How good would he have been if he didnt run a marathon once every two weeks for 3 years?
How good would he have been if he didnt run a marathon once every two weeks for 3 years?
He didn't run marathons every 2 weeks for 3 years. Facts disapoints rants once again.
It was a slight exaggeration but he used his running to help support his family and buy a farm. He also had a tough time saying no to promoters who invited him to their races. I met him at Boston. He seems like a genuinely nice guy. It's good to see him dealing with his issues.
Ran 2:40 in college.
Got down to 2:21 and after frequently for a about a year ran 2:09 at Grandma's, 2:09 at London and 2:08 at Boston.
Injuries got him by the Fall of 82.
If I was younger I might try that racing schedule.
Wow how do you improve that much? I heard he didnt even qualify for his state or regional meet in high school cross country.
one trains. you put in miles. with talent you can make a sudden improvement like that (i did). it is the investment of time and will. lots of people won't test their potntial stopping way to soon.
He was a 10:00 2 miler in high school. He probably just didn't train much in high school, then trained well in college, ran his first marathon (everyone is slow their first time) and progressively got better. Saw that the trials were coming up so trained a bit and ran 2:21 on a lark to qualify. The rest is history.
Alan
Also, going into his duel with Salazar his 10k time was a 1:00-1:30 slower than Salazar's. Goes to show you that some people are just built to run good marathons (another example being Jack Foster or Ron Hill).
Alan
Actually in his autobiography he said he ran 8-10 miles a day (56-70 miles/week) in his senior year of high school. So he did train reasonably well.
Ron Hill was an outstanding 10,000 meter man for his era. He finished 18th at the Tokyo Olympics and 5th at the Mexico City Olympics. He competed in the six mile race at the 1966 Commonwealth Games, where he finished 5th. His 6 mile PR was 27:26. His 10k PR was 28:39.
Me thinks, AlSal could have gone 2:06:55 if he hit the right race before his self destructive training did him in.AlSal UNDER performed at the Mthn & Beardsley never really focused on the 10km thus under performing in the shorter event.Ron Hill ran 46:44, thus IMHO a fast runner, maybe equal to 2:10:30.
Runningart2004 wrote:
Also, going into his duel with Salazar his 10k time was a 1:00-1:30 slower than Salazar's. Goes to show you that some people are just built to run good marathons (another example being Jack Foster or Ron Hill).
Alan
His book "Staying The Course: A Runner's Toughest Race" was a very good read. If you want to know what he went through, read the book. Boston, the farm accident, and pain killer addiction are all there. He didn't hold much back.
You can pick on a lot of athletes, but not Beardsley. You can\'t find fault there
I heard him give a talk a couple of years ago. He was open, honest and actually got emotional a couple of times, too. Sounds like a really genuine person who worked really hard to become a great runner. I haven't read his book yet, but I'd like to.
deltacross wrote:
It was a slight exaggeration but he used his running to help support his family and buy a farm. He also had a tough time saying no to promoters who invited him to their races. I met him at Boston. He seems like a genuinely nice guy.
It's good to see him dealing with his issues.
what issues?
I agree. He just seems very positive and genuine. I recall a story about a fellow farm hand or farmers son challenging him about his 'I use to be a runner stories' so he raced him and that was a catalyst to get back into running (I think this is a Beardsley story, but could be wrong).
I've never had 'heroes' but he was always someone who interested me, motivated me, and his 'story' got me out the door to run on many occasions.
Hard work + positive energy can go a long way.
one of the nice guys wrote:
deltacross wrote:It was a slight exaggeration but he used his running to help support his family and buy a farm. He also had a tough time saying no to promoters who invited him to their races. I met him at Boston. He seems like a genuinely nice guy.
It's good to see him dealing with his issues.
what issues?
Drug addiction. After his accident he became addicted to painkillers.
sorry to hear that.....lucky I read the last part of that sentence (pain killers); cause he would be the last guy in the world to do recreational drugs.....
FromMinnesota wrote:
You can pick on a lot of athletes, but not Beardsley. You can't find fault there
Great runner. Nice guy.
But he's from Minnesota. Nuf said.