Pre's attitude of "run every race at a fast pace" was immature and frankly unintelligent

People will give Pre hell for this, then crap on Centro for his slow winning time in the Olympics. American heroes can’t win.

This is the key. Pre died at age 24! I said and did stuff like this when I was early 20s too. Since most of us were even younger (or not yet born) in 1975, we think of him as having been older than he was. It's like the high schooler thinking the college kids are all grown up, or like looking up to an older sibling. Later, you think back to something immature they did, and realize that you are far older than they were in that memory.

Wasn’t he just encouraging a racing style that favored him?

You sound like you're still in high school. You start out with a false premise then the only conclusion is false.

Pre was 4th in the 5000m at the Olympics at age 21. I think he knew a little bit about how to race well, especially for such a young man.

Yes, mature means realizing Disney movies aren't real, or at least are oversimplified

Aren't you in your 60s? What a response from a supposedly successful grown man who seems to be held in high regard on this board.

No need to insult, please let me know what you believe my false premise and false conclusion to be.

False premise is right. Let’s not forget that in the biggest race of his life he hung back and comparatively dawdled the first 2+ miles. When he did force the pace it was because he knew a long drive gave him a better chance than a last 200/400 meter burn up. Honestly his tactics in that race were good for him until the final backstretch, when you could make the case he went too hard too early going for the gold instead of settling for bronze.

So my assertion that he was a runner that preferred to run all out from the opening lap is "false" because in his biggest race he didn't do that?

I would also argue that the central premise and conclusion of my initial post is that the idea of "I have to run every race at an 'honest pace'" is immature. There really was no conclusion other than that.

Prefontaine is famous like a 60s/70s drug-casualty rock star is famous. A martyr. That's all.

If he were alive, he'd barely ever be mentioned. Or he'd show up and post here occasionally, but no normal person would have even heard of him.

This is incorrect. Prefontaine had charisma. That presumably wouldn’t entirely have left him as he aged. We do not know what he would have done. He would be only like 72 now, maybe just retiring this decade. He could have done many things. Did his early death make him more famous? Probably yes but he would have still been known, more so than Billy Mills who of course won gold.

Nobody runs all out from the opening lap. The issue is not one of immaturity at all. Prefontaine wanted to win, of course, but he also wanted to test himself and his tolerance for discomfort. The man was not like you. He also felt that at the elite level he did not finish as fast as some. So he wanted to inculcate a fast early pace often to make the others suffer enough to take the sting out of their potentially faster finishing kicks. He had something inside him which made him run this way. It was not immaturity.

missBS, to answer your question - a friend of mine who in the late 60’s, won the state HS XC title, told me his strategy was to go so fast it demoralized the competition. This was 50 years ago, the race was 2 miles and far less refined. Sure today we know it is a foolish strategy. Your use of the words naive, immature & stupid invited opposition. I did appreciate your closing sentence. You must have been a hard charging runner in HS!

I’d like to see objective evidence that was his attitude in the first place. Did he lead every lap of every race? No. How often was he responsible for the pace being fast? In the NCAA XC that he almost lost to Nick Rose, it was Rose who was hammering from the start and almost beat Pre. What were his splits and position in the field for the ‘72 Olympic Trials or NCAA races he ran or AAU or indoor or European races? Is his reputation as the guy always forcing the pace, always redlining relative to his own abilities justified?

Fair points by all!!

to the prior poster who said they wanted evidence that this was truly his attitude, I agree. I was basing my entire post off of the famous scene in Without Limits where he has the famous argument with Bowerman.

That was likely dramatized, but it’s safe to say it’s based a bit on fact.

How boring would those movies have been if he was a sit and kick guy. That's why he did it.

Pre won about 75% of the races he ran in his life. He was on the US National Team in High School. He knew he did not have a devastating kick, but he could grind most of his opponents into the ground with an "honest" pace, so that is what he did and it worked a lot of the time. He might have developed a better kick to deal with international competition or maybe he would have just been like Bob Kennedy, dominating US races and always close but losing in international races. Both are US Distance legends.

Kinda, yeah. Are you basing your assertion off of watching or analyzing his races, or folklore?

"I'm going to work so that it's a pure guts race, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it."

Pre

Pre allegedly said before the Munich race. I always wondered if Pre really did say exactly that. If he did, it must have really pissed off some of the other runners.