Lasse Viren Training Log Oct '71-Sep '72

The more races he had the less race days he took....

Where is the doping schedule?

"Running with the Legends" , Chapter 6, is all about Viren. Its really good detail.

Where is that 430 mile you haven't run yet?

I always felt his 27:3x time was not indicative of his talent - because there were no rabbits in those days as there are now. He even broke that WR during a championship race while already falling down and getting behind.

If he was running in today's conditions (with rabbits, mondo tracks, etc..), I believe he would have been the first white man to go sub 27 minutes. Back then, he had superb sprint capability and endurance. He could close the last mile in a slow race in 3:59.

The 27:xx Americans these days are good but they are at their max by the last lap (case in point: Ritz). If you watch Viren's fastest races - he has plenty left at the end. Makes one wonder how much faster many of the 70s runners could have run given the chance of 5 or 6 rabbits hoovering them.

The guy was into some really manly hobbies including hunting ,driving a huge dump truck, and logging. Not to mention training in the arctic cold (to be fair he did have stints in South America).

Tim Broe would be proud.

Have the allegations of doping been confirmed?

"Downward hill" What does that imply? Actual downhill running?

Nope.

It's all speculation based on a few other Finnish athletes being doped. Apparently if someone with the same nationality as you dopes then by association you also did.

And I'm sure someone will reply to this post telling me I'm a dumbass and that he for sure doped. After all this is Letsrun.

the link says "The afternoon run should be between nine and 16 miles, run at up to 3:20/kilometer (5:20/mile) tempo."

But the log has them at 7-730 mile pace !

fgfg wrote:

the link says "The afternoon run should be between nine and 16 miles, run at up to 3:20/kilometer (5:20/mile) tempo."

But the log has them at 7-730 mile pace !

You found the secret. Viren ran badger miles.

pnw runner wrote:

Nope.

It's all speculation based on a few other Finnish athletes being doped. Apparently if someone with the same nationality as you dopes then by association you also did.

And I'm sure someone will reply to this post telling me I'm a dumbass and that he for sure doped. After all this is Letsrun.

Problem is between '71 and was it '84 (when Vaino got busted), the Finns suddenly came then went. And Finlands top runners were not exactly a large disparate group. Gotta wonder....

Anyway, doped or not, Viren was a one-off. It was his form that just spooked everyone, so smooth and deceptively quick when he needed to be. Notice he never seemed to be sprinting, even when he was! Read the biographies of his contemporaries and they talk of him in awe like he was from another planet.

So just what did happen in Rome '74?!

They came, because of Lydiards influence and went because they forgot what they learnt in the 80`s. Very much like the US distance runners did and soon the rest of the western world.