dan robinson

pb around 66 mins for 1/2 marathon. coached by Bud Baldaro. Run around 100 to 110 per week max and races close to 30 mins for 10km most times. Pb around 29-30. Has run 4 of 5 marathons, progressing each time best of about 2-16 before london

Marathon Olympian Dan Robinson

20 Apr 2004 11:36

Ask Dan Robinson (Tipton Harriers) what major sacrifice he made to become an Olympic marathon runner, and he smiles: ?Crisps and beer.? And, believe it or not, less mileage in training!

Ask him what major influences lifted him from Sunday league football in Gloucestershire to the Olympic Games in Athens, and he comes up with a serious list starting with the late Tipton talisman Bryan Clifton and ending with the National Marathon Squad gathered together by the UK Athletics National Event Coach, Bud Baldaro.

Born on 13 January 1975, Robinson, from Nailsworth in Gloucestershire, only began running seriously less than five years ago ? yet clinched his place in Team GB at this summer?s Games by finishing the Flora London Marathon on 18 April in 2 hours 13 minutes 53 seconds.

He explains: ?Initially I joined a gym because I was a little bit overweight and I was trying to improve my fitness for my Sunday league football. I found the treadmill was the piece of equipment that suited me best ? and that I could run forever.

?I had my big breakthrough at the 1999 Great North Run. I did it in 66 and a half minutes off around 45 miles a week on the treadmill ? eight miles a day. I entered a few local races, found I was winning a few ? and the late Bryan Clifton began hounding me. He was the Tipton team manager, he?d noticed from results that I was unattached, and he was always on the phone. I got calls from other people urging me to join their clubs, but I liked talking to Bryan so I joined Tipton in 2000.?

The shock of Clifton?s sudden death as he finished a race on the following New Year?s Eve merely strengthened his resolve. Recognising his coach, Baldaro, ?must be the busiest man in the athletics world?, he astutely enlisted a ?sounding board?, Chris Frapwell, who runs for Stroud.

Robinson remembers 2000 as ?a quite good year.? His fastest half marathon of that year, 66 minutes 52 seconds for eighth place just down the road from home at Stroud, ranked him 45th in the UK. The achievement is noted on page 190 of the British Athletics 2001 statistical annual ? and, with sweet irony, the following page is headed by the UK?s fastest marathoner of the year, 2:11:17 by Jon Brown (Sheffield AC) when he finished fourth in the Sydney Olympics.

Who could have guessed the two would be team mates four years on? Robinson quietly worked at the idea?

In 2001, he earned his first England vest at the Enschede Half Marathon in the Netherlands, and lowered his PB to 64:40. He was then the second UK athlete home, in 64:27, in the UK Half Marathon in Glasgow, earning a place in the Norwich Union Great Britain and Northern Ireland Team at the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Bristol, where he finished 57th (third Brit) in 64:23 (albeit on a day when most local eyes were on Paula Radcliffe retaining the Women?s title). It hoisted him to tenth in the UK rankings for the year; and he was fifth in the marathon rankings after clocking 2:16:51 on his debut at the distance in Frankfurt.

?Perhaps it came a little quick,? he muses, reflecting on the fact that 2002 was not so good, though he trained harder. His quickest half marathon was 65:10 (for 14th in the UK rankings) and he covered the London Marathon in 2:17:51 (good enough for sixth in the UK rankings but nowhere in global terms).

Last year was tough, too. A half marathon best of 64:24 was good enough to rank him fourth in the country and a marathon time of 2:18:01 was good enough to place him third; but nowhere near quick enough to get him to Paris for the IAAF World Championships.

So what was his response to the derision being heaped upon the UK?s men as the year ended with none of them as quick as Radcliffe? How did he answer the clamour for the harder work?

?Cut my mileage down,? he says. ?90 to 100 a week. Consistency has been the key. The more weeks you can tick off that you have run, the better you seem to get.?

So the average week will take in a couple of sessions ? 16 to 20 400s with short recoveries on a Tuesday; kilometre or mile reps on a Thursday ? with a couple of steady runs interspersed with higher intensity mileage on the other days.

To make sure training takes precedence, he gave up working in a health and fitness club in Henley to become office administrator in the property development company run by his father; though he also spends time helping out with games periods at the prep school he used to attend near home. ?Dad lets me go running in the mornings before work, and I tend to get off early enough to get my second efforts in.?

Diet has never been a problem: ?I?ve always tried to eat reasonably well. My girlfriend, Jessica, who is a member of Stroud AC, makes sure I get home-cooked, healthy meals. I suppose from my Sunday football days, I miss crisps and beer. But I had a couple of pints on London Marathon night!?

Oh, and he still pops onto the treadmill every now and then. ?It helps me to increase my leg speed,? he explains.

He now plans to take ten days to two weeks of rest to completely recover from his London exertions before beginning to prepare in earnest for the totally different challenge of Athens: a hilly course not unlike the undulating roads on which he trains in Gloucestershire; but a hot and humid climate that will take some getting used to.

?I?ll keep the mileage steady to get the speed back in my legs,? he says. ?I?ll get into 5km and 10km local road races to try to run quickly on my own. And see if I can go into the races and sessions fresher despite the mileage.?

And he will embark on the greatest sporting adventure of his life buoyed by the enthusiasm generated within the UKA National Marathon Squad. ?It?s brilliant,? Robinson says. ?We had ? what was it? ? 13 under 2:20 in London without Mark Steinle, Matt O?Dowd and Karl Keska, who will all probably be 2:10 runners when they are fit. And we all know Jon Brown can run a lot quicker than 2:13.

?There?s massive grounds for optimism!

?I?ve been to a couple of squad weekends in Winchester and Loughborough, and they?ve been brilliant: 10 to 12 guys running some really fast sessions, helping each other out, learning lots from talks by Steve Brace, a double Olympian, and Mike Gratton, a former London winner, and then doing long runs together on Sundays.

?They?re gatherings of like-minded people who are competitive and ambitious. It?s the way forward!?

Good read thank you.

Dan's half marathon pb is about 64.20, not 66-odd. He's run a load of halves in 64-something and represented Britain at the World Half in 2001.

he also knocks out mid to low 29s for road 10ks....I'm sure he'd be sub 29:00 on the track