Long runs in the 70s

Daws was an Olympian, so his training was tougher than most. No, the training of an Olympian is not typical.

There were some runners in the 70's that went further than 26 miles on occasion, but others like Frank Shorter who only did 20 miles max, often progressive the second half. So it wasn't typical but mileage was king back then and those guys really pushed the boundries.

In conversations with pro coaches, it seems like very long runs are making a bit of a comeback. Quality is still king, but a lot of runners are now throwing in a single very long run at a more moderate pace. One of the benefits, I suspect, is that by the time you're deep in the cycle, 27 miles at a brisk but comfortable pace is actually not that tough, so you end up getting a bit more recovery before hitting it hard again.

Certainly Lindgren claimed to do runs like that routinely.

Daws was pretty much a marathon specialist. He was not fast enough to do the shorter races.

Meanwhile most other Olympic level marathon runners in the USA... ran the 5 and 10K and adapted their training to run marathons on occasion.

I guess Bill Rodgers would be the other guy that was mostly known for marathoning... but even he ended up training more for road racing after the '76 Olympics. There were a few marathon specialists from back then... but they and their training were less known.

Tony Sandoval comes to mind. Maybe Jeff Wells.

Even Bill Rodgers, who has to be one of the era's top grinders focused mainly on the marathon, never seemed to exceed 24 in a single run. Some of his 1970s weekly logs are reproduced online on Bob Hodge's website. I'm going off memory here, but I think absolute (non-race) max miles in one run I saw was 24. Sometimes 20-22. More often it'd be things like 15AM + 10PM. Some of his 1-day, multi-run totals hit 30 though.

He doubled constantly, so the overall volume was high. Lots of weeks at 140+, plus lots of shorter races mixed in during the builds.

It is a great book but I would say that while some guys did runs of 30 miles routinely, Daws, Steve Hoag who was coached by Daws, Kenny Moore, Seiko and Rob DeCastella, come to mind quickly, most people did not go that far in one run or if they did it was a one off kind of thing. Ron Hill normally did 20 for his long runs but extended that to 28 once a month.

I remember reading that Ian Thompson did 30 miles every Sunday and I had a brief spell when I decided to do that. For some reason it was Thompson who got me to decide to do that and not others with their 30s. I saw no evidence that it was making a difference and gave up on it. A couple years ago I read from someone who did some training with Thompson that he did his 30 in three installments of 10.

I ran in the 70s and 80s with lots of teammates. We were between 13:50- 14:45 (5K) and 28:35-30:30 (10K).

The 'normal' Sunday run was 20 miles. I didn't like to go that far, but about half of my teammates did. The other classic workout was 20 x 440 (400 now). I would max out at 12.

Very similar to my college days. Weekend long runs were 15-20milers, mostly on trails. If it was the longer, we'd just slow the pace down the first 10-12miles, then pick it up moderately the last 8-10miles. We did the classic 20x400m (sometimes 25x400m) workouts as well. If I had to do the long runs on pavement I kept it at 15. If trails, I'd go 18-20 sometimes.

I think he means was his training typical for an Olympian.

A knew one guy who was a 2:16 guy back in the early 80s who did a few 3+ hour runs in his buildup. He'd cover 30 miles. Basically, he'd do a few over-distance runs for the marathon like you'd do for any other race.

As a mid 2:20 guy, I did a 30 mile day once - 13 in the morning and 17 in the p.m. When you are doing 100 miles per week, you get creative sometimes.

Benji Durden, 2:09:31 guy would do some 30 mile training runs.

30-mile long training runs were not typical then and they are not typical now.

Dawes was good but he was not a pro runner. He worked a full time at a real job. He never broke 2:20 for the marathon or 31:00 for 10k.

His 30-mile training runs gave him strength and confidence to persevere and endure. Like when he outlasted many faster runners to make the Olympic team in 1968 on a warm dry and windy day at altitude in Alamosa, CO.

30-mile long training runs are not typical for ultramarathoners. They might go that far once in a while in training but are more likely to get their longest runs in with a 50k/50 mile race.

It seems like Japanese runners more commonly do training runs longer than a marathon up to 30-miles and over.

I ran about 110 miles a week 1970-76. I first started taking long runs as a sophomore at Oklahoma State University, starting at 12 miles, and eventually as long as 16 miles. I found I was pretty good at it, and routinely ran these long runs 5:30-6:00 a mile. The years 1973-74 I ran 2:20:06 and 2:19:15; my best competitive years. I did virtually zero long runs in practice, but routinely had double training sessions that added up to about 20-25 miles on the day.

That said, some alterations to my routine back then probably would have led to better results.

There were no pro runners then. It was an amateur sport. Daws won the national marathon championship equivalent and was top 5 at Boston twice, among other accolades. He would have had a contract if her performed similar feats today.

I remember Seko would do 60 mile weekends. Four 15 mile runs on Saturday and Sunday.

Looking back, my experience was that with all the weekly miles during my college years, always around a 100 per week and with college XC workouts and races, the mileage kept me from running the workouts too fast.

I think that runs of about 30 miles or more were pretty routine for a number of the better marathoners of that era, especially some of those who may have been averaging not much more than about 100 miles per week instead of 130-150 miles per week. Just off the top of my head: Kenny Moore routinely did runs of 30-35 miles. Although Gerry Lindgren may have exaggerated some things, I don't doubt for a second that he routinely ran well over 30 miles in training. Bill Rodgers didn't run more than 26 miles in training very often (though, of course, he raced 26.2 miles quite often), but expressed a desire to do more of those longer runs in training. (He generally doubled on days that included a 20-mile run.) As I recall, Amby Burfoot was doing 30-mile runs in college leading up to his 1968 Boston marathon victory. Jon Anderson (1972 10,000m Olympian and Boston marathon winner) did 30-mile runs. Juma Ikangaa did 30-mile (or 50k) runs. Lasse Viren, during his Olympic buildups, was averaging close to 30 miles a day, though I don't believe that he did many single runs of 30 miles or more. Rob de Castella built up to 30-mile runs during marathon build-ups. Gelino Bordin was running up to 50k at a good clip in training leading up to his Olympic marathon victory in 1988. The top Japanese runners, like Seko and the Soh brothers, did some monster runs, much longer than 30 miles, and it's hard to imagine that Hiromi Taniguchi (1991 world marathon champion) would not have put in runs of at least 30 miles. I recall that Steve Spence, in the period of 1991 (world championship bronze medal) and 1992 (first place in the Olympic trials) was doing some 30-mile runs. You've already mentioned Ron Daws, who made up for his lack of top-end talent and an ideal training environment with a relatively innovative training program that included longer runs. In my own training, faced with circumstances that were somewhat similar to those of Daws, I generally considered so-called "long runs" to begin at about 20 miles and go up to 30 miles or more, since the combination of shorter runs and a relatively unpredictable training schedule were unlikely to produce the metabolic effects of glycogen depletion and muscle fiber recruitment that I could obtain from single runs that significantly exceeded 20 miles.

If I were currently trying to train my way to a high-level marathon level, I'd probably want to check out the approach of Japanese marathoners who are running around 2:10 or below despite lacking the track and shorter road-racing credentials of (for example) many of the top American marathoners. I'd expect them to be doing some very impressive long runs.

A regular hobbyjogger running their peak distance 20 mile long run a month or two out from a 3-4h marathon might do 20 mi in 3 hours.

For the elite or sub elite, 2-2:20 marathoner, 3 hours at 6-6:30 pace is 27-30 miles. I dont see why they cant run an easyish 3h.

It could be argued that the elite would need more recovery on account of doing 2 other workouts a week where the jogger may do 1 plus a mid length run. But the higher milage base and genetics should enable them to recover just as fast or faster.

Kenny Moore was the only one doing 30 mile runs in the 70’s.

Lindgren was a serial liar.

Ron Daws may have gotten that long, and his book is great, but he was not great, he was crafty, and it got him on an Olympic team.

Daniels has a concept called bunching. Time clock starts with start of a long run, let’s say 16 miles. Followed by a 4 miles in the afternoon. Lastly, 6 miles completed following morning all within 24 hours.