4:01 in 1945. Who were these people....their coaches, training methods, personalities, motivations???
(Please don't delete again, letsrun heads, history of our sport is important.)
4:01 in 1945. Who were these people....their coaches, training methods, personalities, motivations???
(Please don't delete again, letsrun heads, history of our sport is important.)
Try again??????
Haag and Anderson training revealed:
New age fartlek
The original speed play technique in running
The word fartlek is a Swedish word which means "speed play". It was first used on the pine needle paths of the Swedish forests by Gosta Holmer, coach to world record holders Gunder Haag and Arne Anderson.
Fartlek training basically means you run as you please and play around with the speed element of the training session. However, coaches have tended to move away slightly from the real essence of the fartlek-type session to make it more structured. In this way, it cannot only be utilised over the terrain previously mentioned but also on the roads, over playing fields and even on the track.
Coaches will often have a pre-determined set time for the session such as a 50 minute fartlek, which will contain 15 speed efforts. The longest is over 1,200m, the shortest over 60m with the rest of the efforts in between these parameters with a jog recovery following each effort.
On a road, the coach may say that the efforts should take place between a set of lamp posts with the next set a jogged recovery, building up each repetition to say 10 lamp posts with six lamp posts jog recovery.
In these structured sessions, the athlete knows the set time of the fartlek, the number of efforts, the range of efforts and the recovery after each effort. However, certain coaches, in a park, on the track and over playing fields, will only inform the athlete of the length of the fartlek session which, for example, may be for 45 minutes. The rest of the session, the number of repetitions, the duration of each repetition and the recovery after each repetition are then controlled by the coach using a whistle.
In this way, the athlete does not know what is coming next, how long they will have to run hard for and how long they have to recover. It brings a more structured and disciplined approach to the fartlek session. Using this system, all the energy pathways are involved making it very similar to the race situation, as well as involving other important training ingredients.
The short sprints with long recovery involve the pure sprint system.
The longer repetitions, which are run quickly with a short recovery, involve the lactate system (burning legs syndrome).
The consistent steady running, strides and recovery stages, involve the oxygen system (you can talk during these sections).
Fartlek training can be used at any time of year, by mixed ability groups and with athletes of all ages. However, it must be progressive throughout the season which means increasing the length of the session and number of repetitions that are run within it.
It should also be progressive throughout the athlete’s career. The younger athlete should start with the whistle controlled fartlek, progressing to the structured fartlek as they get older so that they can be left to do it alone. The pure fartlek session is best suited to the more experienced runner who has the self discipline to ensure that they get the best out of each session.
Remember, fartlek is an added variety to training to improve all the energy pathways and ingredients mentioned above - it is not an easy option!
PS: Good luck here. Some of the most prolific / respected letsrun posters don't even know who John Walker was!!! Let alone two obscure runners in the second world war.
Alrighty! Another attempt! :)
4:01 in 1945 = obscurity.
3:59 for Bannister in 1954 = worldy fame.
Is this fair?
Arne Anderson and Gunder Haag have been overlooked. This is a great topic for those who believe the history of our sport is a) important and b) requires occasional revision...ie these guys have been overlooked in the grand scheme of things.
What training methods were employed? (Fartlek was just a part of it, surely!)
If memory serves me correctly, the Haag and Anderson battles were more about the fierce desire to beat each other rather than any attempt to beat 4 minutes.
Consequently they ran very uneconomic lap times - I believe to get a lead, one or the other would run about 53 - 54 on the first lap!
I think on the 4.01, Anderson ran the race with the cartridge from the starters gun stuck on his spikes.
They would have undoubtedly beaten 4 minutes the following year had they both not lost their ‘amateur’ status (seems ridiculous these days) and consequently banned over a quite trivial matter.
I read in a book from overseas called the top distance runners of all time or something closer to that a synopsis of an interview with Hagg. He said he strongly beleived long slow running was not a good thing and that runners up 5000 meters don\'t have to train very far past their race distance. I know I read somewhere he ran an 8k course in the woods often and at fast speeds.
Pretty impressive that these guys were running consistent sub-4:03's all during WWII. To think, perhaps had the war not been turning the world on its head, the two would have had better opportunities to break the barrier.
I agree that they don't get enough props, but oddly enough, the first time I heard of these two greats was when I read "The Perfect Mile" by Neal Bascomb this summer. If you haven't read it, it's an excellent chronicle of the time leading up to Bannister's sub-4 and includes equal attention given to Bannister, Landy, and Wes Santee, who, for those of you who don't know, ran a 4:00.6 mile in horrible conditions all alone and then had to serve out his military service and never ran faster.
Anyway, the book actually goes into detail about how the fierce competition between the two lowered the mile record so rapidly. Also, Roger Bannister's excellent autobiography, "The Four Minute Mile" often mentions his enourmous respect for them and other great early milers like Jack Lovelock of NZL, Sydney Wooderson, and Glenn Cunningham. It's a little ironic, I think, that Bannister's acheivment so overshadowed theirs and yet Bannister himself is one of the few who remembers the two men's accomplishments so much.
By the way, anyone at all interested in running history should read those two books. Bannister's contains a conclusion that is essentially a little philosophical rambling on why people run and the future of track as it exists today. I don't agree with many of his points, but its a very fascinating read.
WR PROGRESSION
4:06.4-Wooderson
4:06.2-Hagg
4:06.2-Andersson
4:04.6-Hagg
4:02.6-Andersson
4:01.6-Andersson
4:01.4-Hagg
3:59.4-Bannister
And Hagg ran 3:43 flat, possibly even faster than his 4:01.4, in '44 (the year before his best mile time).
3.43,0 Gunder Hägg SWE 44/07/07 Gothenburg
(And then ANOTHER Swede ran that that time several years later.
3.43,0 Lennart Strand SWE 47/07/15 Malmö
The Swedes were damn god back then! It's funny how certain nations had their years of dominance, but then lost that dominance rather quickly. The Hungarians had their era too, and of course the Finns, and the Aussies/NZ era, and then the Brits on and off.......very on during Coe/Ovett/Cram time, and the US has never been DOMINANT at one single time, but has been very good at many different times. Interesting..... )
Hagg(who died last year) ran a 1500 time trial in the forest (where his dad was a woodcutter) as a young boy. Years later his father admitted shaving a minute off his time to encourage him.
I remember reading that he was tested in 1963 for his oxygen uptake and they found it was still extremely high even though he hadn't trained for 17 years.
His favourite fartlek course was a 5km route which he sometimes ran three times a day. It was a very tough course and he still ran it in winter when the snow was often waist deep.
I don't think these guys are overlooked or forgotten, at least in the track world, at all. Heck, they're more widely remembered than Derek Ibbotson, who was, what, the third guy to hold the world record under 4:00?
I remember Ibbotson, mostly because of Bascomb's book. It mentions how Herb Elliot and Ibbotson were staying together for some meet or another when Elliot broke Ibbotson's mile record. Elliot goes back to the house and finds his shit on the porch. Ibbotson says something like "If you think you're staying here after taking my record, you can just piss off." Haha what an asshole.
Weary wrote:
I don't think these guys are overlooked or forgotten, at least in the track world, at all. Heck, they're more widely remembered than Derek Ibbotson, who was, what, the third guy to hold the world record under 4:00?
Weary wrote:
I don't think these guys are overlooked or forgotten, at least in the track world, at all. Heck, they're more widely remembered than Derek Ibbotson, who was, what, the third guy to hold the world record under 4:00?
And also the first person to run a mile in EXACTLY 4:00.
wineturtle wrote:
WR PROGRESSION
4:06.4-Wooderson
4:06.2-Hagg
4:06.2-Andersson
4:04.6-Hagg
4:02.6-Andersson
4:01.6-Andersson
4:01.4-Hagg
3:59.4-Bannister
3:57.9 - John Landy
>>Haha what an asshole<<
Haha I saw Derek Ibbotson at the Vancouver, B.C., Canada Empire Statium, (I think) 1958. Won a hotly contested one mile. Don't know the time (tried researching).
For me, the guy that blows my mind more than any of the others is Rudolph Harbig: 1:46.6 in 1939! That equals about 3:56 for the mile...15 years before Bannister! Unfortunately he died a few years later on the Russian Front.
When did the 'round to nearest 1/5 rule' change-1956-1957?
Landys Turku race was official at 3:58.0 I believe....but that's off my headtop.
Fenske& Venske
Skuj wrote:
What training methods were employed? (Fartlek was just a part of it, surely!)
In Ron Clarke's book "The Lonely Breed" there is a whole chapter devoted to those two hugely competitive milers. A very good read like his whole book was....
I always remember R. Clarke's chapter describing blow by blow the epic [ahh where have I seen that adjective before..oh well:-)] Olympic 10000 m final between the British olympian, Gordon Pirie & the Russian Olympic champion Vladimar Kuts
Ron Clarke wrote a book? Is it out of print? Only for sale in Australia? Anyone know any more about that?
Heeee certainly did write a book, I got it somewhere.
Two books! He wrote a second on recently. I have it = nice read!
