Training of David Hemery (1968 400mh Gold, 1972 Bronze)

Very interesting stuff, especially the 10mi runs at 6minute pace. I imagine keeping this type of endurance in the winter greatly helped him recover faster between workouts, and between races.

Thanks for the link!

You know they didn't have GPS back then... like Coe's "800m" road repeats, measured with a damn car.

I am sure it was super-hard "10" mile runs.

It says he also ran 4x800. What was his best 800m time? Thanks for this.

He said the volume hurt him.

Fitness helps you recover -- and only a part of fitness is volume; too much running can be worse than too little. Lots of 10mi /day guys who would have trouble walking after racing 400 hurdles.

I know for a fact that Dave Hemery ran at least one season of XC while a student at BU.

My recollection re: 800PR is less certain, but I seem to remember hearing several 1:50-1:52s before he decided it wasn't his distance.

He ran 1:09.8 in 1966 for the 600 yd distance.

he didn't say that volume hurt him, but that too much did, which I think is an important distinction. Both he and Akii Bua did some crazy over distance work (mostly in the form of long intervals--I wish i knew how fast Akii Bua did his 1500h repeats--but also including some cross country), biut I don't think either neglected speed.

Also, it's hard to find results for him outside his primary distances, but he and Akii Bua do both have decathlon scores listed. Both in the 6000s, I imagine neither would be great throwers/vaulters

I'll ask when I next see him.

jjjjjj wrote:

It says he also ran 4x800. What was his best 800m time? Thanks for this.

From his biography "Another Hurdle" he lists 880y relay leg in 1:56.5 on page 206 from December 8, 1966 at a meet in Providence, Rhode Island. But on page 96 he writes "Repeats of 5 x 880 yards averaging 2 minutes 01 came down to 2 x 880 yards in 1 minute 54 and one 1 minute 52 in cold and rain...6 x 660 yards averaging 89 seconds came down to 6 x 660 yards in 83 seconds average..."

Hemery was an insanely hard trainer who met his match in 1972 against another insanely hard trainer, Akii-Bua. Hemery was targeting 46.8 for Munich, kept getting hurt during his preparation, still got the bronze and a relay silver, giving him a complete set of Olympic medals.

Thank you! That's very interesting. I assume that relay time was very early season? Based on that workout it sounds like he may have been capable of at least sub 1:50

I just don't get how 10 mile runs, or 4-5 x 800 sessions are supposed to help someone run 47 for 400H. Surely it is more important to get faster?

I saw an interview with an Olympic 400H champion once and when asked what other race is most relevant for the 400H, did she say 800? 400?

No. She said 100. She said the 400H is like 11 x 35m sprints.

Wouldn't it be more important to work on dropping your 100 time from 10.55 to 10.35 than improve your 800 fitness from 1.55-1.50 level?

Karma Police wrote:Wouldn't it be more important to work on dropping your 100 time from 10.55 to 10.35 than improve your 800 fitness from 1.55-1.50 level?

Why not do both?

His auto biography "Another Hurdle" is one of the best athletic books I've read. It gives details of his training leading up to both 1968 and 1972 - and I do mean details!!

It also includes the best description of a single training session I have read , a session of 400 reps indoors dating from (I think 1966 or 67). Reading it, you can feel the pain!!

Sorry, should have written "...6 x 660 yards averaging 89 seconds came down to 4 x 660 yards in 83 seconds average..."

To the posters who suggest it would have been better to work the speed/power side, also Hemery did crazy hill and sand dune sessions. He also kept trying to learn to alternate lead legs but only partially succeeded. One of his workouts getting ready for Munich was 2 x 120 yards high hurdles with 11 hurdles instead of 10. He did them in 15.2 and 15.3 off his "wrong" leg.

For the Munich final he ended up going back to his old pattern of 13 strides in the beginning and switching to 15 strides later in the race, no alternating lead leg.

mark b wrote:

His auto biography "Another Hurdle" is one of the best athletic books I've read. It gives details of his training leading up to both 1968 and 1972 - and I do mean details!!

It also includes the best description of a single training session I have read , a session of 400 reps indoors dating from (I think 1966 or 67). Reading it, you can feel the pain!!

Glad I wasn't the only one to read it. The last chapter "Everyone has their own Gold medal" was really well done.

Back to the training. In his lead up to Mexico city he ran a lot of races. Indoor 55HH or 60HH or whatever the distance was,55s, 4x4s, open 4s, 600s. Outdoor it was the same thing. 110s, 400IHs, open 4s, 100s, etc etc

But by Munich he was done in the collegiate system. He worked, trained, lived. I think all of the racing probably helped him. By racing as much as he did he was prevented from all of the over-training. He had a race every weekend from January until Mid June.

He also was a short hurdler before moving up to the 400IH in 68.

Still a bronze in 72. Amazing!

He was coached at Boston U. By Billy Smith.

Post Munich, he used to work out evenings at Boston Colleges outdoor track, no one had indoors then, and I witnessed some of his incredible workouts in the snow, wind, cold and rain.

He was a full-time grad student at a little known college across the Charles River at that time.

Correction, it was preMunich, post Mexico city, so 70, 71,72, in there..

Time blurs years but I sat in the stands with a stopwatch and remember some of his "ladder" workouts.

here's the 68 race. That time would still be pretty competitive today, I imagine he'd be a low 47 runner on modern tracks