Dave Bedford said Ron Clarke woud have won Olympic 5,000 at sea level

Well, Clarke was a prohibitive favorite in the 10,000 in Tokyo in '64, and that's at sea level, and he lost that one, so...whatever.

Clarkey also missed a great deal of training (Achilles) prior to Tokyo and was fortunate to do as well as he did.

Wasn't it Tokyo where Clarke ran a 4 mile run at WR pace a couple days before the race?

Clarke also lost the Commonwealth games in '66 and '70. Temu did say "I beat the same Clarke in Kingston and tell me, were there mountains in Jamaica?"

in '68? yeah, it would have been his best chance; but as in '64, Olympic finals never seem to let a guy run away with the pace. The kickers would have tried to stay in touch until that last lap. Clarke was THE MAN! A gutsy front runner.

In Bedford's interview on the front page he states he trained 200mpw. Is he for real? That is nuts if it is true.

RUS wrote:

In Bedford's interview on the front page he states he trained 200mpw. Is he for real? That is nuts if it is true.

Yep he was famous for his mileage I had friends who ran up to 150 and they were in awe of his training.

From Noakes "Lore of Running", he ran up to 200 miles a week. Didn't do much else. He ran a lot, he ran hard. He didn't do a lot of speedwork...then again with the marathon you don't really need it. You can run a good marathon off of nothing but steady mileage with the occasional (say 2-4 times a week) impromptu "tempo run"...ie, "Hey, let's hammer the next 10k..."Aight, chap!". Or.."Hey chap, let's hammer this hilly loop, it's about 10 miles, let's do that twice, and just get knackered on the last loop!"

Look at the logs of Sell and company, upwards of 150, 130 consistently with nothing more than scheduled and structured "tempo runs". Then look at Joe Lemay's log, consistent 140 miles a week (when he wasn't hurt). Then when he did speedwork, he got hurt, so he quit doing it and still ran well. So, you can run a hell of a marathon off of nothing but hard steady miles...of course Dave took it a bit far and was injured quite a lot. Reminds me of Derek Clayton, who ran a lot of mileage and not much else, but ran the first sub 2:10 and sub 2:09 in history. I think it takes a lot more focus to just go out and run and fall into a "tempo run" or a harder run than to say "Hey it's Tuesday, gotta run a fast workout today". It's harder to push yourself when it's unplanned.

Alan

Does anyone know if and where Ron Clarke trained at altitude for Mexico City?

Clarkes best year of running was 1965. He , Clarke, states that he blew the '64 Olympics by easing off the pace several laps prior to lap 25.

The athletes were not supposed to train in high altitude over 4 weeks if they were not from those locations. That said several runners from lower altitudes spent parts of one or even two years training at altitude.

Clarke damaged a mitral valve at Mexico City and never ran as well afterwards. It was many years later when this was discovered.

What happened, happened. This topic can be argued from several different viewpoints.

Clarke himself, feels that three people, Derek Clayton, Jim Ryun and Clarke would have won gold in '68 if the olympics had been held at a sea level venue.

What do you mean by "were not supposed to train in high altitude over 4 weeks"? Was the thinking that anything more than four weeks would be counterproductive for an athlete who lived at sea level?

No. The so called amateur code.

So there was a statute that contained a provision prohibiting sea level athletes from training at altitude more than four weeks? Is that why Clarke didn't train at altitude as much as Gammoudi? Should Gammoudi have been disqualified for violating the code?

Perth was at sea level in 1962. Kingston was at sea level in 1966. Edinburgh was at sea level in 1970. As pointed out earlier Tokyo in 1964 ... also at sea level.

Clarke was a great runner but there's very little in his international championship record at sea level to suggest definitively that 1968 would have been the great exception in his record of not winning.

Weren't most of Clarke's WRs run in races that were not particularly competitive? In championship races, he just wasn't a good enough finisher to win.

Ron Clarke did have a job

Olympic Games

Men's 5000m. Final. Olympic Games 1968

1. Mohamed GAMMOUDI (TUN) 14:05.0

2. Kip KEINO (KEN) 14:05.2

3. Naftali TEMU (KEN) 14:06.4

4. Juan MARTINEZ (MEX) 14:10.8

5. Ron CLARKE (AUS) 14:12.4

6. Wohib MASRESHA (ETH) 14:17.6

7. Nikolai SVIRIDOV (RUS) 14:18.4

8. Fikru DEGUEFU (ETH) 14:19.0

Men's 10,000m. Final. Olympic Games 1968

1. Naftali TEMU (KEN) 29:27.4

2. Mamo WOLDE (ETH) 29:28.0

3. Mohamed GAMMOUDI (TUN) 29:34.2

4. Juan MARTINEZ (MEX) 29:35.0

5. Nikolai SVIRIDOV (RUS) 29:43.2

6. Ron CLARKE (AUS) 29:44.8

7. Ron HILL (GBR) 29:53.2

8. Wohib MASRESHA (ETH) 29:57.0

Men's 10.000m. Olympic Games 1964

1. William MILLS (USA) 28:24.4 OR

2. Mohamed GAMMOUDI (TUN) 28:24.8

3. Ron CLARKE (AUS) 28:25.8

4. Mamo WOLDE (ETH) 28:31.8

5. Leonid IVANOV (KYR) 28:53.2

6. Kokichi TSUBURAYA (JAP) 28:59.4

7. Murray HALBERG (NZL) 29:10.8

8. Anthony COOK (AUS) 29:15.8

Commonwealth Games

Perth 1962

Mens - 3 miles Final

1. Murray HALBERG (NZL) 13.34.2

2. Ron CLARKE (AUS) 13.36.0

3. Bruce KIDD (CAN) 13.36.4

4. Bruce TULLOH (ENG) 13.37.8

5. Albert THOMAS (AUS) 13.40.6

6. Edward STRONG (ENG) 13.41.4

Mens - 6 miles Final

1. Bruce KIDD (CAN) 28.26.6

2. David POWER (AUS) 28.34.0

3. John MERRIMAN (WAL) 28.40.8

4. Barry MAGEE (NZL) 28.42.0

5. Martin HYMAN (ENG) 28.42.2

6. Melvyn BATTY (ENG) 28.44.6

Kingston 1966

Mens - 3 miles Final

1. Kip KEINO (KEN) 12.57.4

2. Ron CLARKE (AUS) 12.59.2

3. Allan RUSHMER (ENG) 13.08.6

4. Naftali TEMU (KEN) 13.10.4

5. Ian McCAFFERTY (SCO) 13.12.2

6. Dick TAYLOR (ENG) 13.12.4

7. Bill WILKINSON (ENG) 13.15.4

8. Derek GRAHAM (NI) 13.17.8

Mens - 6 miles Final

1. Naftali TEMU (KEN) 27.14.6

2. Ron CLARKE (AUS) 27.39.4

3. Jim ALDER (SCO) 28.15.4

4. Paschal MFYOMI (TAN) 28.38.0

5. Ron HILL (ENG) 28.42.6

6. Dave ELLIS (CAN) 28.55.4

7. Fergus MURRAY (SCO) 29.40.0

8. Andy BOYCHUK (CAN) 29.54.0

Edinburgh 1970

Mens - 5,000m Final

1. Ian STEWART (SCO) 13.22.8

2. Ian McCAFFERTY (SCO) 13.23.4

3. Kip KEINO (KEN) 13.27.6

4. Allan RUSHMER (ENG) 13.29.8

5. Ron CLARKE (AUS) 13.32.4

6. Dick TAYLOR (ENG) 13.33.8

Mens - 10,000m Final

1. Lackie STEWART (SCO) 28.11.8

2. Ron CLARKE (AUS) 28.13.4

3. Dick TAYLOR (ENG) 28.15.4

4. Roger MATTHEWS (ENG) 28.21.4

5. John CAINE (ENG) 28.27.6

6. Kipkemo NGENO (KEN) 28.31.4

Why are you talking about marathon training. Where in the whole thread did the word marathon come up?