..........
3:08:34! Nice job!
Thanks, but I would feel better about it if I hadn't tripped and hit the asphalt so hard at 19 miles. I think 2:56 would have been very doable since the people around me when I went down all finished in that time range or better. Sigh. Maybe next time whenever that might be.
Sarah wrote:
it was a real priviledge
"privilege"
Why thanks to you Correction I kept looking at that saying hmm I know something is wrong spelling wise with this post...
correction wrote:
Sarah wrote:it was a real priviledge
"privilege"
Sarah:
Congrads on you first winter track race. You still got it. Sincerely, Tinman
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Benji:
Tell us about an interesting anecdote from any race that you ran in a foreign country, please. Thank you.
Tinman wrote:
Benji:
Tell us about an interesting anecdote from any race that you ran in a foreign country, please. Thank you.
My first non-US marathon was in southern France in 1977. My wife and I (this was Barbara; my first wife) were doing a Eurrail pass self arranged tour basing our travels out of a Paris suburb where one of my uncles was living. I had arranged an entry to the Arvert Marathon via mail with an editor of Spiridon (a Swiss/French running magazine). It was a small marathon and I thought it would be fun.
Because of the way we were traveling around, I wasn't really eating the way I should have while preparing for a marathon. The pre-race meal the race treated me too was smoked mussels which didn't help my non-carboloading.
The race started and finished with 2 laps of the 400 meter track in Arvert. I took the lead at the gun and never saw another runner. At about 20 miles my lack of carbs came back to haunt me. I hit the wall. I had the sleepy/hungries and couldn't really think. Yet somehow my body kept moving at basically the pace it run the previous 20 miles.
As I got near the track, a press car 2/3's the size of VW bug came up along side me and asked how I felt. I responded that I was very, very tired. They told me I had a 2 minute lead just as I entered the track. I was so out of it, I didn't think I could run 800 meters and keep my lead.
I won in 2:22:47 with a 2:15 margin. They gave me a glucose tablet and I was fine. Moral-eat smart before the race and trust your body to run even on auto-pilot.
hey Benji
it was truly a pleasure to meet you this weeekend and get the chance to run with you (well, near you for a few minutes and then see you fly by late ;) ) and talk with you at the late post-race party
sorry about your fall, but you certainly handled it with grace and style. i didn't sense any bitterness or anger when you talked about it. i don't think i would have dealt with it nearly as well.
welcome back to marathons!
all the best to you and your wife!
wd
Does anyone know how to get a hold of Benji? Does he share some of his training logs online? Thanks.
he appears here sometimes
he has a running timing service in Boulder
called Runningbears
Search function doesn't always work.
I remember racing against Hugh Torro...and Dan Lasseter,Randy Stroud,Benji,Jeff Gallaway,Varsha,Fidler,Desantos etc etc...fun times...
Benji Durden wrote:
Skuj wrote:
Many point to African genetic gifts. All they had to do was "wake up" in the opinion of many. I disagree with that notion, and believe that it comes down to lifestyle, training, and belief in what you can do. I believe that USA CAN have SEVERAL runners at 2:06 and below, in the future, if as a country, this is what they really want. Lifestyle is the Big One, and that won't be changed overnight. Belief precedes the lifestyle change, perhaps, and it's hard to convince "white people" that they can do the things that Ethiopians and Kenyans can.
Also, I'm not so sure that we have embraced "modern training methods for the Marathon" like some other countries. I believe the 2:04-2:06 runners of today train differently than the 2:08-2:10 runners of your day.
I think one of the big difference today is that in my time, if you were a distance runner (i.e. not miler and down), you trained for and ran the marathon. Other distances were just "training races" to prepare for the marathon. Today it seems most distance runners are 5000 track runners first and move up in distance only when they are forced to be the reality that they aren't competitive enough. The best runners don't run marathons until they are older (perhaps too old to really reach their potential in the marathon).
Life style differences do exist, but there really is not much chance that can be changed.
My final thought is going to be controversial. I don't think that "modern" training methods are that different form 20 years ago. I haven't embraced 2:04-2:05 marathons as being possible without EPO and/or steroids with any training method (or 26:30 10K's either for that matter). I believe that we can have several 2:07-2:09 marathoners if the marathon becomes a higher priority, but it is hard for me to believe that we will ever see much faster times clean.
+1
Benji Durden wrote:
Wello wrote:
Meb has run 27:13 for 10k, with your metabolism that would bring him down to 2:05 for the Marathon in an ideal race, so do you say Meb must be a drug cheat?
I wouldn't accuse Meb of being a drug cheat, but I don't see him with a 2:05 yet. Marathon times are not easily predicted from 10K's so I can't guess his potential. He may be that good, but Arturo Barrios never ran under 2:08 with his 27:08 speed and half marathon hour run.
Maybe Tergat and Italian based kenyans and Dutch based Ethiopians aren't up to something. It is still hard for me to accept that they never seem to get tired except when the drug testing is supposed to be very good (though I admit this doesn't explain the track times in the WC and Olympics for Bekele et al).
As for Shorter, yes he was a track runner, but his strength was the marathon and his income came in large part from road racing. Salazar was the beginning of the current phase in distance running though his roots in Boston had a heavy marathon influence. Though he was a track runner, he and Shorter were both known as marathoners.
My point wasn't that American runners have to leave the track to see better marathoners; it was the marathon now gets track stars after they have exhausted their track careers, if then. Even the 10,000 seems to mostly get the guys who can't run under 13:40 for 5K anymore (with a few exceptions of course). We need guys that can run 13:10 in the 10,000 and Meb should have more sub-27:40 guys with him in the marathon. Then we can compete (especially if the testers are obvious at the races).
+1
Benji Durden wrote:
Skuj wrote:
Many point to African genetic gifts. All they had to do was "wake up" in the opinion of many. I disagree with that notion, and believe that it comes down to lifestyle, training, and belief in what you can do. I believe that USA CAN have SEVERAL runners at 2:06 and below, in the future, if as a country, this is what they really want. Lifestyle is the Big One, and that won't be changed overnight. Belief precedes the lifestyle change, perhaps, and it's hard to convince "white people" that they can do the things that Ethiopians and Kenyans can.
Also, I'm not so sure that we have embraced "modern training methods for the Marathon" like some other countries. I believe the 2:04-2:06 runners of today train differently than the 2:08-2:10 runners of your day.
I think one of the big difference today is that in my time, if you were a distance runner (i.e. not miler and down), you trained for and ran the marathon. Other distances were just "training races" to prepare for the marathon. Today it seems most distance runners are 5000 track runners first and move up in distance only when they are forced to be the reality that they aren't competitive enough. The best runners don't run marathons until they are older (perhaps too old to really reach their potential in the marathon).
Life style differences do exist, but there really is not much chance that can be changed.
My final thought is going to be controversial. I don't think that "modern" training methods are that different form 20 years ago. I haven't embraced 2:04-2:05 marathons as being possible without EPO and/or steroids with any training method (or 26:30 10K's either for that matter). I believe that we can have several 2:07-2:09 marathoners if the marathon becomes a higher priority, but it is hard for me to believe that we will ever see much faster times clean.
Benji was way ahead of his time! He was training heat 45 years ago… I remember some of these old.
I think he did all/most of his workouts with multiple layers.