Steve Prefontaine's training

The recovery time after repetitions at 5km pace is a crucial factor. A good rule-of-thumb guide is to jog one-eighth the distance of the repetition. In 1972 I watched Steve Prefontaine (USA) in the Olympic village do 3 x 1 mile in 4:08 (12:56 / 5km) with 15 minutes rest after each. Many onlookers thought this was a sensational session and tipped him for the gold medal. However, we do not have 15 minutes rest after the first mile of a 5km race. It would have been better if he had done 3 x 1 mile in 4:16 with 200m jog recovery. He finished fourth in the final in a time of 13:28 (64.5/400m).

hey you guys are cool, thanx for the info...

were there any english runners ahead of prefontaine in that race

In the Olympic final, Ian Stewart (England) edged him for the bronze.

Hey guys thanks for remembering.

Here is some of my training.

10x 400 in 59 seconds with 400 jog interval.

4x 1200 in 3:09 with 5 minute walk interval.

The other days I jogged around at 7 minute mile pace.

ohhh that was funny!

are you the real frank? good lad--thanks for contributing! i had always wondered who it was that did that session who always write about it as an "international athlete"

Hey Frank, I bet you Pre could have kicked Hutching's but in a race.

If you don't agree, please explain in 5 tiers why he couldn't.

pre is a beast! please note cv & at type training within the framework of pre's work.

Hutchings and Prefontaine both finished 4th in Olympic 500m finals. Tim ran 13.11 while Steve ran 13.28. Make of it what you will.

Who the hell is Frank Horwell.

hey frank, you also don't get a 200m jog between miles in the 5k either. so should he have just raced the straight 3miles to prepare himself.

Oh my god that's brilliant!!

From now on we're going to run 5k's straight with no rests.

bump

That type of training is overated. If you always took short rest periods between intervals you would never get much faster then you are right now. You have to train faster then race pace and because of that the body needs more rest. Of course there are certain bench mark workouts throughout the year that will test you near race pace with short recoveries, but there is also, long runs, tempo runs, strength work etc. You have to blend them all!

Imagine always doing 3x mile with 200 recoveries, complete nonsense! you would have days were you would actually run slower then other days, and that is because it is so damn hard. You can only do those type of workouts once every two months tops.

Ian

Thank you for signing my "Once a Runner" book at the Pre Classic a few years ago when you presented the trophy for the 5k. You are a gentleman and have a sincere heart. I thought it was so cool when you said: "that Pre ran a better race then I did"! The statement was humble and showed the spirit of a true sportsman. Reality is, you could have won that race!

Q

Ian, I thought I read somewhere that you became a "bikey" after Munich. True? How'd you do at it?

thats most peoples error! they want to jog around! i believe in guts, just like pre, he ran his easy runs under 6 min pace! thats what i do too. thats what we did at adams too! thats why we won nationals too!

Ian Stewart wrote:

Hey guys thanks for remembering.

Here is some of my training.

10x 400 in 59 seconds with 400 jog interval.

4x 1200 in 3:09 with 5 minute walk interval.

The other days I jogged around at 7 minute mile pace.

Frank? Why would you run with such little recovery when in OLYMPIC Village? Obviously AT the Olympics, it sounded like a sharper session to me, although 15 minutes does sound a bit long. I think 3 x mile with 200 in same Olympic span would be a bit much, no? Awfully close.