As dedicated, passionate, inspiring, mad, valuable as they come.
Big shoes to fill.
As dedicated, passionate, inspiring, mad, valuable as they come.
Big shoes to fill.
Wow, this is sad. Frank was a great man. His contributions to the sport were invaluable. I enjoyed reading the few times he posted here on LetsRun. He will be missed.
RIP - a great coach and a maverick. He had a long life and lived it well.
RIP
Sad loss.
Bit more background on Frank and some articles by him here:
Frank was a great coach and person. I contacted from the states via letter about eight years ago for some training advice on the marathon. He responded with a three page typed on a typewriter letter outlining a good plan for me. He did this for free and just to help. We continued to write back and forth three more times and in the end I have about fifteen typed pages from him all about my training. He was a man dedicated to helping anyone who wanted to improve their running. If you search on google for his articles you will find I would guess well over 100 different articles on training, nutrition etc to help runners. I am sad to see such a great person in our sport go.
Stumbled on his web articles years ago.
Amazing guy.
I remember him when he coached at Battersea Park (London) in the 90s. He coached a huge group from joggers to Internationals (Tim Hutchings, 13.11/5000, and 2nd World Cross, Stavanger) - and treated everyone as if they were champions. He could transform 18 minute 5km runners into decent club runners - 14.30/5000 - a lot of guys like that, benefited from Frank. He knew how to get the best out of people, and used to call jogging 'a waste of time.' He said that all running should have a purpose and outcome. He was the master of the stop watch, and progressive speeds in intervals over months and months of the calendar year. If you did not get injured, you would improve. He made training sessions a social occasion, because even though the training could be painful, the fact that there were so many groups of different abilities to train with, made it feasable for everyone to find a group to hang on to. A kind of Kenyan system in the UK!
Ghost in Saudi,
, apply today
great man, the thing that i remembered most about him was his optimism, whereas most people say this is why you CANT be this good, he would say this is how you CAN be this good.
he will be missed.
Didn't Frank pioneer multi-pace training?
FogRunner wrote:
Didn't Frank pioneer multi-pace training?
No that was Lydiard - didn't he pioneer everything? Perhaps Horwill just stole it from Lydiard and claimed it as his own.
In my early 50's I began to use Frank Horwill's 10km training program and was able to run 33:49. I have used his training approach ever since and now I am in my late 60's.Years ago I wrote him a letter of thanks which he kindly acknowledged. Exraordinary man and coach.
He was a paradox and a maverick. At the track he was outgoing and effusive, but away from the track in his small flat, he lived the life of a recluse, and many of his neighbors had no idea who the strange fellow was.
Despite being surrounded by athletes, he confessed one day to me that he was a very lonely person.
Tim Hutchings was a good runner down in Horsham, Sussex, and became an extraordinary one through Frank. Once again, if you did not get injured, you would really improve your times. It was a very systematic approach to training and progress. Taking a guy like Hutchings to 13.11 and second in World Cross was remarkable, because there were athletes with higher talent than Hutchings who never achieved anything close to what he achieved.
Frank thought that 'jogging' and junk miles were a waste of time. His approach to running was similar to elite swimming training in that everything should be based on the clock.
He will be missed, because his passion and knowledge of the sport was contagious.
Ghost in Saudi,
, apply today
Here's a link to the collection of Frank's articles on the serpentine website, some real gems of advice in here. These, along with his many articles in athletics weekly, were invaluable to me in my teenage years as I learned about how to train and indeed how to fuel yourself correctly and deal with the many obstacles distance runners encounter such as anaemia etc. By founding the British Milers Club, he kicked off an organisation that did massive work to improve the standard of distance running in Britain. Were it not for the BMC, my 1500 pb would be two seconds slower. I know countless others will be the same. His knowledge and passion for the sport will be sadly missed. R.I.P.
A great innovator and maverick. His 5 Pace tier system he introduced in 1970 was largely responsible for the re-emergence of British middle distance running in the 70's and 80's. It was a system used by Coe and later Aouita.
R.I.P. Frank Horwill.
He influenced alot of coaches thinking ( though never really acknowledged.) Big loss for British distance running. RIP Frank.
Just seen this, a sad day
http://www.athleticsweekly.com/news/hutchings-leads-tributes-for-legendary-coach-frank-horwill/