Did Prefontaine ever win a race internationally?

cool ass video if you havent seen it or seen it recently

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1293197

Actually, just for future reference. Can you please point out where I was being antagonistic? Admittedly, I was being disingenuous when I asked if Pre had ever won a race internationally as well as when I professed to believe that he would have become the best ever. I can see how being disingenuous can antagonize some people.

And I guess any amount of sarcasm is unworthy of this message board. But after that initial post, which I admit was provocative, I think I pretty much stuck to the topic of Pre's legend. I also acknowledge that the stated topic was misleading and therefore counterproductive.

My own take on this board is that there are a lot of really superb coaches and runners on here who probably looked at this whole thing in dismay. But some people might have actually found the Pre idolatry a bit amusing. I know I did. There are also a lot of people who simply like to go on the attack with the least provocation and try to stir things up, focusing on your every word looking for something to ridicule you for.

I don't really mind the attacks, but I do regret the animosity that I apparently created. In the future, I'll try to be more respectful of the fine people on here who use this board as a resource for improving their running and sharing stories.

davebedfordwannabe wrote:

Can you please point out where I was being antagonistic?

davebedfordwannabe wrote:

I can see how being disingenuous can antagonize some people.

Fair enough, Dave. It sounds like you have finally put things in their proper perspective.

Thanks for that last post...no hard feelings here. Let's move on.

Sweet- argeement, no hard feelings, and mutual respect. Points for logic, respect, and cool-headedness!

davebedfordwannabe wrote:

Now here's a true story: I saw Pre drop out of a six-mile race in Dallas in January 1975 that Gary Tuttle won against Shorter, Kardong, Geis, Philip Ndoo (a Kenyan at Eastern New Mexico State who died recently), and others. The fact that Pre dropped out was a slap in the face to Tuttle.

The race was in connection with the famous Cooper's Clinic study. Sports Illustrated did an article of the study and reported Prefontaine's VO2 Max as being off the charts at 84 or something. The article also covered the six mile race, but it neglected to mention that Pre dropped out. (Am I the only guy on this forum who saw Pre drop out of a race?)

I saw that race at Loos Field in Dallas, so I also saw Pre drop out of a race! Many people found out in advance that he was only going 2M. Ndoo apparently didn't know this, as he tagged along with Pre for a couple of laps as he picked it up and left the field behind. I was in the stands right next to the guard rail just in front of the finish line. Ndoo's coach was kneeling directly below me on the track in lane 8, checking splits with one of those old-school stopwatches with a start/stop button at the top and a second hand ticking away (everybody had these), and was writing the splits down on a clipboard. He yelled, "Let him go, Phil; he's only going two!" as Ndoo briefly tried to go with Pre, then drifted back to the pack at his coach's urging. Pre's 2M time was 8:51.8 that day. For him, the event really was nothing but a time trial.

The scientists, in addition to measuring Pre's max VO2 at 84.4 and a fairly out-of-shape Shorter's at 71.2, had concluded that Tuttle was in the best shape for a 6M race and predicted he would win, which he did with a time of 27:59.6. I think Shorter ran 28:19-ish, which kind of disappointed me, as I had hoped to see somebody run in the 26s (maybe even set a world record) and I was young and naive enough to think that either Shorter or Pre would surely be able to do that anytime they chose, and that this race had to be that important to them. But of course most of these guys were not anywhere near their top fitness. They did seem to be pretty competitive during the race, but they just weren't in peak shape and didn't make this thing a priority on a par with a major championship.

If you were from the Dallas area, you might remember a guy by the name of Hank Pfeifle who ran fairly well on the local scene at that time, although he was nowhere near national caliber - yet. Pfeifle got the chance to participate in that race with all those big names and ran in the low or middle 29s for the 6M, which was a fairly decent performance for him at the time. He would later move to Maine and become a very competitive roadie, with times of 28:46 and 45:32 (15K) to his credit, and a 2:20:34 for 21st at Boston in 1980 (Rosie Ruiz's year).

As for the Bedford/Pre thing, both were gutsy, brave runners who punished themselves in training and in races and mixed it up with the best of their era, but weren't the best when it came to championship racing on the world stage.

Bedford seemed so driven that he hammered himself into the ground at times. He also felt that he had to take charge of a race and put people in a world of hurt that was also beyond anything he could handle himself. He often refused to relinquish the lead in races even if it meant making a dumb move. He was definintely not one to let others do the work (he couldn't rely on finishing speed he knew he didn't possess); nor would he settle for a conservative mid-pack finishing strategy.

Pre seemed only slightly more patient, but he just didn't have the opportunities to race his European rivals often enough to become a savvy tactitian against them. His 4th place in Munich, while disappointing to American fans, was actually a very strong showing against the experienced internationalists in the field, a few of whom were capable of the sub-4:00 last 1,600m that Pre wanted to run, and they could accelerate even better than he could over the final 300m. Viren ran the last 4 laps in Munich in 3:59.4, while Stewart ran 3:59.8 to nip the fading Pre in the final few meters.

I always thought writer Erich Segal didn't have much business as a track commentator (little did I know how much I would miss his brilliance - by comparison - once Carol Lewis came on the scene), but Segal was dead on when he said that Pre was about 4 years away from being able to win a gold medal against the likes of Viren, Gammoudi and Stewart. Too bad he didn't get the chance to mix it up in Montreal in one of the most competitive and dramatic 5,000m races of all time.

CraigMac wrote:

Sweet- argeement, no hard feelings, and mutual respect. Points for logic, respect, and cool-headedness!

Same here, Craig. Thanks for being the proverbial "voice of reason" with your contributions.

Thanks for sharing your remembrance of that event. I do recall Pfeifle from that period.

It seems that there was a small contingent of runners from North Texas State who were part of a "sub-elite group" in the study, whose results were compared to the elites.

You obviously know a lot about training from what I've read elsewhere. If I had to make a wild guess, I'd say you are a well-known coach from the Dallas area. You might have even coached Francie Larrieu at one time.

davebedfordwannabe wrote:

You might have even coached Francie Larrieu at one time.

That would be Robert Vaughn (not me). I did work out with Francie a few times. Vaughn also worked with Stann Vernon, Mary Knisely, Joan Hansen and, briefly, with Tom Marino. I did a lot of workouts at SMU with all of that crowd, as well as some runs around the University Park area and at White Rock Lake. Vaughn hosted Arthur Lydiard numerous times, and it was at a seminar in Dallas that I finally met Lydiard.

Vernon had an excellent 15K of 43:39 to his credit, held the Fort Worth Cowtown 10K record for a babillion years (despite people like Treacy, Eyestone and Coogan taking shots at it) until Alan Culpepper finally broke it in 2003, and he also took it to Bill Rodgers (and Marino) as an un-comped underdog in a heavily hyped-up 10K at White Rock.

Knisely was ranked in the top 10 in the U.S. at 3,000m five times, including # 1 rankings (winning the national championships) in 1986 and 1987.

Hansen was also ranked in the top 10 in the U.S. five times and placed 8th in the 1984 Olympic 3,000m final after falling in the first couple of laps. Of course, this went unnoticed due to a more famous fall that occurred during that race.

Marino was a cross country All-American at SMU and really blossomed for a short time just out of school, running 28:35 at Crescent City and totally drubbing 2:10:16 marathoner Jeff Wells in the 8M Dallas Turkey Trot with a still-standing course record of 37:47. Wells was in good shape and took the race seriously, afterwards saying that Marino could definitely be a world class runner and perhaps even the next great American marathoner. Unfortunately, Marino's problems with muscle imbalances led to recurring side cramps in many races and, frustrated in his attempts to correct the problem, he retired.

I did a lot of runs at White Rock with Marino, Wells and John Lodwick (a 2:10:54 marathoner who had run a 4:15.7 mile at local Richardson HS and became a teammate of Wells at Rice and Athletics West). They could motor along at 5:00 mile pace without much difficulty when in top shape, leaving me struggling to maintain contact and eventually dropping off for good after 4-5 miles of it. I had to gear up for the days when I would do progessive tempo runs with those guys, since the outings became virtual races for me, while they were just spontaneous "threshold" runs for them. Lodwick's breathing always seemed to be labored very early on during hard races, even when he was in good shape, but he was as tough as anybody I've ever seen and could somehow find an even higher gear when he was really hurting. Of those three, Marino was definitely the most comfortable at 5:00 pace. He even remarked that when he had the mojo going, 5:00 pace actually felt slow to him. His VO2 maxed at 87.8 in a test at the Cooper Clinic.

Ha, I got a real kick out of being the 16 year old junior in high school voice of reason on this thread of guys who were apparently alive to see Pre run in person. To my chagrin, all most of these guys are to me are pictures and stories.

Peace.

How can you rip on Gary for coming on this board and posting under his real name and letting us know what happened that day? He himself said "the others were Olympians, I had a lot more to prove than they did."

No one including Gary is saying that he was better than Pre (or any of the other runners) because he won this little race or time trial while Pre dropped out. I see nothing delusional about his post and can't see what you have to gain with your anonymous pathetic response.

Not as cool as Urban Legend wrote:

I see nothing delusional about his post and can't see what you have to gain with your anonymous pathetic response.

Irony, anyone?

White Rock Lake was a running Mecca. You wouldn't think that a town like Dallas would have a 9-mile circuit around a scenic lake within the city limits. The local cross country club put on monthly races out there, including a 20 miler in January 1972. I think Lodwick, his former Richardson HS teammate Kyle Heffner, and some North Texas State guys were loping along at a 7:00 minute pace as a training run. And since I was doing a lot of mileage back then, it wasn't too hard to tag along with those guys at that pace.

Dallas also had a surprisingly strong running scene in the early 80s. It seems there were competitive races almost every other weekend where guys like Jeff Roth, Mark Bishop, Ed Swiatocha, Stann Vernon, and Mike Novelli would show up and duke it out.

Also, it's ironic that both Lodwick and Heffner ran for Richardson High School while the real distance-running powerhouse was just a few miles away at Richardson Pearce High School. They were the state champions in cross country under coach John McKenzie, who was an early exponent of Arthur Lydiard's approach to training.

Do you remember a guy named Al Stewart? He was the dominant runner on that team and ran some really exciting cross country races against Reed Fischer, who would set a state record in the mile of 4:05.7 and who I think might have won the Golden West Invitational mile in 1972.

Stewart and Fischer were basically neck-and-neck every weekend in cross country. But Stewart moved to California after his junior year and had to give up running and work a part-time job when his parents divorced.

Sadly, Coach McKenzie was killed in 1974 in a head-on crash with a drunk driver who was going the wrong way on the highway.

davebedfordwannabe wrote:

Also, it's ironic that both Lodwick and Heffner ran for Richardson High School while the real distance-running powerhouse was just a few miles away at Richardson Pearce High School. They were the state champions in cross country under coach John McKenzie, who was an early exponent of Arthur Lydiard's approach to training.

.

Ironic? How so?

I also appreciate Gary Tuttle's post and feel horrible about the way he was treated on here. But I'm partly to blame for it because of the way I began this thread.

This is a case of dramatic irony, in the sense that there is a combination of circumstances that is the opposite of what might be expected. Kyle Heffner and John Lodwick were a couple of famous marathoners who went to the same high school in Richardson, Texas. So you might think that their high school was a cross country powerhouse. But the real cross country powerhouse around that time was the other Richardson high school.

This is Gary Tuttle,with my last posting on the subject. Thanks for the notoriety after 30 years. Im not sure why "Urban Legend" dislikes me so much, but so be it. I would be intereseted to know what makes him a " legend". I really liked and was a fan of Pre, he was kind to me when he didnt need to be. "Urban Legend" picked out some races that he called my best and printed them. Although I cant imagine running that fast now that Im 58, Im proud of them today. I ran faster than the times he choose to print, and Im especially proud of my 7th place finish in the 75? World Cross Country Champs. Thanks for the support of Davebedfordwantabe I also was a Bedford wanta be, and cherish an autograph from him and Gaston Roelants that I got at the 75 World Cross Countrys where I beat them both. GARY

This is Gary Tuttle,with my last posting on the subject. Thanks for the notoriety after 30 years. Im not sure why "Urban Legend" dislikes me so much, but so be it. I would be intereseted to know what makes him a " legend". I really liked and was a fan of Pre, he was kind to me when he didnt need to be. "Urban Legend" picked out some races that he called my best and printed them. Although I cant imagine running that fast now that Im 58, Im proud of them today. I ran faster than the times he choose to print, and Im especially proud of my 7th place finish in the 75? World Cross Country Champs. Thanks for the support of Davebedfordwantabe I also was a Bedford wanta be, and cherish an autograph from him and Gaston Roelants that I got at the 75 World Cross Countrys where I beat them both. GARY