HOW THEY TRAINED : GELINDO BORDIN BEFORE WINNING OG IN SEOUL 1988I

Bordin is from Verona.

When you've been running 170 miler per week, a week of 100 IS tapering.

Renato, do you have any insight into the small details of training, such as Bordin's diet (what did he eat, how much) or is this not important for marathoners.

Also, in terms of shoes. Did he train in heavy shoes, or light shoes or racing shoes or did he do all of his training in the same pair?

Just some small details. THank you.

Bordin preferred to regenerate his mind training very little for about two months after his top marathons. During that period, his behavior was like a normal person, eating everything, drinking (wine) a little, also smoking 4-5 cigarettes per day.

But, when he decided to start his training, his concentration was terrible.

About food, he used a mix of pasta and rice (carbohydrates), meat or fish (proteins) and very many vegetables.

He never used some integrator, or some substance for helping his training. He used to say "if I take something helping me, it means that I'm not self confident. I want to fight and to win because I'm the strongest, not because something can help me".

About shoes, he did the most part of his training with training shoes heavy, also because he had some problem in his tendons. In 1990, before starting the preparation for Boston, he spent long time in Tirrenia (Italian National Center) having therapies with a new type of laser, that helped him in recovering from a bad injury in his tendon. I remember that also Mark Conover was in Tirrenia for the same reason, having this information by Gelindo himself.

He used racing shoes only for specific marathon endurance workouts.

For that reason, he never run a 10000m on track after moving to Marathon, also if he liked to try to run under 28 min. He ran only crosses, because using spikes on soft and muddy ground never was a problem.

like most european superstars of the 80's bordin was heavily into epo... shorter was clean, a true champion!

Another detail, Mr. Canova: on the track workouts, the long 20 km total distance, do your runners run in the same direction all the time? Always the same? Thank you.

Steve Spence schooled Bordin at the 1991 World Champs marathon in Tokyo. He ate up Bordin and another Italian guy at about 37k and went on to win the bronze.

BTW, Spence lived in Pennsylvania, trained hard and probably never heard of EPO. He didn't need it. And of yeah he was an normal American kid and came from a small college called Shippensburg State.

Spence is a guy that would inspire a lot of Americans today if they knew more about him.

Unwrap yourself fromo that flag and get real amigo.

Who was America's biggest distance star in the 80s??? and what was she busted for again???

Paula Radcliffe?

I think Stephano Mai, while he was chasing Sabrina Dornhofer around Europe, told it right when he said drugs helped the Italian guys get fast.

You forgot the 20 mg of Anavar each morning with breakfast so that he could handle that workload.....

Bordin averaged 135 miles during the 12 weeks before Seoul. His last 3 weeks alone were 171,101,98 (marathon included). If you google Anavar you can see why he was able to do this. Spence was able to modify Bordin's program and created the clean negative taper with good results.

Sabrina Dornhoefer...bump...grind...was defintely the best looking and best post race party hottie on the road circuit. Could hammer beers with the best and always was game for anything else. Old Reliable 10k in Raleigh, NC and SportsMed 10k, South Bend, IN I recall quite well.

Thanks for this thread! Thanks to that guy who posted this link

http://www.bunnhill.com/BobHodge/TrainingLogs/bordin.htm

Unrelated(click on my link, go to training for the training of Hicham El Guerrouj)

runguru wrote:

...But the most glaring memory of the encounter was when he reached into his vest and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. I was staggered to say the least.

ha, yah european's are like that it seems... some european pro tennis players go out with my gt tennis player friends to clubs and they always smoke... its just what they do eh.

That's a GREAT story. Thank you Renato for this training thread, too.

Fri, 30 : M) 20' easy + stretching (4.5 km)

A) 23' warm - up

4 km progressive run (3' + 2'52" + 2'49" +

2'46") with very good sensations

WHAT KIND OF "GOOD SENSATIONS" DO YOU GET RUNNING UNDER 2:50/KM? THE ONLY "SENSATION" I GET IS MASSIVE DISCOMFORT!!!

Jason

Renato,

Did he really run 100 miles the week before the marathon? Couldn't he have run faster if he ran, say, 50 miles?

Michael Bautista wrote:

Thanks for this thread! Thanks to that guy who posted this link

http://www.bunnhill.com/BobHodge/TrainingLogs/bordin.htm

Hodgie, how quickly they forget. Fame is fleeting, even on this board. You need to post more.

im 16 with a 5:05 mile time and need to get it as close to 4:30 as possible. I have a month and a half to train because im leaving to australia to compete in a 4 mile race. I am in desperate need of advice and willing to go through whatever training.