Harald Norpoth, 13:20/5000 only trained once a day

Isn't he the one Kenny Moore's wife referred to as a "vertical hyphen"?

If I recall correctly, he's the one that Prefontaine always used to gripe about. Norpoth apparently used to draft off Pre and outkick him with 200m to go. Pre thought it was "chickenshit", I think today we call it "racing."

No, that was Kenny's member she was referring to.

It really depends on the runner. For instance, for a natural miler, then 13:20 off of one a days is certainly achievable. Just to use examples, I'm quite sure that guys like Webb and Lagat could run 13:20 off of 60-70 miles per week (ie off of singles). It all depends on the person. Norporth was a heckuva runner, though. Given his closing quarters in 5ks, I'm thinking he had some speed...

Van Aaken stated that Norpoth had the potential to break 13:00. You can check out his closing speed in the '64 Games when he took silver behind Schul.

I have seen a picture of him training where he appears to be wearing shoes which are basically Chuck Taylors.

The assumption on the training is that Norpoth continued to train this way the rest of his career. It's possible he added to it later on when he was running in the low 13:20's.

el troll wrote:

It really depends on the runner. For instance, for a natural miler, then 13:20 off of one a days is certainly achievable. Just to use examples, I'm quite sure that guys like Webb and Lagat could run 13:20 off of 60-70 miles per week (ie off of singles). It all depends on the person. Norporth was a heckuva runner, though. Given his closing quarters in 5ks, I'm thinking he had some speed...

Mcdougal runs a lot of one a days and has gone 1320.

el troll wrote:

It really depends on the runner. For instance, for a natural miler, then 13:20 off of one a days is certainly achievable. Just to use examples, I'm quite sure that guys like Webb and Lagat could run 13:20 off of 60-70 miles per week (ie off of singles).

...but they don't. They run doubles.

Norpoth was quoted in an article in Track&Field News in 1973 or 74 as saying that he'd always just trained once a day because he ahd to work.

Norpoth has a listed best time of 3:41 for 1500, but I think that based on his speed he should have been quite a bit faster than that - I think he could have run around 3:36 for 1500. The guy could run 54 secs last laps at will.

If he was running in this era, I think Norpoth could have had similar times to another German - Dieter Baumann (Barcelona Olympic 5000 champ. and sub. '13' runner).

But Norpoth was more of a racer than record breaker, even though he ran some great times, including a 4.57 in the 2000m.

Looking at his diaries, it is surprising how little quality he did, and the quality he did do, did not seem to be at the actual race speeds he would be at. But, he was a formidable competitor and really raced well.

He had a long career, perhaps helped by the fact that most of his training was done on forest trails.

Being naturally thin also helped, because his weight was very low (1.84/62kg, 6.1/137) he expended less energy than most. His style was also very fluid and easy - a 'white african' you might say.

I am not sure about the role of diet for Norpoth, but Van Aaken (the coach) did advocate low calorie diets for distance runners, sometimes as low as 1000 calories per day!

I have trouble with the 1000 calories diet per day, because athletes training just 60 minutes per day would not be able to replace the energy used with those low amounts of calories.

Ghost

coach:

christophe_moulton@yahoo.ca

yammana wrote:

el troll wrote:

It really depends on the runner. For instance, for a natural miler, then 13:20 off of one a days is certainly achievable. Just to use examples, I'm quite sure that guys like Webb and Lagat could run 13:20 off of 60-70 miles per week (ie off of singles).

...but they don't. They run doubles.

Oh yeah? Do you know Webby? Don't confuse circuit and drill work with doubling. And, with regard to Lagat, he runs 12:50s off of doubles. This does not change the fact that he could run 13:20 off of singles.

yaay Norpoth. Certainly anyone who finishes as high up as he did in the Mexico 1500 had more in him than 3:41.

He ran in one of the 1st meets i ever saw [GB v West Germany 1971] and he was greeted with some unflattering and politically incorrect comments re his physical appearaance. [Don't ask!, it was the 70s after all] In fact he does not look that much different now does he.

He did stand out as extremely light in an era of "big" middle distance runners but i guess some of the African milers now like Kipchirchir Komen for instance, would weigh about the same as him.

He was also a great championship runner. As well as his 2 OG finishes in 64 and 68 he was a factor until the last 200 in the 71 Euro 1500 and even in 73 he gave Foster and Kuschmann a hard race in the Europa Cup 5000. That all, plus that still great 2000m time marks him out as a great one for me.

Are you sure that Harald Norpoth ran the 1,500 meters in the 1971 European Championships in Helsinki? Norpoth ran the 5,000 meters. Neither he nor Jean Wadoux could match Juha Vaatainen over the last lap. Vaatainen ran the last 400 meters in 52.8 seconds. Norpoth finished third.

http://62.232.35.140/athletics-heroes/stats_athletics/european/1971_m.asp

Yet again Ghost stretches the truth! If you read the 'Van Aaken Method' you will find that Norpoth did very high mileage, he may well have trained once per day but often he ran up to 50km in one day, his Sunday run would be very long, 50km sometimes further and this would incorporate walking breaks! Van Aaken said that training should be like play, it should keep the athlete fresh and he thought the amount of hard fast running should be very small, maybe 5% of total training. He was a firm believer in long slow distance.

Yes my friend, my typo. I was thinking about the race while i was typing. There was a big bump at the bell and Norpoth made the 1st move but Wadoux [3:34 euro rec in 1970] and the great Juha had too much speed for even Norpoth in 71.

ricer wrote:

If I recall correctly, he's the one that Prefontaine always used to gripe about. Norpoth apparently used to draft off Pre and outkick him with 200m to go. Pre thought it was "chickenshit", I think today we call it "racing."

Yeah, he had Pre's number. He was the better runner at the time which frustrated Pre. He should have kept his mouth shut.

Ghost Busters, can you give me the page number in the book where it says that? I have the book in front of me and can't find such a statement and don't recall reading such previously.

He does refer to Norpoth running 17-18kms and also to doing a few 500m reps after 15km runs.

This is consistent with the training data published on Norpoth elsewhere. It is possible Norpoth did do some longer runs during non race periods.

Plenty of talented runners in the 60s were running good times off once per day training.Many of them probably would have run much faster on heavier workloads, but of course most worked full time and running was just sport.

It is possible Norpoth may have been the sought of runner who couldn't cope with heavy training loads and pretty much maxed out his ability on this lighter load.

Kip Keino was another guy who did quite low volume running and yet was able to run 1.46, 3.34, 7.39, 8.23sc, 13.24, 28.06 with a couple of OG golds and silvers.

mopak wrote:

Ghost Busters, can you give me the page number in the book where it says that? I have the book in front of me and can't find such a statement and don't recall reading such previously.

Norporth longest runs were 12-18 km and that he only ran more than 18km for about 12 - 20 times (during his entire career) and a maximum of 24 km once.

On November 1962 he ran tempo run that did consists of 19.6 km on the track in 82min30sec.

During December 1962 he mainly did long runs for 75 minutes a few times he delay it to 80-85 min. In January 63 he ran 19 km 4 times between 70 and 73 minutes.

You need to remember that during the winter season he participate and did win the German national cross-country champs several times. According to EVA he never did the 10000m track event mainly because he was not motivate to run so many laps.

Some more insights about Harald Norporth training in 1967

May 22nd: warm up (w/up) (forest) + 6km in about 20 min. + 2X3600/12:15-11:55 +7 min. cool down (c/d) jog

May 23rd: w/up 21 min. + 5X1200m/3:43-3:48-3:46-3:43-3:38 rec= 4 min. + 6 min. c/d

May 24th: w/up 21 min. + 6X500m/74-72-74-72-74-67 sec. rec=2 min. + 6 min. c/d

May 25th: w/up 20 min. + 2X 6 kilos/20:00-18:40 min.

May 26th: 6 kilos

May 27th: 1 mile race in 3:59,6 min. Istaaf Berlin

May 28th: rest day

May 29th: w/up 20min + 30 min. run+ 2X times 3600 m/12:05 +11:52 min. c/d

May 30th: 12 kilos in the forest with accelerations in 40 min.

May 31th: w/up 20min +15 min run +2X6kilo/20:15 – 21:45 min.

June 1st: w/up 20min + 45 min run + 6X500m m in 79-77-77-75-75-70 sec. rec=1min + 7 min. c/d

June 2nd: 30 min. very easy on track

June 3rd: 1500 race in 3:42,3 min. (Hannover)

June 4th: 1500 race in 3:44,4 min. (Telg.)

June 5th: 30 min very easy

June 6th: 3000 m race in 7:45 min. (Munich)

Norpoth's PR in the 1500M was around 3:37.A couple of years ago I checked it out on Tilastopaja. One of the crazy things about him was how long he was competitive on the international scene (1964-1974 I think).