amby burfoot training?

From Joe Henderson's book published by T&FN 1970.

Ambrose Joel Burfoot. 6'0'', 140 lbs. Born Aug. 19, 1946. Began racing at age 17. "Serious competition will probably cease for me before jogging does. I believe I will continue running or a very long time." Self coached influenced by John Kelly.

Best Times: 440 yds-57.9; 880yds.-202.5; mile-4:19; 2mile-8:45.6; 3miles-13:44.8; 6miles-29:26; Marathon-2:14:28.8 Favorite race, marathon.

Training: (1968 season) twice a day (6:30 a.m., 3p.m.) 7 days a week 12 months a year. About 115 miles per week. longest ever training run: 38 miles.

Description: "Under ideal conditions of good health, sufficient time (both for necessary training and the even more ecessary relaxation) and proper motivation, I would train as follows:

Mon.-Sat. 10miles a.m. 15miles p.m.; Sun. 25 miles.

I accomplished this schedule during the first two weks of February 1968. All running was at approximately 7:00 pace. Without any speedwork at all, I then went onto the track (indoors) and ran 8:45, which is still far nd away my most startling running performance. I ran with an ease which absolutely amazed me. I then began thinking about more track meets and adding a little speed, and got slower every week. By mid March I was a consistent 9:02 2 miler.

I spent the fall of 68 training 5 or 6 times per week. My weekday runs were 15 milers, while on the weekend I got out for longer runs including a 38 and a 36. I averaged 85 over this period and only topped 100 once. Yet, I felt very good and began doing "Oslerian pickups" (gradual accelerations). On my 15 I would run easily for 2 miles, do 7x800m pickups in the next 10-11 miles, and then do hard, short pickups for the last two miles. (This is the training that led to his 2:14 race in Japan which was within 1 sec. of the then AR. held by B. Edelen.

Hodgie-san wrote:

I accomplished this schedule during the first two weks of February 1968. All running was at approximately 7:00 pace. Without any speedwork at all, I then went onto the track (indoors) and ran 8:45, which is still far nd away my most startling running performance. I ran with an ease which absolutely amazed me. I then began thinking about more track meets and adding a little speed, and got slower every week. By mid March I was a consistent 9:02 2 miler.

Would anyone like to explain what was going on here? Has anyone else had similar experiences with running relatively all base miles, setting a huge PR then fading after beginning to sharpen. WHY did this happen to AB?

This isn't enough info to really say. If we assume he held his mileage constant then the best explanation is that he was gradually slipping into hypertraining (overtraining). Had he reduced mileage and continued to sharpen, my guess is that some supercompensation would have occured and he could have run even faster that he did off such an immense base.

he may have been a 9:02 2 miler in march but he won the boston marathon in april.

inquiring red dragon wrote:

Would anyone like to explain what was going on here? Has anyone else had similar experiences with running relatively all base miles, setting a huge PR then fading after beginning to sharpen. WHY did this happen to AB?

I knew of a competitor in college who learned that if he did interval work he would get slower... On interval days, his coach just sent him out to run 10 miles hard. I suspect that he had very little fast twitch fibers and the interval workouts were not of benefit. Maybe Amby was similar...

Amby sort of had two, or even three careers. After graduating from Wesleyan in 1969, he wasn't at the top of his game for several years. I think he'd turn in the occasional sub 2:30 marathon. Then in 1975-76 he had a revival running a 2:18 marathon and eventually finishing 9th or 10th at the '76 Olympic Trials marathon.

In March of 1976 we were riding a bus to the start of the national 30km championships and sitting next to each other. I asked him why he was fast again and he told me that he thought the key was that he did a track session each week. Nothing spectacular, he went on, maybe 8-10x440 in 72, added to about 100 mpw. I asked how he reconciled his new belief in the effectiveness of fast work with his earlier pronouncements about the value of slow training.

He told me that in earlier years, when he had said all he did was train slowly, he meant it. But, he went on, when he said that he only trained slowly, he had overlooked the fact that he was running for a college team and racing almost year round sometimes three times a week at distances from one to six miles. He hadn't understood it at the time, he told me, but those races had been speedwork. He said that when he was no longer on a university team his racing frequency went way down and he got much slower until it finally dawned on him that he did need a bit of faster work.

So it might be that in school he got slower with the intervals because piling them on top of two or three races was just too much fast work.

Having said that, I will also add that intervals have always been at best ineffective for me and at worst have slowed me dramatically. Races or short to mid-length hard steady runs seem to produce whatever improvements I've made.