I started running because of Once A Runner; I spent years believing and evangelizing. I wish, though, someone had hammered home that it’s a work of fiction, that John Parker never broke four, and that mileage nuts from the sixties and seventies are (almost universally) broke and divorced.
When you spend your life on a path it can be awfully disheartening when you seem to be going backwards.
“But he was a CARTOONIST not a PROPHET” the infidels will cry, decades from now when this catches on.
I first had this thought on a school trip to Turkey when the Calls to Prayers coincided with my morning and evening runs,
The fastest people I know weave running effortlessly into their lives and never, ever talk about it.
I always think that I want an interesting life but really I just want to do the same thing every day only maybe a little bit better.
Steve Prefontaine idolized Ron Clarke— king of the front runners, the sacrificial lambs. He so idolized Clark that he copied his racing methods, simultaneously succumbing to the same tragic fate and singlehandedly transforming track into an exciting spectator sport.
Pre revolutionized running not with his training, which was remarkable, but with his attitude, which was relentless. He ran every race like a prizefight, ran every workout like a race, partied as hard as we worked out, and mouthed off a much as he partied. “Envision a satyr,” explained Frank Shorter.
Each morning, Pre rose at six am— no matter how hungover, sleep deprived or full of pizza— and stumbled out the door at ten miles an hour or quicker for five to ten miles. In the afternoons he’d run again, either another five to ten at ten miles an hour or an interval session, which he did three times a week. He raced workouts, refusing to let others finish first. On the rare occasion they did, he’d sulk for days before the next workout, returning with a vengeance to assert his dominance.
On Tuesdays he’d run four to six hundred meter repeats. On Thursdays he ran two to three hundred meter repeats, often with a tempo. On Saturdays he ran longer intervals— up to a mile and a half— or he raced. He charged to the front of every race, loudly shouting his strategy for all to hear, calling his shots in the manner of Muhammed Ali and Babe Ruth. “No one will ever win a five thousand meter race by running an easy first two miles. Not against me,” he’d proclaim to the press. Like Clarke, he considered it his moral obligation, both to everyone running the race and everyone watching the race. “A race,” he famously stated, “is a work of art that people can look at and be affected by in as many ways as they are capable of understanding.”
His art– front-running for all to see, laying bare his suffering–pierced the hearts of track fans everywhere; they loved him. His home crowd screamed so hard for him that he went utterly undefeated on his home track in anything over a mile. In the most famously selfish of sports, where athletes chase personal bests and individual accolades, Pre ran selflessly, to bring joy to others.
At the end of his career, cut short by his death, he held every American record from two to ten kilometers. His tactics, like his hero’s, had cost him an Olympic medal but earned him an eternal spot in the pantheon of legendary runners. While some revolutionized running through their training— introducing intervals or fartleks or long runs— and some revolutionize through their racing— winning more gold medals or setting more world records— Pre irrevocably altered the sport through the sheer force of his personality, his words echoing in the ears of runners forevermore.
I think fifteen year old me would be bummed that I chose running instead of something cooler like surfing but he’d be pretty okay with it considering it led me to cartooning which– in my very subjective opinion– is about the coolest profession there is.
I remember looking at my dad and then looking in the mirror and wondering what I would look like when I grew up and honestly I still have no idea.
Frank Shorter’s father, a kindly, charitable town doctor, savagely beat every member of his family. Young Frank got into running, initially, as an outlet—escaping to the roads to cope with his violent home. In college, at Yale, he did the same— escaping to the roads to cope with his rigorous studies.
At the suggestion of his coach, Frank increased his mileage a bit and placed 19th at NCAA cross country championships. At the suggestion of Jack Bachelor— and entomologist and America’s best distance runner— Frank increased his mileage even more, and won the NCAA six mile championship on the track.
After college, Frank continued to increase his mileage, bouncing between town and jobs before finally settling in Gainesville, Florida with Bachelor and his training partner, Jeff Galloway. The trio trained like madmen— running twice a day, searing through intervals sessions twice a week, and each weekend running twenty miles— all in the heavy Panhandle heat. The interval sessions usually consisted of ten to fifteen quarter mile repeats with very, very little rest. They sped carelessly along the thin red line between improvement and injury, and in 1972 all three of them made the Olympic team.
In Munich, Frank set an American record in his heat of the 10,000m. In the final, he set another American record, finishing fifth behind Lasse Viren’s world record. Days later, Frank ran the marathon, broke open the field with a vicious surge, and won a gold medal.
His tactics revolutionized the marathon— strategy prior to Shorter involved outlasting your enemy; Shorter’s surges added actual tactics. His win revolutionized running in America— soon everyone wanted to run a marathon like the famous Frank Shorter; road races became big business. His fame revolutionized athletics—Olympic restrictions prevented athletes from earning off their endeavors; Frank wielded his stardom to abolish amateurism and allow runners to make money from their efforts.
To do all this, Frank followed a simple formula:
“Two hard interval sessions a week and one long runs, 20 miles or two hours, whichever comes first. Everything other run is aerobic and you do as much of that as you can handle. Do this or 2-3 years. You’ll get good.”
With this weekly structure, now a familiar cadence employed by runners everywhere, Frank Shorter fathered the modern sport of running.
Listen I know you’re busy and you have so much to do and life is gonna beat the shit out of you all day all night and then tomorrow too but you definitely have ten minutes to enjoy a moment eating a banana and reading a book and if you don’t have a book to read I recommend pretty much anything by Terry Pratchett and I promise you’ll feel a little better after ten minutes maybe not perfect but definitely better.
In 1956, John Landy took a spike to the Achilles in the middle of the Australian Mile Championships. He fell to the track, brushed himself off, helped up the young runner who had spiked him, then went on to win the race. Landy, in this ultimate act of sportsmanship, also unwittingly marked the future of Australian champions. The young runner he helped, nineteen year old Ron Clarke, would go on to rewrite the record books and play a fundamental role in the history of Track and Field.
Taking advice and inspiration from John Landy, Clarke set Australian Junior records in 1955 and 1956, then retired to get a job and start a family. Once settled, he casually returned to running but improved steadily until— to his surprise—he made the Australian team for the 1962 Commonwealth Games. He then won a silver medal in the three mile race. In 1963 he set a world record over ten thousand meters, then in the 1964 Olympics he dashed to the front of both the five and ten thousand meter finals, controlling the paces but getting out-kicked both times.
In 1965 he took to the track with a vengeance, setting twelve world records over forty four days. In 1966 he won two silvers at the Commonwealth Games, losing twice to Kenyan kicks. In 1967 he won all but one race and set a world record over two miles, and in 1968 he took a five month hiatus from his job to train in the Alps in preparation for the Mexico City Olympics. He descended from altitude a few times, once to race a blustery ten thousand meters, where he came within ten seconds of his world record and lapped the man that would— a few years later— go on to break it.
Despite his preparation, he blacked out during the Olympic ten thousand meter final but stayed on his feet, covering the last lap in ninety five seconds and placing sixth. He muscled through the five thousand meter final as well but placed fifth. The next year he set a world record over three miles indoors, and the year after he tried one last time for a Commonwealth gold medal but only managed silver in the ten thousand meters.
Nobody worked harder than Ron Clarke. He trained like he raced: hard and often. He ran three times a day, every day, over hilly courses under the bare Australian sun in a full sweatsuit. He ran fast, often under five minute pace, over dirt, grass and roads, touching the track only to race—usually two or three times a week—or to sharpen his speed— usually once a week, with a few two or four hundred meter repeats. He varied neither his training nor his racing and treated competition as a moral obligation: he stayed fit year round and led every race on principle, never compromising, not even in the Olympics.
In between the Tokyo and Mexico City Olympics, Ron Clarke visited the legendary Emil Zatopek in Czechoslovakia. In a quieter act of sportsmanship, Zatopek secretly bestowed one of his medals to Clarke “not out of friendship, but because [he deserved] it.” Clarke would never win a gold medal of his own, but his relentless front-running blazed the way for other legends: Billy Mills, Bob Schul, Kip Keino all rose to glory by drafting off Clarke’s shoulder.
One young Oregon runner, known everywhere by the first syllable of his last name, so admired Clarke’s bravery that he aggressively emulated the Australian in every race, capturing the imaginations of track fans for generations to come.
The dominant trait of Dragon Slayers is not Bravery but Jealousy
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Sometimes I think about how Sebastian Coe ran under 3:50 off of, like, six miles a week and wonder why I’m logging so many miles and if I’m really training to improve or just training because I like training. I’ve tried running fast off of less mileage though, and it didn’t work, so I’ve come to the conclusion that training to improve and training because one likes training are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and that sometimes having a solid amount of work behind you gives you faith in your ability to tackle the task ahead of you.
Most runners have some sort of faith, but Billy Mills’ faith won a gold medal.
Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Mills– whose Lakota name, Tamakoce Te’Hila, means love of country or earth– filled his younger days fishing and climbing and hunting and running everywhere. He found that his dynamic childhood made him a pretty good runner, and he earned a scholarship to the University of Kansas. After two years of rampant racism (against his Lakota heritage) and oscillating performances (from undiagnosed diabetes), Billy came within inches of suicide. All that stopped him was the echo of his dead father’s voice saying “Don’t.”
Billy remembered his father telling him that a dream can heal broken wings, that pursuit of a dream can give one the wings of an eagle, so Billy wrote down his dream: “Gold Medal. 1964 Olympics. 10,000 Meter Run.”
He finished college, enlisted in the marines, then failed to qualify for their Olympic Training Camp. Undeterred, he trained like a madman, then failed to qualify again. He appealed to his commanding officer who bent beneath the sheer force of Billy’s belief in himself.
At training camp, Billy covered ten miles a day, alternating days of speed— when he’d run repeats of 110 yards— and days of endurance- when he’d run longer intervals. He promptly got injured. Undeterred, he trained through it, running fartleks on golf courses, intervals on grass tracks, and long runs on dirt roads.
He made it to the Olympic Trials in one piece, set a personal best, but still finished second to a high-schooler. Throughout all this, Billy visualized winning the Olympics each day, running the race over and over in his head. When he got to Tokyo, for the ten thousand meter final, he faced a field of gold medalists and world record holders, most of whom had run faster than him. Undeterred, he stayed on the shoulder of the world record holder, Ron Clarke, as Clarke whittled the field with a series of brutal surges.
In the final lap, as the two were passing lapped runners, Clarke shoved Mills out to the side. Mills stumbled, recovered, then got pushed aside again as Mohammed Ghamoudi broke for the tape. Mills trailed for half a lap before swinging wide, unleashing a supernatural burst of speed, and storming his way to victory. On the wings of an eagle, Billy Mills won his Gold Medal– the first non-white runner to win the event.
It would be a mistake to blame Billy’s win on belief or divine intervention. He had incredible talent, worked incredibly hard, and made all the right moves in a tactical race. Belief allowed him, however, to stay undeterred through all the setbacks— from failing to qualify for training camp to the vicious surges and elbows of Ron Clarke. There comes a time in every race where the runner, faced with their impending mortality, sags. Such was the strength of Billy’s vision that he remained steadfast through the finish. Though his legs and lungs carried him through the race, his belief carried him to victory.
Billy Mills embodies the oldest cure for an existential crisis: pick a purpose.
I don’t think I’m cool like at all but there is something cool about setting your body on autopilot and covering long, long distances at a decent clip and registering only a minor amount of distress, very aware of your mortality, but also feeling about as close as you can to invincible.
There is something pleasant about getting a run in before work and having it be done with but often it’s a little too pleasant and kills my ambition to do anything else for the rest of the day.
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Kip Keino baffled sportswriters. Nobody could figure out how he grinned his way to world records and gold medals while his opponents collapsed behind him. They blamed everything from upbringing, environment, natural talent and tribal rituals— unwilling to believe that he simply trained like a madman.
He certainly benefited from his upbringing and environment: as a boy he herded goats for his abusive uncle. He spent all day scurrying over steep Kenyan hills beneath the hot, African sun. When his father finally allowed Kip to attend school he had to run there and back. He did all this barefoot, at altitude. His upbringing prepared his youthful legs and lungs for a career in aerobic endeavors.
His training, however, sculpted him into a world-beater. He began running seriously after joining the police academy, where they had him mix distance runs and sprints three times a week. On his first trip abroad, he watched how his competition ran interval workouts. After his first Olympics, he spoke to Mal Whitfield— the legendary American runner— who taught him how to think, live and train like a champion. Keino cobbled together his own training that worked for him: he ran three times a day, with interval sessions three times a week. Then, each year, he’d hop on a plane and race like a maniac.
In his first trip abroad he finished last in the Commonwealth Games (but set Kenyan records). In his first Olympics, in Tokyo, he finished fifth in the 5000m and failed to make the 1500m final. Three years after that he won a silver and a gold medal at the Olympics. The next year, he set a world record in the 3000m, the 5000m, and ran the second fastest mile of all time (the first black runner under four minutes). Then he won two gold medals at the Commonwealth Games. At his next Olympics, in Mexico City, he collapsed in the 10,000m (from a gallbladder infection), won silver in the 5000m four days later, and won the 1500m in an Olympic record three days after that. Two years later he won double gold in the Commonwealth Games again. Two years after that, at the Munich Olympics, he won a gold medal in the steeplechase and silver medal in the 1500m.
He did most of this with a smile on his face. Reporters needed to find some reason, some explanation for his success. The first man to break four had done it between his shifts at a hospital. How could Keino, an uneducated African farmer, so dominate the distances of doctors? Keino would tell them, “There is nothing special about me. There will soon be many in Kenya as good as me.”
While his harsh upbringing and environment laid the foundations for greatness, his intense training turned him into a world-beater, and his grinning wins inspired a legacy of Kenyan champions for decades to come.
You know that feeling when you’re perfectly tapered and you’ve had a little too much coffee and you’re afraid your skin can’t contain all the energy bubbling behind it? You know when your friend has it too and you’re about to race and you know it’s just gonna be an epic violent dogfight?
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Somehow I always forget that no matter how confident I am or how great my workouts have been I will always feel like shit seventy two hours before a race but it always goes away two hundred meters into the race.
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“It took a million Italians to invade Ethiopia but only one Ethiopian soldier to conquer Rome.”
Legend has it that the grandson of Noah settled Ethiopia after the great flood. Years later the Queen of Sheba, ruler of Ehtiopia, visits king Solomon and bears his a son, Menelik, who she takes back to Ethiopia. Menelik travels to Jerusalem as a grown man, and returns to Ethiopia with one thousand descendants of the tribes of Israel, as well as the Arc of the Covenant— thus began a Solemnic dynasty that ended hundreds of of generations laters with Haille Selassie.
These days, however, Ethiopia is most famous for fostering the greatest athletes in the world, a dynasty that began with Abebe Bikila.
Bikila grew up in on a farm in rural Ethiopia, outside of Addis, the capital city of Ethiopia. As an adult, he joined the Imperial Guard in the and ran twenty kilometers to and from work each day. This caught the attention of Onni Niskanen, the Swedish conditioning coach of the Imperial Guard,
Bikila grew up on a farm in rural Ethiopia, just outside of Addis, the capital city. As an adult, he joined the Imperial Guard, and ran to and from work in Addis each day. His commuting caught the attention of Onni Niskanen, the Swedish conditioning coach for the Imperial Guard, who decided to train Bikila for the Olympic marathon.
Niskanen’s coaching inspiration came from various sources. He worked with Bikila on the runner’s form, settling his flailing limbs. He had Bikila alternate between days of long intervals on the track— usually 1500m in four minutes with five minutes of recovery— and long runs of thirty kilometers— usually across the soft surfaces of hilly Ethiopian farm land. Most of the time, Bikila ran barefoot.
In 1960, he won the marathon in the Armed Forces Championships at Addis in 2:21, faster than the Olympic record. A month later, he boarded a plane for the Rome Olympics.
When Bikila and Niskanen arrived, Bikila couldn’t find a comfortable pair of shoes, so he sauntered to the starting line, relaxed and confident, without any. The gun fired, and he ran barefoot through the cobbled streets under Italy’s hot, evening sun. He hung in the lead pack for sixteen miles, then broke away from the field. Only one runner, Rhadi Ben Abdesselam of Morocco, stayed with him. With five hundred meters to go, Abdesselam still hung on Bikila’s shoulder, so Bikila released a furious barefooted kick and tore away from his opponent. He ran 2:15:41, beating by Abdesselam by twenty five seconds, setting a world record, and winning black Africa’s first Olympic Gold Medal. After finishing, he did some calisthenics and claimed he could have run another ten kilometers.
Upon returning to Ethiopia, Abebe received a house, a car, a driver (Abebe couldn’t drive) and a promotion from Emperor Haile Selassie as a thank-you.
In 1961, he won marathons in Greece, Japan and Slovakia. He also weathered an attempted coup d’etat while Haile Celassie was visiting Brazil.
In 1963, he ran the Boston Marathon but, like so many before him, fell prey to the bitter New England wind and Newton Hills. He set off at world record pace, but finished only fifth in 2:25.
In 1964, he lined up for the Tokyo Olympic Marathon, despite getting his appendix out a month earlier. This time, he wore shoes. He ran behind the lead pack for the first ten kilometers, then increased the pace. By fifteen kilometers he trailed only Australian Ron Clarke and Irishman Jim Hogan. At twenty kilometers he took the lead and in the next fifteen kilometers charged to a two minute lead. By the time he finished— in another world record of 2:12:11— he had put three minutes on second place. Again, he celebrated by doing calisthenics.
Upon returning to Ethiopia, he received another promotion.
He won three marathons in the next two years, then injured himself in 1967. He stared the Olympic Marathon in Mexico City, but could only run ten miles. Before dropping out, he ordered his training partner and subordinate Mamo Wolde to win the race, which he did. While Bikila never ran another marathon, Wolde won silver in the Munich Olympics behind Frank Shorter. Thus began Ethiopia’s Marathoning Legacy.
Abebe’s success comes from a combination of factors. Like Hanne’s Kolehmainen, who grew thick skin toughened by the harsh, Arctic environment, Bikila grew massive lungs in the hot, thin African air. Like Tom Longboat, who relied his legs for transportation, Bikila earned his legs commuting twenty kilometers each way. Like Gundar Hagg, who sped in heavy boots through the hilly snow drifts of Northern Sweden, Bikila frolicked barefoot across soft, undulating farmland of Ethiopia.
Bikila’s coach took inspiration from Hagg’s fartleks, preferring Bikila run barefoot through the hills to build resistance, but added formality and awareness of pacing with intervals. Even in this, though, he strayed from the normal, endless four-hundred meters repeats and had Bikila run longer repetitions with little rest.
Through this perfect assembly of environment, upbringing, and training, Abebe Bikila was able to provide the final ingredient for a marathoning dynasty: a hero, in whose footprints to follow.
I’d like to think all the running I do is strictly in the name of improving for racing but to be honest I don’t like racing all that much and I really like putting together solid weeks of training and that usually does the thing with the chemicals in my brain and that’s good enough for me. Fucking Joe Binks.
Roger Bannister broke four minutes by four tenths of a second in 1954. Six weeks later, John Landy runs 3:58. Three years later, Derek Ibbotson runs runs 3:57.2. While the rest of the world is still getting used to shaving tenths of a second off the four minute barrier, Herb Elliot runs 3:54.5. Elliot’s meteoric career lasted only four years, but in those four years he set the mile world record, set the 1500m world record, broke his own 1500m world record en route to winning an Olympic gold medal, and retired utterly undefeated.
Elliot went to Aquinas High School in Australia, where he got great grades, played piano, won prizes for debate and showed an early talent for, though not much interest in, running the mile. In a rare display of ambition, he wrote to John Landy asking for running advice. Landy told him to run for the sake of running and forget about the clock. With those words in his head, Elliot still ran 4:22, then broke his foot, picked up smoking, picked up partying, picked up furniture working for his dad, and forgot— almost entirely— about running until the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
He watched in awe as Vladimir Kuts won both the 5000m and the 10000m. He cheered his throat raw during the 1500m final, jumped a fence to talk to the winner, Ron Delaney, then— inspired— drove out to Portsea near Melbourne to seek the sagely advice of the eccentric Percy Cerutty.
Cerutty, a wispy-haired, elfin, electron of a man, preached as loudly about lifestyle as he did about athletics. He advocated eating only raw foods, a voracious appetite for classical literature, and constantly seeking one’s limits by seeking and striving against discomfort. Inspired by the snow-covered, arboreal Swedish Fartlek, he scorned regimented training and wove resistance into the environment. Each weekend he had Herb running endless loops of a two-kilometer sandy circuit, battling the open ocean, charging up and down hundred-foot sand dunes, and heaving weights around. Constantly, he’d shout “Be contemptuous of pain, and thrust against it!”
Six weeks later, Elliot ran 4:06 for the mile, setting a junior world record. Then he set a junior world record over 880 yards, ran 4:06 two more times, then 4:04. Now a senior athlete, he won the mile at the 1957 Australian championships in four flat point four. After six months of racing, he went to Perth for the Australian off-season.
In August he returned to Melbourne to resume training. On weekdays, he’d run ten miles at whatever speed he felt— which was usually fast. On weekends, he’d drive out to Portsea to Cerutty’s training camp and subject his body to a gruesome, Spartan tempering. On a diet of raw oats, raw vegetables, and milk, Elliot covered fifty miles over seventy two hours, always barefoot, always on sand, never with a watch, and interspersed with surf-swimming, weight-lifting, and brief naps.
When Elliot returned to the track in January 1958, he promptly broke four for the mile, the youngest runner to do so, won two more miles— both under four— against Australia’s top miler, Merv Lincoln, won two national titles in the 880 and the mile, flew to Honolulu then California for a tour of America, then flew to England for the Empire Games, in which he won the 880 and the mile.
After that, the toured Europe, racing twelve times and winning eleven. He ran the mile four times, each time under four, and set a world record of 3:54 in Dublin. In Gothenburg he set a world record for the 1500m in 3:36. At the end of his 1958 season, he had raced twenty nine times, losing only three times— once over 440 yards, once over 880 yards, and once over two miles.
In 1959 he took it easy, focused on work, got married, trained and raced sparingly, only going under four once. In December he quit smoking to prepare for the Rome Olympics.
By February, he had run a mile in 3:58 and four-flat, then he won the mile and the 880 at the Australian championships. He flew to America and beat Laszlo Tabori, an ex-world record holder, and Jim Grelle, a future American-record holder, then returned to Melbourne to prepare for the Olympics. He emerged from the beach after setting a seven-second personal best on Cerutty’s sandy circuit.
At the Olympics, he won his heat in 3:41, but felt awful. When the gun fired for the 1500m final, he settled into fifth place, feeling tired and breathing too hard. Just after halfway, restless and worried, he bolted. He fled from his opponents, stretching his lead further and further, flying yet thrusting against the pain that consumed him. He sailed through the line, mouth agape, eyes squeezed shut, twenty yards ahead of the pack, in 3:35. In addition to a gold medal, he had also set a world record.
After Rome, he mostly retired. He had a gold medal, a world record, and a perfect record. He had accomplished more in a single race than most athletes could in a career. He knew the work, discomfort and sacrifice required to get in world-beater shape and decided that he had worked, suffered and sacrificed enough already.
Herb Elliot performed remarkably primarily because he was remarkably talented— even as a boy he ran quick with very little training. After just six weeks of training he set Australian records. His training, however, was also remarkable. Though the sandy circuits and hill repeats resembled Gunder Hagg’s fartleks, Hagg ran five kilometers a day at most; Elliot ran sixteen kilometers a day at least. He lifted large, heavy weights, which wouldn’t come into vogue until Sebastian Coe two decades later.
Most remarkable was Percy Cerutty— arguably the very first sports psychiatrist. Cerutty squawked, shouted, and screamed confidence into his athletes, recognizing that barriers must be broken mentally before physically. “The main thing about Perce is that he coaches your spirit,” Elliot said, “that’s the key to championship running.” Belief, at its most powerful, beats logic every time, and belief can be tempered in the same manner as muscles.
Elliot, by his own admission, did not enjoy hard work. Without the motivation of a world record or a gold medal he could not push himself to the extent that he did. No one except the brash Cerutty could instill the possibility of such feats. Once Elliot accomplished all he set out to do, he recognized that he may get stronger or faster but never tough enough to break away just halfway through an Olympic final. At least not again— he simply didn’t want to. So he retired, the greatest Miler that ever lived.
I used to believe that running makes you free but then I realized that if I don’t get to do the exact run that I want at the time that I want or if it doesn’t go as well as I want then it just ruins my day. I am not free.
Sometimes I think I’m so cool because I could (probably) anywhere on the continent that I wanted to, given enough sugar and water and time. But I don’t do that. Not even close. I don’t even explore the streets next to me because they’re not part of my Every Day Loop.
Emil Zatopek recalibrated human capabilities. He trained not just harder than anyone, but harder than anyone thought possible.
As a teenager, Emil got a job in a shoe factory. The shoe factory, naturally, hosted a race, and Emil’s boss told him to race. “I can’t, I’m too slow,” Emil protested, in vain. Despite not wanting to race, though, Emil still wanted to win, and he muscled his way to second place. He realized, then, that maybe what one believes isn’t always what’s true. Within a year, he had begun training regularly. He modeled his workouts after the great Paavo Nurmi, sprinting through the streets shouting “I an Nurmi! I am Nurmi!”
Paavo Nurmi trained with long walks each morning, short runs in the evening, followed by five or six sprints of one hundred meters. Zatopek did not believe that he could sprint like Nurmi could sprint, but he believed he could make himself sprint like Nurmi could sprint. He combined Nurmi’s long walks, short runs, and shorter sprints into his own variation of monstrously long interval sessions.
Most people did not believe Emil’s method would work. According to him, they’d say “Emil, you are crazy, you are training like a sprinter!” But Emil believed in his method. “If I run one hundred meters twenty times, that is two kilometers and that is no longer a sprint,” he justified. In 1944, after four years of training in this way, he set the Czech record for two, three and five thousand meters. In 1946 he only placed fifth at European championships, but set another record in the five thousand meters. That year he was accepted into Officer Training in the Czech army and began to devote more time to training.
In 1947 he ran 14:08 for five thousand meters, the fastest time in the world that year. By 1948 he regularly ran sixty repeats of four hundred meters a day with a set of two hundred meter repeats to warm up and cool down. That year, he earned an Olympic gold medal in the ten thousand, winning by over forty seconds. He won silver in the five thousand, missing gold by only a few seconds and making up sixty yards in the last lap.
In 1949 he set his first world record— ten thousand meters in 29:28— then broke it again with 29:21. In 1950, he bettered his five thousand meter time to 14:06 and his ten thousand meter world record to 29:02. At European Championships that year, he won the five thousand meters by twenty seconds and the ten thousand meters by nearly a whole lap.
By now, according to Emil, the people that doubted him were saying “Emil, you are a genius!” They weren’t the only ones saying that— athletes had started asking Emil for training tips, and he happily learned five new languages just to communicate with all of them. He never believed he was particularly fast, he just believed in his training and his work ethic. It tickled him that others would seek him specifically for advice.
In 1952, Emil conquered the Helsinki Olympics in a way never seen before or since. He won the ten thousand meters in an Olympic record. Then he won the five thousand in another Olympic record. Having nothing better to do, he ran the marathon— his first ever— and won that in an Olympic record. The next year, he lowered his ten thousand meter world record to 29:01. The year after that, in the year month that Roger Bannister broke Gundar Hagg’s record in the mile, Zatopek broke Hagg’s record in the five thousand meters. A month later, he became the first man to break 29 minutes for ten thousand meters.
By the time he retired in 1957, Zatopek had accumulated four gold medals, one silver medal, and dozens of world records. His legend lives, however, because of his mythical workloads and unbelievable generosity. He never hesitated to offer advice and never kept his workouts a secret, probably because nobody dared replicate them. He gifted his gold medal to the Australian Ron Clarke who equaled Emil’s bravery in races and record-setting but never won a gold medal of his own.
Emil taught the world through contrasts. He showed that speed could be achieved through strength, that kindness could pervade competition, that balance could be achieved in excess, and finally, like an Aerobic Buddha, that happiness could be achieved through suffering.
There’s a great story about scientists researching what people think about during races. When they asked elite athletes they received the same simple answer: “The Race.”
Roger Bannister and John Landy returned from Helsinki disappointed. Bannister, dejected from defeat, decided to break four minutes in the mile. Landy, inspired by the greatness he had witnessed, decided to train like an animal. Though separated by an entire ocean, both men would push each other to the pinnacle of aerobic achievement.
Roger Bannister found a childlike exhilaration in covering ground quickly. He won junior cross-country titles off of little more training than simply running when he felt like it, usually twice a week. He moved to London in 1944 and watched Sydney Wooderson— the aging, pre-war mile world record holder— return from combat to race world-record holder Arne Andersson. Wooderson lost, but still set a British record in the mile (4:04). Inspired, Bannister resolved to take his training more seriously and began running three times a week.
By 1948, while studying medicine at Oxford, he had run 4:17 for the mile but declined to try for the Olympics, deeming himself “not quite ready,” but was inspired further. He crafted a plan for the next Olympics— he’d train four times a week, running a mile and a half over cross country then finishing with a fast half or three quarter mile.
In 1949 he ran 1:52 for the 800m and 4:11 for the mile. In 1950 he honed his speed and focused on the 800, coming in second at British Championships and third in Europe. 1951 he returned to the mile and filled his year with competition: he won the Penn Relays mile in America in 4:08, with a 56-second last lap. He won the British Championships in a meet record of 4:07. Satisfied, he avoided competition until the next spring so that— like Lovelock before him (another miler who studied medicine at Oxford)— he could save his competitive fervor for the Olympics.
To qualify for the final in Helsinki, however, Bannister faced a semi-final heat in addition to the customary qualifying heat. Having prepared for only two races, his competitive fervor was drained by the final. He battled his way to a British record but managed only fourth place.
John Landy, on the other hand, didn’t even make it to the final. He didn’t much expect to make it, though, he was just thankful for the Olympic experience. He hadn’t started running seriously until 1949, when he began running through the surf, up and down sand dunes, and across gold courses with his eccentric, elfin coach Percy Cerutty. While he had improved dramatically in the year before the games he had still only run 4:10 and had to pay his own way to Helsinki. He did his best, lost in the heats, then spent the rest of the time talking training with Emil Zatopek—the Czech locomotive who won the 5000m, 10000m and marathon and each day ran workouts of forty repetitions of 400m with 200m jog between each— and checking out European running shoes.
Landy returned to Australia armed with a better understanding the human capacity for work and with better tools for working. He attended agricultural school and every weekday, after class, he’d run loops of a six hundred meter dirt track near his house, alternating one lap fast and one lap slow for twenty laps. On the weekends he ran twenty miles across country. Three months later, he ran 4:02 for the mile and set the running world aflame.
Bannister, back in London, set about breaking four minutes for the mile, seeking redemption for Helsinki. On weekdays, after his classes, he’d take the train to the track, throw on his spikes, and run a few repeats of 400m with a two or three minute jog in between. On weekends he’d rest, or go hiking with friends. In 1953, he broke Sydney Wooderson’s British record by running 4:03, then, pressed by Landy’s meteoric progress, he ran 4:02 in a rushed time trial that was later deemed unofficial because Bannister used lapped runners as pacers.
Luckily, Landy stayed in Australia to study and declined a European tour with better competition. From March through July of 1953, he ran long miles on the roads, then, from July to October, resumed his routine of 600m repeats. In November he began running twenty repeats of 400m every other day, and in December began racing again. He ran 4:10 for the mile, then 2:25 for one kilometer, then he ran ten repeats of 400m in 57 seconds each, then 4:02 for the mile with no competition after the first lap. Feeling like he needed more strength, he ran a series of mile and 1200m repeats, usually under 4:20 pace with ten to fifteen minutes rest. He ran another mile in 4:02. He mixed up his training, alternating between short repeats some days and longer repeats other days. In March he ran a mile race each week, always under 4:10, always alone. Frustrated, he fled to Turku, Finland for better competition.
Terrified that Landy would break four first, the normally solitary Bannister began training with teammates Chris Chattaway and Chris Brasher and even sought advice from a coach, Franz Stampfl. The lunchtime 400m repeats had turned systematic: he’d run ten each day with two minutes rest, attempting to run each session a little faster than the last. The repeats started, that spring, at 66 seconds each. By the end of April, 1954, he had cut it down to 59 seconds each, and deemed himself ready. On May 4th, 1954, he stepped onto a windy Iffy Road Track and, with the help of Brasher and Chattaway, ran 3:59.4.
Landy landed in Turku just two days before that. For the next few weeks, he flourished in the Scandinavian air. He ran 4:01.6 with splits of 56, 1:56, and 2:58— similar to Gundar Hagg and Arne Andersson a decade before. He ran 4:01.6 again by running 59, 1:59, and 3:01. Then Chris Chataway, free from his pacing duties, arrived in Turku to race and Landy, finally having someone to push him, ran 3:57.9 to set a world record that would last for three years.
The two met later that summer at the Empire Games in Vancouver. Everyone knew how the race would play out, just like everyone knew how Cunningham versus Lovelock would play out, just like everyone knew how Hagg versus Andersson would play out: Landy would try to break away from Bannister early, Bannister would try to hang on and outkick Landy. And just like Cunningam and Lovelock, Hagg and Andersson, that’s exactly what happened.
The gun fired, Landy took the lead, and pushed the pace the whole way. He opened a gap, Bannister closed it. He opened another, and Bannister closed it. With fifty meters to go, Landy looked to his right to check on his opponent, and Bannister shot by on the left. Landy, exhausted from leading the whole race, was unable to respond.
Bannister broke four first and beat Landy in the homestretch. Landy trained harder, ran faster, and led every race from start to finish. Landy failed to break four minutes eight times before finally succeeded. Bannister failed but twice. Landy ran monstrous workouts. Bannister trained on his lunchbreak. Bannister trained and raced with a goal. Landy trained and raced with a code.
Like their ancestral rivals, both embody opposite archetypes. Both possess admirable qualities. Both found success, and peace, in their own paths.
Bannister trained and raced with a goal. Landy trained and raced with a code. Landy ran as hard as he could, he worked as hard as he could, he understood that somebody had to push the pace and, as the most capable, made sure it was him. Bannister decided to do something, then set about doing it, training as hard as he needed, then, when he decided he was ready, he went out and simply did it.
Like their ancestral rivals, both embody opposite archetypes. Both possess admirable qualities. Hard work is admirable, so is smart work. Pushing the pace is admirable, so is winning in the homestretch.
Sometimes I daydream when I’m running and sometimes I think about the clock and usually the runs where I think about the clock are quicker.
My first ever tempo run was an accident– a 1am run during which I ran a terrified string of too-quick miles as I mentally worked out what I’d do if I was attacked by a tiger on the East River.
From the late 1930s to the mid 1940s, most of the world cared little for athletics— there were other, more gruesome, more important matters to attend. In Sweden, however, the quest for the four minute mile flourished thanks to Sweden’s wartime neutrality and two runners who used their rivalry to push each other and rewrite the record books.
Arne Andersson, like most Swedish kids, had an active childhood filled with sports and games. He began running at sixteen years old, training with a local champion, and won Swedish school championships by the end of high school. Upon graduating, he studied to become a teacher and used free time from his studies to train as hard as he could.
By 1939 he had brought his 1500m time down to 3:53 and earned an alternate spot at a Finland v. Sweden track meet and was charged with pacing the better runners to a fast 1500 meter time. The Finns took the race out in 2:01 for two laps with Anderson tucked behind. He took the lead with a lap to go and shot forward to bring along his teammates. When he turned around, though, he was clear of the field, so he powered on to win in 3:48, a second shy of the world record.
He began the 1940 season optimistic, relishing his newfound crown as the king of Swedish Milers, then lost every race he ran to a farm boy named Gunder Haag.
Gunder Haag grew up in rural Sweden, following his lumberjack father into the woods each day to chop and haul wood. He emerged from the woods a few times to run races, caught the attention of a coach who then gave Gunder a job, a room, and training advice.
He worked on the farm and ran 15:00 for 5000m and 4:07 for 1500m off of mostly long walks or hikes. He then joined the military, stationed in northern Sweden, where he switched to shorter, faster runs through the snow— mostly just to stay warm. On a steady regimen of snow romps, cross country skiing, and military marching, he bettered his 1500m time to 3:59.
At the invitation of a resort owner, Haag moved to Valadalen to work as the resort’s handyman and train through the winter wilderness. He marked out a five kilometer course— three kilometers through the wooded hills and two kilometer on the road— which he ran most days in a “fartlek,” or “speed-play” manner, meaning: as hard as conditions and surfaces allowed. He emerged from the woods again in 1941, got a job as a fireman, won seventeen races, and set a world record, all over the course of the summer. He beat Arne Andersson in four races, never by more than a full second, but by going out so hard that Andersson just died behind him.
Haag took it easy through the fall to plan his winter of training, which consisted of short, sharp fartleks on his lunch breaks. He returned to Valadalen for a few weeks of forest training again, then emerged once more from the woods and set a world record in the mile. He then raced thirty three more times that season, never losing, and setting ten world records from the 1500m to the 5000m.
Arne Andersson lost to Gunder Haag every time he faced him that year but managed, twice, to beat old world records as he clung to Haag. He even equalled Haag’s mile world record in one meet when Haag had opted to run the half mile instead. Still, he knew he had work to do— “Haag just flows; I labor.” He returned home and started touching up his form, getting advice from a local decathlete.
In 1943 Gunder Haag sailed across the Atlantic for an American track tour, running unspectacular times (most American athletes were at war) but never losing. Back home, Arne Andersson spent the summer flaunting a new finishing kick, wielding it to win the Swedish Mile Championship in a world record time of 4:02 and to set a 1500m world record of 3:45.0.
In 1944, Anderson emulated Haag and took to the woods, usually covering seven kilometers a day. Haag moved to Malmo, hammering his forest fartleks in a warmer climate, then went north for two weeks in the Valadalen woods before emerging for the summer season. On June 28th they met for a 1500. Haag went out hard but Andersson hung on, out kicking Hagg with 120 meters to go. On July 7th they met in Gothenburg for another 1500. Haag went out even harder and Andersson couldn’t hang on, and Haag set a world record of 3:43.
Andersson won the third encounter a week later when Haag failed to go out hard enough, so in their final encounter of 1944 at Malmo, Hagg planned to run the kick out of Andersson.
He went out in 56 seconds for the first four hundred meters, 1:56 for eight hundred meters, then kept pressing to run 2:59 through twelve hundred meters. Andersson knew he had to hang on so he did, and kept hanging on until finally passing Hagg in the final straight and setting a new world record of 4:01.6.
Rather than rest, Haag continued training to ready himself for another disappointing Spring tour of the United States, returning to Sweden in May and cramming daily doubles to prep for his duels against Andersson. Andersson also filled his year with competition, racing 34 times in four and a half months, winning unremarkably.
The two met in July for another Malmo Mile showdown. Andersson knew what to expect; Haag knew what to expect; the crowd knew what to expect; neither athlete disappointed. Haag rocketed through four hundred meters in 56 seconds, Andersson hung on. Haag sailed through eight hundred meters in 1:58. Andersson hung on. The two passed twelve hundred meters in 2:59. Andersson pressed. The race played out almost exactly the same as the year prior, but this time Haag held Andersson off and reclaimed his world record by two tenths of a second.
Before they could make further assaults on each other or the four-minute barrier, the Swedish amateur athletics governing body declared them professional and ineligible for further competition.
When asked whether they could have run under four minutes given another season or two, both athletes seem doubtful, agreeing that even four oh one hit them like a brick wall.
Some speculate that they could have run faster with even pacing, but Anderson responds “We wanted to win, only to win.” Haag knew that to win, he had to run Andersson into the ground before the finishing straight— letting the pace lag early wouldn’t do. Andersson knew that to win, he had to hang onto Haag’s shoulder until the finishing straight— holding back while his opponent escaped wouldn’t do. Both athletes forced the other’s hand; both athletes forced the other to their limits.
Andersson and Haag remained best of friends until their deaths— it’s hard not to love someone who brings out the absolute best in you. Together, they brought the mile world record down from 4:06 to 4:01. Together, they brought the four minute barrier within reach.
One time I asked a cab driver if he pretended he was a spaceship while he drove down Lexington Avenue in New York City and he turned around and exclaimed “Bro, do you SEE how I drive? All the time I’m a spaceship!” and I really hope that guy is doing well.
You don’t have to look at the scenery on runs. You can just think about dragons.
Before Bannister and Landy famously battled across oceans to break four minutes for the mile, a series of rivalries sent the mile world record plummeting towards that historic barrier. The first rivalry featured the first famous miler from New Zealand, Jack Lovelock, and the first famous miler from Kansas, Glenn Cunningham. Like Bannister, Lovelock trailed his opponents then kicked craftily past them down the homestretch. Like Landy, Cunningham shattered his opponents by pushing from the front. Both established rich traditions of miling in their hometowns and brought the four minute barrier within the realm of possibility.
Jack Lovelock studiously excelled at most things. He earned scholastic titles for boxing and running. He shepherded fellow students as a prefect. He won a Rhodes Scholarship to Exeter College at Oxford in 1931, where he meticulously studied medicine and the mile.
In 1932, he ran 4:20 for the mile early in the season, then set a British empire record with a 4:12 some months later. He ran 3:02 for a 1200m race. He finished second in the mile at the British Championships, so New Zealand sent him to Los Angeles for the Olympics. Exhausted after a long season, he faded to seventh in the last lap of the 1500m final.
Glenn Cunningham , across the Atlantic, could out-muscle anything. In a schoolhouse fire that killed his brother, little Glenn nearly burned his legs off, then stubbornly defied doctors and physics by relearning to run—which he found easier than walking.
He ran so well that in fourth great he beat high schoolers in his first mile race. His father beat him for showing off instead of choring, but Glenn stubbornly kept running and started setting national records when he got to high school. He earned a scholarship to the University of Kansas, which he refused so that he wouldn’t “owe them.”
No other collegiate athlete could touch him, and in his sophomore year he, too, went to Los Angeles for the Olympics, but got sick before the 1500m final. With infected tonsils and a throat so inflamed he could barely croak he stomped his way to fourth place.
Jack Lovelock returned to Oxford and, like a scientist, decided to test what would happen if he focused on one race a season. In 1933, he peaked for the Princeton vs. Oxford mile race against Princeton’s Bill Bonthron, the NCAA champion at 800 and 1500 meters. Lovelock stalked Bonthron the entire race, then unleashed a blistering kick with 150 meters to go. Bonthron ran 4:08, which would have been a world record, had Lovelock not finished ten meters ahead in 4:07.
The next year, he repeated his experiment, peaking for the Empire Games Mile. Like the year before, he stalked the race favorite, Olympic silver-medalist Jerry Cornes, then ran Cornes down in the final stretch to win in 4:12.
Cunningham, in his junior year of college, continued to out-muscle everything. He travelled to New York for the Wannamaker Mile at Madison Square Garden and beat the indoor mile world record holder, Gene Venzke, by eight yards. He won the NCAA Mile and set a new American record, winning by forty five yards.
The next year he won the Wannamaker Mile again, then set an indoor world record at the Knights of Columbus mile in 4:08. After graduating from Kansas, he went to Princeton with an injured ankle for a mile against Venzke and Bonthron. The trio went out in 61 seconds for the first 400m, then Cunningham took the lead by 800m, throwing in a surge for the third lap and gaining 20 yards on his opponents. As the tape around his ankle burst, Cunningham sailed away and won in a world record of 4:06.8.
In 1935, Jack Lovelock spent most of the year focusing on his doctoral work at St. Mary’s Hospital (where Roger Bannister later worked), only beginning to race in early May. Cunningham, conversely, raced a full indoor season, winning the Wannamaker Mile again and setting a world record in the indoor 1500m. The two finally met at the Princeton Invitational in May, where Cunningham, to the vocal frustration of the nervous Lovelock, held up the start of the race with his extensive warm-up routine.
Cunningham took his customary lead early in the race, running sixty seconds for the second lap then sixty three seconds for the third lap. Lovelock took his customary position stalking the leader and, on the final turn, swept past Cunningham, beating him 4:11 to 4:13.
The Berlin Olympic 1500m featured a stacked cast of past-medalists and world record holders. Cunningham the Dogged had raced himself into shape through the indoor and outdoor season while Lovelock the Studious had saved himself and raced strategically and sparingly. In the final, Cunningham charged to the front to keep the pace honest, as usual. At the bell, though, a Swede named Ny desperately took the lead, which gave Lovelock the chance for a surprise move. He jumped early, two hundred meters earlier than usual, and snagged a four yard lead to which Cunningham, trapped behind the Swede, couldn’t respond.
Both runners stormed down the back straight, around the curve, all the way up the final stretch, four yards apart the entire way. Lovelock finished in 3:47.8, earning both a gold medal and a world record. Cunningham finished four yards back in 3:48.4, earning a silver medal and an American record.
Lovelock, elated, retired. Cunningham told the press “I ran a fast race and broke the Olympic record and only one person in the world ran it faster that day,” then went to Sweden and set a world record in the 800m. He kept running until 1940— even setting an unofficial indoor world record of 4:04 for the mile (unofficial because he ran on a 6-lap-to-the-mile-track)— when World War II cancelled the Olympics.
Lovelock approached training and racing seeking results— he ran workouts, time trials, and races geared towards a singular goal each season. During the races themselves, he employed strategy, notoriously utilizing a kick down the finishing straight to pass opponents. In the most important race of his life, however, he used his notoriety to his advantage and surprised everyone by breaking away early.
Cunningham approached training and racing like a warrior— no complaints, no consequences, and damn the discomfort. Race at all costs; win at all costs. He was tougher than anyone and he knew it. He poured it on in the second and third lap, just when he knew his enemies would feel it most. He may have fallen to Lovelock in an all-important homestretch, but he broke 4:10 over twenty times in his career to Lovelock’s one.
Lovelock set two world records and won a gold medal. Cunningham set several world records and won a silver medal. Despite opposite approaches to the sport, they both retired with similar accolades, compelling cases for superiority over the other, and— most importantly— zero regrets.
Training changes, practices improve, science evolves, but never will one approach work for everyone. Like Lovelock and Cunningham, you must craft your path to your personality.
Paavo Nurmi approached athletics like a science experiment. For three decades, he tested and toggled his running to become the swiftest, most efficient human the world had ever seen.
He began at ten years old and joined a track club. He trained with other kids three or four times a week, covering four to six kilometers in the Finnish forests. After a year or so he could run fifteen hundred meters in five minutes. This made him a good, but not great runner, so he sought to change his running.
He wrote to Hannes Kolehmainen, who had just won three gold medals at the Stockholm Olympics. At Holehmainen’s recommendation, teenage Paavo began training twice a day— walking in the morning and sprinting in the evening. This made him a better, but still not great runner, so he sought to change his running.
He joined the military and so impressed officers with his toughness that they assigned him easier duties to allow time for training. He tested new training methods— holding on to trains as they passed to increase his speed and open up his stride, running in iron-clad boots and fifty pound sacks of sand, he even started training through the winter, a rare commitment in Finland.
This made him a great runner, at least in Finland. He set personal bests at every distance, even setting a national record in the three thousand meters. He won two races at the Finnish Olympic Trials in 1920 and hopped on a train to Antwerp.
In the Olympic 5000m final, Paavo Nurmi set off at world-record pace before getting kicked down in the final stretch by a Frenchman named Josef Guillemot. Furious— though he won a silver medal and set a personal best by thirty seconds— Nurmi sought to change his tactics. In the 10000m final, he ran in the back of the pack, spreading his efforts evenly, before kicking down Josef Guillemot in the final stretch and winning his first gold medal. He won his second and third days later in the cross country race both individually and as a team.
Despite three gold medals, the 5000m defeat still rankled. A great runner could still get out kicked in the homestretch, but the greatest runner could win anything regardless of tactics, so Nurmi sought to change his training further. He began running with a stop watch clutched in his fist, developing a robotic inner metronome that allowed him to objectively decide how quick to run despite any discomfort. In 1921 he set a world record over ten thousand meters. In 1922 he set world records in the two, three, and five thousand meters.
In 1923, Paavo Nurmi decided to approach the mile world record scientifically. He scheduled a race against Edvin Wide, the fastest Swedish miler, over a 385 meter track in Stockholm. Nurmi marked out his own 385 meter track in Finland and began running his afternoon speed sessions just faster than world record pace. In the lead up to the race, Nurmi told the press “I’ll run 4:10. If Wide runs faster, he’ll win.” Nurmi ran 4:10. Wide didn’t run faster. Paavo Nurmi now held every world record from the mile to the 10000m, a feat never before or since replicated.
In 1924, the International Olympic Committee decided that they couldn’t let Paavo Nurmi win everything in the Paris Games, so they scheduled the 1500m and 5000m final forty five minutes apart. Nurmi responded by changing his training: he added a third session of cross country running to his evenings. In a dress-rehearsal for the Olympics, Nurmi broke the world record for the 1500m, then forty five minutes later he broke the world record for the 5000m. In the Olympics themselves, Nurmi won gold in both events, running only a few seconds slower. He also won the cross country race, as did the Finnish team, and the 3000m team race, bringing Nurmi’s gold medal count to eight.
The Finnish Olympic Committee forbade Nurmi from competing in the 10000m in Paris— this allowed Nurmi’s countryman Ville Ritolla to win a gold medal of his own and set a world record. Nurmi, in response, ran an unofficial ten thousand meters on his own on a practice track at the same time as the event and unofficially finished thirty seconds before Ritolla. A month later, Nurmi ran an official ten thousand meters and officially retook the world record from Ritolla.
In 1925 Nurmi sailed to America and ran fifty five races over five months and won all but the last one, an 800m race in Yankee Stadium. In 1928 he beat Ritolla for a gold medal in the 10000m but lost to Ritolla for a silver medal in the 5000m. Suddenly vincible, Nurmi sought to change his training— he focused on longer distances, adding a 30km run to his weekly routine. He set world records for the fifteen kilometer, ten mile and one hour run all in the same race.
He planned, in 1932, to finish his career like his idol Kolehmainen: with a gold medal in the Olympic marathon. He won the Finnish Olympic Trials by over six minutes, setting a world best for 25 miles. Upon landing in Los Angeles, however, he learned that the international Olympic Committee had barred him for “professionalism” after he accepted excessive travel expenses. Nurmi sailed back to Finland, ran for another two years then retired, utterly undefeated over ten thousand meters and having finished lower than third only three times in his career.
Paavo Nurmi’s science experiment successfully sculpted him into the greatest runner of all time. His training evolved empirically, from running three times a week to three times a day, from simple lopes over cross country courses to morning walks, afternoon sprints, and evening jogs. He trained specifically, checking a stopwatch to perfect his pacing, adjusting his speeds to his goals, and the length and frequency of his sessions to the length and frequency of his races. He influenced generations of runners to come— Emily Zatopek admitted to tearing through the streets as a child shouting “I am Nurmi! I am Nurmi!”
Every Finn, enduring grueling, unforgiving winters, understands that success requires grueling, unforgiving work— their culture fosters successful endurance athletes. Nurmi, however, desiring more than simply success as an endurance athlete, pioneered scientific training methods that fostered greatness.
I like nothing more than sitting on the couch reading after a hard workout and the sudden agony of empty muscles spasming.
I think best practice is allowing good mental health to be the foundation of your week, but I’ve found that allowing my entire life to rest upon well-executed training is– maybe no easier– but simpler.
Many have worn the mantle of the “Flying Finn”— an athlete that appears from the Finnish wilderness to win every medal and world record in sight. This rich tradition began in 1912 with Hannes Kolehmainen.
Hannes emerged at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm to win first the ten thousand meter run, then the five thousand meter run, then the twelve kilometer cross-country race. In the ten thousand meters, he flew through the halfway mark in 15:11, just eleven seconds slower than a world record. In the five thousand meters, he and a French man named Jean Bouin broke away from the field, probing and surging and probing and surging until, finally, with fifty meters left, Bouin broke. Though Bouin finished twenty four seconds faster than the previous world record, Hannes Kolehmainen had beat him by a yard, setting a world record that would last for a decade.
Had in not been for the first World War, Hannes might have won more medals. Instead, he sailed to America, began working as a bricklayer, joined the Irish American Athletic Club with his brother, ran the Boston Marathon and lost to Clarence DeMar, then returned to Europe in 1920 for the Olympic Marathon in Antwerp, won his final gold medal and set his final world record.
Hannes grew up on a farm in Kuopio, Finland, raised by his single mother. Winters required constant movement to stay warm— outdoors all day in the bitter frost, tramping or working the fields. A trip to town meant skiing one hundred kilometers there and back. Food consisted of whole grain breads, whatever vegetables they could grow, and raw milk. Hannes never ate meat.
He and his four brothers took to running after the 1906 Olympics. Fascinated by the Marathon, they began running twenty kilometers, every other day, with a day to recover in between. They ran their first marathon together in 1908. Hannes finished behind his older brother Willy, who ran eighteen more races that year, including another marathon, never finishing lower than third. In 1909 Willy ran eight marathons, winning six of them. In 1910, he moved to American, joined the Irish American Athletic Club, and turned professional.
He trained under Lawson Robertson and sent letters home to his brothers with training advice. Mostly, he advised long, brisk walks in the morning with shorter, quicker runs in the evening, always cautioning against running too much or too hard. In 1911, he returned to Finland for a seven month training stint with Hannes before the Stockholm Olympics. As a professional, Willy couldn’t compete, so Hannes showed up solo and simply won everything in sight.
Hannes’s lifestyle sculpted him into a world-beater— the wicked winters made him tough, the long daily walks, the skiing to town, and the farm work made him strong. He ate food from the earth, healthier than that of the “modernized” United States and Europe. He didn’t smoke. The raw, harsh living in Finland begat a culture that celebrated grit, or sisu, in the same way that the English celebrated manners, the French celebrated beauty, or the American celebrated enterprise.
It’s no surprise, then, that with a few years of training both Hannes and Willy could set a man-killing pace against the best athletes of the world and break their spirits . Their opponents had lungs soggy with the smog and smoke of industrial Europe, and none of them had ever endured a Finnish winter.
Willy, a professional runner, would go on to win world titles in the marathon against the likes of Alf Shrubb and Tom Longboat; he would be the first man to break 2:30 for the marathon. Hannes, a professional bricklayer, would appropriately lay the foundation for all the “Flying Finns” to follow.
Tom Longboat ran everywhere as a kid. He chased cows. He ran to town from his home on the Six Nations Reservation. He ran back to his home, always beating his mother who travelled by horse-drawn cart. At 12, he ran away from Anglican reform school. They brought him back, and he ran away again.
He worked in his uncle’s fields for a few years, then in 1905 ran a race in Caledonia, Ontario. He placed second, so he ran another race in Hamilton, Ontario. This time, he won by four minutes, despite taking a wrong turn. He joined the West End YMCA in Toronto where he lived and trained for the 1907 Boston Marathon, which he won as well— smiling the whole time and winning by such a wide margin that he had time to get a sandwich before second-place came in (he also broken the previous course record by five minutes).
He returned to Toronto, joined a new club, began working with a manager, and kept on racing. His legend grew to the point where experts picked him to win the London Olympic Marathon. In that race, he stuck with the leaders for twenty miles then collapsed. Some sportswriters claimed he was undertrained. One Canadian official claimed Longboat’s manager had poisoned him to collect on huge wager against him. Longboat, embarrassed, simply stated “It was terribly warm.”
That day, half the competitors had succumbed to the heat and dropped out. The first runner to reach the finishing straight, an Italian named Dorando Pietri, stumbled and fell three times before the crowd helped him across the line, thus disqualifying him. Two minutes later, an American named Johnny Hayes finished unassisted and won a very controversial gold medal.
The drama of London’s marathon had triggered a Marathon Mania across the Atlantic, so Longboat turned professional and hit the racing circuit. In December of 1908, he and Dorando Pietri dueled over twenty six miles inside the smoke-filled Madison Square Garden. For 249 laps Longboat and Pietri ran neck and neck, then, with eleven laps to go, Longboat surged. Pietri held on for three laps then collapsed.
They raced another marathon a few weeks later with the same result. A month after that, in Madison Square Garden, Longboat faced Alf Shrubb — the world record holder in every distance from ten kilometers to ten miles. For 150 laps, Shrub led, lapping Longboat over and over and over, until— with ten kilometers to go— Longboat began to close the gap. With five kilometers left, Shrubb was walking, and Longboat sailed past him, now the undisputed Marathon Champion of the World.
Two months later, Longboat, Shrubb, Pietri and Hayes all lost a Marathon Derby in New York’s Polo Grounds to Henry St. Yves— a French man with far fewer marathons in his legs than his competitors. Longboat’s manager and the press attributed his loss to laziness and lack of training. Exhausted from six straight months of Marathon Mania, Longboat bought out his contract and returned to Canada.
On fresher legs, he faced Shrubb often, losing anything under twenty miles but winning everything over. Despite relentless accusations of laziness, he set a world record in the fifteen miles. In 1912, with professional running hitting it’s twilight as the age of the Olympics dawned, Longboat retired.
Tom Longboat embodied freedom. When white Christians attempted to stomp out his heritage with reform school he ran away– he worked out in the open air, unintentionally building an aerobic system that would carry him to fame. When his club tried to impose curfews, abstinence and temperance upon him he ran away– he found a new club that could arrange races and help him earn a living without inflicting a lifestyle. When his managers demanded that he work out too hard and too often, he ran away– he trained himself, alternating days of hard running with days of easy walking, and set world records. Over and over, he fearlessly chose independence in the face of a ruthless, racist, judgmental society. He trusted himself; he trusted his legs.
When he died, at sixty one, his coffin had a v-shaped notch in the lid, so that his spirit— in its last act—could run away.
Sometimes you gotta listen to your body but I don’t always trust my body on account of my body being a whiny little bitch.
Alf Shrubb won over a thousand races in his career. As an amateur, he set records that lasted for decades. As a professional, he was so untouchable that he sometimes raced relay teams and horses, beating both.
Like Walter George before him, Alf Shrubb’s first success on foot came from fox hunts, where he could outpace the hounds and the cavalry over the countryside. Through his teens, as a laborer and carpenter, he’d run to and from work. Legend has it that one night he beat a horse-drawn fire wagon to the scene of a fire three miles away, and when the local athletics captain witnessed the race he invited young Alfie to join his club.
In 1901, Shrubb won England’s four mile and ten mile titles. The next year he did it again. The next year he did again but added the one mile title, as well, then did it all over the year after. In 1904 he set the world record for the ten thousand meters and the one hour run in the same race (he also set world records for every distance in between). That year, he surely would have won a gold medal or two at the Olympics, but Great Britain neglected to send a team.
Instead, Shrubb turned professional.
He won his first professional race a few days before his wedding, then won his second race on his wedding night. He raced hard and often, fueled by the vigor of a man with a realistic sense of his own mortality and a family to support. In 1907, he sailed to New York City to take on America’s best professional runners but found little competition for any distance over a mile. He raced relay teams instead, famously beating five of America’s best two-milers, running in two mile segments, over the course of ten miles.
After the 1908 Olympic Games, however, and the drama of the Marathon, Alf Shrubb found both a niche and a rival.
Race promoters began hosting massive marathon derbies in Madison Square Garden, pitting runners against each other like aerobic gladiators, dueling each other to exhaustion over hundreds of dizzying laps around the smoke-filled, beer-soaked stadium. The cast of recurring characters included Dorando Pietri— the first person across the finish line in the 1908 Olympic Marthon, Johnny Hayes— the “official” winner for the 1908 Olympic Marathon, and Shrubb’s new rival Tom Longboat— the winner of the 1907 Boston Marathon and favorite going into the 1908 Olympic Marathon (he had dropped out at mile twenty, some believe due to strychnine poisoning).
The four would fill the sports columns over the next few years as America enjoyed its first ever “Marathon Craze.” Shrubb and Longboat would race most often; Shrubb would win anything under twenty miles, and Longboat would win anything over twenty miles.
The rise of the Olympics and amateurism led to the decline of professionalism, however, and Shrubb retired in 1912. He returned to England in 1919 to coach Oxford University, but sailed back to Canada in 1928 where he settled until his death in 1949.
Shrubb kept a meticulous training log and wrote two books on running and training. He advocated running every day, at least twice a day, except Sundays. He called for a brisk walk in the morning, followed by breakfast, then a steady run of three to eight miles. After a hearty lunch and time for digestion, another run of five to ten miles, or a two mile time trial.
Ideally, he wrote, the athlete follows some sort of progression, building up to twice-daily runs of eight to ten miles before dropping the mileage and running a series of time trials to prepare for the race—an archaic precursor to Arthur Lydiard’s system of peaking.
More importantly, Alf Shrubb believed in devising a plan, sticking to it, and training as hard as your body would allow, but no harder. As amateurism, moderation and balance became more vogue, Shrubb maintained that an all-encompassing devotion to the task— not just in training but in diet and lifestyle— benefited both the body and the mind.
Seventy years before governing bodies allowed track athletes to compete for money, Alf Shrubb embodied The Professional Approach.
“I have accomplished much, but it has not all been from my ability to run, but because I have been temperate in my habits, and rational in my methods and consequently, I say that the great initial element is not only the desire to achieve but the wish to profit mentally and physically by the exercise.”
—Alf Shrubb
Spite is perhaps the third best motivator but definitely the first most reliable.
Y’know lately it feels like breakfast is the only thing I have to do all day.
In a time when American Track and Field still included events like sack-races and tug-of-war, Lon Myers singlehandedly legitimized the sport with fervent, feverish racing, fast times, and oversea-odysseys against the world’s best runners. In a career spanning a decade, Myers would win twenty-eight national championships across three countries and hold every American Record from fifty yards to a mile.
Born a sickly child in Richmond, Virginia, Lon Myers moved to New York City with his family after high school. A doctor recommended Myers take up athletics to combat his endless afflictions, so in 1878 he began running for the Manhattan Athletic Club. He won his first race, over 440 yards, in fifty five seconds. He won his fourth race, also over 440, in forty nine seconds— a world record— despite losing a shoe 120 yards from the finish. He won his first national crown in 1879, then won two more that afternoon. At the year’s end, he declared “next season I am going to alter all of the records from 100 yards to the mile,” which he did.
In 1880, he won American titles in the 100, 220, 440 and 880 yards all on the same day. Three days later he repeated the feat in Montreal to win the Canadian titles.
In 1881 he toured England with the first American track stars to go abroad and won every race he ran, except for a 100 yard race in which his competition was given a head start. He even won a 440 while running sideways up the homestretch, taunting a particularly pompous opponent.
In 1882 he faced Walter George, England’s greatest distance runner, over three races. He won the first (880 yards), lost the second (1720 yards) in an American Record, then— after a brief delay to battle pneumonia— lost the third (1320 yards) by collapsing through the finish line, unable to be resuscitated for hours afterwards.
In 1883 he had malaria. In 1884 he sailed to England where Walter George refused to race him, so he returned to America and won the 220, 440 and 880 National Titles. In 1885 he had malaria, again. When he recovered, he tried England once more, where he won twenty-five races, including English titles at the 440 and the 880.
In 1886 he turned professional so that he could race Walter George (who had turned professional for a series of races against the world-record holder in the mile). They raced three times in Madison Square Garden, over 1000 yards (for which Myers held the world record), 1320 yards, and 1760 yards (for which George held the world record). Myers won the first race, then the second, then, as brass bands blared and boisterous fans brawled, Myers won the third race, sweeping the series and triggering bedlam as crowds stormed the track in celebration.
Myers retired soon after, and died of pneumonia at just forty-one years old. Despite his ceaseless racing— often racing several times a day and always to the point of collapse— he never quite outran his susceptibility to illness. While he wrote articles about training for “The New York Sportsman” that would now be considered obsolete, his approach to competition remains timeless: scorn your limits– race till you drop.
I like having morning routines before I run and sometimes I like knocking things off my To-Do list before I run too but often those routines and lists are a slippery slope into an accidental sunset run.
Steven Pressfield, author of “The War of Art”, talks about “Resistance,” a personification of the forces and reasons you have for not creating, training, or working as vigorously as your soul yearns to create, train or work. The toughest form Resistance takes is Legitimate Reasons: a natural disaster, a wife in labor, or necessary recovery time.
Resistance must be fought at all points, at all costs, if you are to be the artist, author, runner, baker you were born to be.
At 19 years old, Walter George told his friends that he would run 4:12 for the mile. This was curious for three reasons. First, Walter George had never run the mile before. Second, he had never run any race before (although as a boy he could allegedly outrun both foxes and foxhounds) Third, in 1878, at the time of George’s boasting, the mile world records stood at 4:24 for amateurs and 4:17 for professionals.
Nevertheless, he entered a mile race and won in 4:29. The next year, he won the mile at the first Amateur Athletic Association championships. He also won the four mile. A month later, he ran a mile in 4:23 and set his first world record. He spent the next year sick, but the following year he ran 4:19— the first amateur athlete to run under 4:20.
At this point, only three athletes in the world could run as fast as Walter George, and they all ran professionally. In 1882, he applied to the AAA for special permission to race these athletes. They denied him; he sailed to America.
That fall he ran three races against Lon Meyers— the American record holder in every distance from 50 to 1760 yards. Meyers won the first race of 880 yards, 1:56 to 1:57. George won the second race of a mile, 4:21 to 4:27. In the third race of 1320 yards (three quarters of a mile), the two runners ran dead even into the final stretch. With the finish line looming, Meyers’ vision blackened, and he staggered across in 3:13. Walter George finished upright in 3:10, though he too collapsed immediately after.
In 1883, he missed the AAA mile due to illness but won the ten mile. The next year, he reclaimed his title in a new world record of 4:18. He then won the four mile, ten mile, 880 yard, and cross country titles, too. With undisputed titles and untouchable amateur world records in every distance from the mile to the one-hour run, Walter George turned professional.
The two world record holders in the mile— Walter George (4:18, amateur) and William Cummings (4:16, professional) faced off for the first time in August, 1885. Thirty thousand screaming fans stormed a stadium meant for only eight thousand and lined up along the track, now soggy from the light rain. Despite the climate and clamor, Walter George ran 58 seconds for the first 440 yards, with Cummings right behind him. They sailed through halfway mark in 2:01. At three quarters, George pressed on. Cummings faded and began to walk, so George started to celebrate his first professional victory halfway through his last lap, and jogged in at 4:20.
Cummings got his revenge in the next race over four miles, and the following race over ten miles. The two men met for a Mile Rematch in 1886. This time, twenty thousand fans stood rapt as Jack White—Deerfoot’s primary rival—fired the gun to start the race. George took the race out in his habitual 58, followed by his standard 2:01. Again, the two milers went through three quarters in 3:07, but this time Cummings pulled desperately ahead. Unable to jog it in, George ran his rival down, storming through the final stretch and finishing in 4:12, his final world record.
No one would run faster for the mile until Norman Taber, almost 30 years later.
Like most boys in his time, Walter George grew up running after, to, or away from everything, but he had no formal experience with training or racing. In fact, in 1878, when he declared himself heir apparent to the World Record, he worked fourteen-hour days as a chemist’s apprentice; he had no time for training. Instead, he stood behind the pharmacy counter doing high knees, in what he called “One Hundred Ups.”
One Hundred Ups consisted of leaping from foot to foot and driving the knee upwards, first as balanced as possible, then as fast as possible, until you were essentially running in place— lightly, quickly, powerfully— for one hundred steps. While his co-workers snuck off for five \-minute smoke breaks, Walter George snuck off for five minutes of One Hundred Ups. While his co-workers partied through the weekends, Walter George did the same, but then he took a salt bath before winning a race or three.
As his career progressed, he transitioned to more traditional training methods of the time: long walks, a few sprints at the track, and time trials, but his first world records were set on a steady regimen of One Hundred Ups in between customers. His career reads like a testament to adaption: No time to train? Train at work. No opponents in England? Go to America. No opponents left? Turn professional.
His training techniques are not recommended— he routinely ran time trials days before races, and he drank for twenty four hours then soaked in a salt bath immediately before running under 4:20 for the first times. His attitude, however, is enviable: Make It Work.
Some sources:
Walter George’s Wikipedia Page
Sometimes I’m content to be surprised that I’m not as slow as I think I am.
I listen to Tom Schwartz, the coach of Tinman Elite, on repeat while I run. On a Sweat Elite podcast, he claimed “easy runs are for the heart,” meaning: workouts make the legs stronger, easy runs make the heart stronger. That’s a gross oversimplification on my part, but it sure makes me feel better when I feel like shit on an easy run.
Lewis Bennet was raised on running. On the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation, he dominated “The Creator’s Game”— the original version of lacrosse, played over hills and fields and forests— with his unmatched endurance. Stories told that he even raced a horse to death.
He emerged from the reservation in 1856 under the name Deerfoot and won his first race: five miles in twenty-five minutes for a prize of $50. He raced his way south, where in 1861, in Corona, Queens, New York, he faced a team of British “pedestrians,” or long-distance prize-runners. Though he lost, the manager of the team saw his potential and brought him to England to race a nation of professionals.
Pedestrians lived off prize-money and gate-receipts, so Deerfoot played up his Native American persona to attract crowds and challengers. He donned his moccasins, a short, beaded skirt, an eagle feather atop his head and nothing else. Bronze, bare-chested and six-feet tall, he towered over his pale, Victorian competition.
He lost his first race, won his second race four days later, won his third race a few days after that, then won 25 off his next 27 races. He tied a race, causing speculation that he was throwing contests, then won his next 14 races.
He won so often that nobody would bet against him, so his manager took him on a barnstorming tour of rural Britain. For five months, he raced near-daily despite traveling on foot to each of his races. Burnt out, with little meaningful competition, Deerfoot quit the tour and returned to London to win titles and world records.
He broke the one-hour world record in October of 1862. The following January, he broke it again. On Good Friday, he broke it once more, this time in the midst of a 12 mile race (he broke the 12 mile world record but lost the race, as his opponent was given a 100 yard handicap). He failed to finish his next four races, so he returned to America, where his twenty-two months of nonstop racing had turned him into a legend.
Little is known of his training. He built his endurance through a childhood of lacrosse and traveling by foot. In England, he raced so often that he famously said “I have never trained.” If he was not racing, he was running to his next race. While we may not be able to glean specific workouts from Deerfoot’s schedule, we could all benefit by adopting his purposeful approach to the sport: he ran to race, and he raced to win— not much else.
Some sources:
There is nothing in life that is so bad that it can’t be made worse by dwelling on it.
I do drills before workouts because they’re a good way to put off a workout for another ten minutes.
One summer, I was training and racing with a friend named John. In the middle of epic blocks of training, we hopped in a few races to test our fitness and they all went surprisingly well. John and I blabbered excitedly– imagine how fast we could run once we start peaking, imagine how fast we’ll run in the years ahead, imagine all the possibilities.
Neither of us have run as fast as did in those races that summer.
I’ve tried, time and again, to get that same fitness back to no avail. Finally, years later, after a block of mediocre training I ran a race on the beach and ran my slowest time ever. I cooled down on the sand, put my feet in the waves and thought “This is it. I tried, I really tried, but I’ll never get faster.”
The thought that I could have been so casual, so dismissive of that summer years ago, of what would turn out to be the pinnacle of a decade long endeavor, shook me. It felt like the death of a friend, a friend who had moved away and you always assumed you’d see them again.
The waves washed over my feet. I stared off at the horizon. It hit me, then, that my friend wasn’t dead. Not yet. I had strength enough to keep trying, at least one more time. But this time, I wouldn’t be so dismissive, so casual.
Even if I never got close to the fitness of years past, it was the state of forward, the commitment to progression, that mattered. I would not take it for granted.
A year later, thousands of miles later, I sat on that same beach having finished an epic run to the ocean. I was not in the same shape as that summer all those years ago, but I was in good shape, and it was a fine thing to be. I watched new friends, training partners, play in the surf. Waves washed over my feet. I stared at the horizon. It hit me, then, that I had given it a shot and taken not a single moment of it for granted. I had cherished the time I had with that friend. I could say goodbye, now, if I wanted.
But I didn’t want to. Not yet.
I have a habit of taking completely meaningless competitions like cornhole and Turkey Trots way too seriously.
The most stressful recurring dreams I have are:
- I have to take my Spanish final but I’ve consistently skipped Spanish class for the past 12 years.
- I get to the hockey rink but forgot my skates (or my stick) ((or everything)) because I haven’t played hockey in 12 years.
- I am four minutes late to the most important race of the year (the Turkey Trot) and I have to desperately weave through the crowds to try and catch the leaders.
Sometimes the world isn’t better when you finished a run but you finished a run so that’s ok.
“A man’s nature and his way of life is his fate, and that which he calls his fate is but his disposition.”
-Menander
Ron Clarke went into the Tokyo Olympics as the world record holder in the 10,000 meters. He ran the race out front from the gun, then got outkicked by both Billy Mills then Mohammed Gammoudi. He tried the same thing in the 5,000 meters then got outkicked first by Bob Schul, then Harold Norpoth, and finally Bill Dellinger.
The next year, he set 12 World Records over 18 races, each time taking it out as hard as he could, leading from the gun.
He moved to Switzerland to live at altitude and prepare for the Mexico City games. Again, he took out both races from the gun. He collapsed upon finishing the 10,000 meters and couldn’t remember the last lap. He came in sixth. He recovered enough to run the 5,000 meters a few days later but could only manage fifth.
He could be a cautionary tale about the perils of running from the front. While it allowed him to set records, it hindered him in championship races. He could be a cautionary tale about stubbornness, having made the same mistake four times.
Ron Clarke, however, was a man of principle. “The single most horrible thing that can happen to a runner is to be beaten while he is still fresh,” he’d say “No matter who I was racing or what the circumstances, I tried to force myself to the limit over the whole distance.” He did just that in every single race that he ran.
He marched towards his fate with his head held high, and ran a life without regrets.
This is not an advocation of frontrunning. If your goal is to win an Olympic gold medal, Ron Clarke is proof that it is not a viable strategy. It is, however, an advocation of principle.
It is hard to regret anything, knowing that you fought as hard as you could.
I paced a friend to her first sub-three marathon. With two miles to go, I did some math, realized we were cutting it awful close, and told her so. She stared ahead stone-faced and didn’t respond. With a kilometer to go, I realized it would come down to a few seconds and let her know. We had to go now. Again, silence. We charged down the line and I watched the clock tick closer and closer– we made it, much to my relief, with three seconds to spare.
I asked her, once she was able to talk, if she was nervous about whether or not she’d be able to break three. “No,” she replied. Flat and Honest. “I didn’t have anything left. If I had run three flat and one second I would have been just been happy that it was over.”
The benefit to finishing on empty is that you don’t have to wonder “what if.” You worked as hard as you could for the best possible outcome and achieved it. Whether or not it was what you wanted, it was still the best possible outcome.
You cannot control your life.
You can control how you live.
The most counterintuitive thing to grasp when staring down an injury is that at a certain point the quickest way to get faster is by doing nothing.
“You are entitled to the work, not to the fruits thereof.”
-Bhagavad Gita
I had trained all winter for this race. I had worked out twice a week, grinding myself through endless repeats and mileage. I had braved blizzards. I had run nearly every mile alone and in the dark. I had rested and tapered perfectly for this race– I was ready to unleash months of work.
Then I woke up to a twenty degree day, with thirty mile an hour headwinds. Within two minutes of the gun going off I wanted to drop out. I marched my way to a mediocre time, disgusted.
As I’m staring at the bottom of a bottle feeling supremely sorry for myself, I lament to a friend– who would have been a training partner had he not been injured– how I hated running and had wasted my entire winter.
He exploded. I thought he was going to hit me.
He told me three things, very loudly:
- I didn’t have to run. There are much more fun and lucrative ways I could have spent my time. I could have learned guitar, learned to code, learned to surf– instead I spent time training. I obviously didn’t hate it, or else I wouldn’t do it.
- I was extremely fortunate to be able to run. He couldn’t run; he was injured. Other people can’t run because they have things to do. I was not only fortunate to be healthy, but fortunate that I could take the time to train the way I did.
- The race didn’t matter. Races are culminations of training– in some ways, a selfish validation. The work had still happened. While I didn’t have a time to boast of, I still had the work.
Finally, he told me that I didn’t have to race. I wasn’t going to win; I knew that. I wasn’t going to run a good time, and I knew that too. Still though, I had run. I had set out to do something and I had done it– not as well as I had hoped, but as well as I possibly could have.
“You’re not a coward,” he told me. “You know that you tried as hard as you could.”
The universe does not align to our whims. All we can do is prepare as best we can, work as hard as we can. If your happiness is dependent upon results, you’re in for disappointment.
Derive enjoyment from the process. Take pride in the effort. Find solace in the doing.
Usually I will feel either good or bad on the warmup to the track and then I’ll do strides and my legs will get heavy and then I’ll change my shoes and I’ll start to feel terrible and then I’ll jog to the starting line and every muscle in my body will rebel and then I really just have to get into it because the only way to feel good again is to get through the first four hundred meters.
I’m a firm believe that it almost doesn’t matter what you do so long as you don’t get injured. But only almost. Otherwise just work as hard as you can.
“Stupidity is doing something even though you’ll fail. Bravery is doing something even though you know you’ll fail.”
–Probably a Proverb
At a little over halfway through the marathon portion of the Kona Ironman Championships, Mark Allen had a revelation: he was holding back. He had had a not-bad-but-not-comfortable race up until that point, and was sitting in second place, four minutes behind the leader, when he realized “if I didn’t give it 100 percent, I definitely wasn’t going to win. And I knew that I had to give it 100 percent but there was no garuantee. It might mean that I catch him, it might mean that he finishes five seconds in front of me, but that’s what I had to do.”
Allen passed his opponent with five kilometers to go, won the race, then immediately retired. Delving into the deepest recesses of the well is traumatizing, and Allen dove deeper than he was ever prepared to go again.
The people most likely to break under torture are victims of previous torture. Dealing with pain is difficult. Sometimes knowing how much you have to endure makes it easier, sometimes it’s so daunting that you break. Runners inflict pain upon themselves– at a certain point, it becomes too torture yourself again. Bravery is a finite resource.
I once ran a hilly half marathon in Ireland coming off of an injury. I had zero idea what kind of time I could manage, so I went in with zero expectations. I ran the first mile a bit too fast, but not too too fast. I settled, felt good, and continued. I got itchy at mile four– I felt better than I expected and was in sixth place. I wanted to go, but, unfamiliar with the course, I waited. Over the next few miles I kept the effort as even as possible while traversing hilly terrain. I ignored my watch. Somebody passed me; I did nothing.
I got to mile ten and the course flattened out. At the mile marker, I did some simple math and realized I was running, all things considered, pretty well. In my hazy brain I realized that if I could run 5000 meters faster than I had all season I could run my fastest half marathon ever. Upon close analysis of my lungs and limbs I realized, with some amusement, that I could probably do that. If I went right now. So I did.
I passed the guy who had passed me halfway through. I saw the guy a hundred meters ahead in fifth place and could feel him, that inexplicable gravity that tells you– without any visual evidence– that you’re gaining. I caught him with a mile to go and knew I had maybe one thousand and eighty steps left but only if I ran as hard as I could so I gave everything I had left and counted each agonizing footfall.
I ran thirty seconds faster than I ever had before.
I began with a humble assessment, I remained patient and focused throughout the race then, when the time truly came to be brave, I had enough bravery left to rise to the occasion.
Starting a race takes courage. Maintaining a pace takes courage. Hopefully, however, with enough training, we become calloused to the starting and to the maintaining. They are easy enough to fake with fitness.
If we are fit enough, then we can save our bravery for the end, and accomplish something truly great.
Baseball contracts used to have a built in “reserve-clause” that prevented players from negotiating their own salaries and gave team owners all the power until Curt Flood came along in the Sixties and pioneered free agency (at the expense of his career). Before the Eighties, runners weren’t allowed to get paid for their exploits; even now, NDAs prevent them from discussing contracts or unionizing or getting paid a living wage (while companies and officials take in all the money from the sport). Quick life lesson: anyone that argues against unions, for contractual opacity, or touts loyalty to a brand or ideal in lieu of raising wages is absolutely padding their own paycheck.
In the mid-20th century, a lot of English runners envied the NCAA athletes that could train mostly full time on a scholarship. A few decades later, NCAA athletes envied the communist block athletes who could train mostly full time into adulthood. Nobody questioned why Ted Corbitt was the only distance-runner-of-color to come out of America; nobody questioned why the first black man on a distance podium, Abede Bikila, came a decade and a half after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball (nobody questioned why women didn’t even get a distance event until 12 years after that). Running requires the least equipment and has the most accessible of training facilities, but it would be a mistake to call it the most inclusive sport.
There is some residual romanticism when speaking of American running in the Seventies– “Oh look at how bad Pre wanted it! He was living on food stamps. No one today has that kind of drive!” And that’s true, a lot of people aren’t willing to sacrifice a career, a family, kids to chase a metallic disc.
But they shouldn’t have had to; for years officials fought to preserve the sanctity of “amateurism,” and to keep money from being a motivation (while simultaneously raking it in themselves), but does anyone argue for the sanctity of amateurism in any other sport?
Baseball turned professional in the late eighteen hundreds and arguments for amateurism were quickly dispelled by the better brand of ball playing. Somehow runners, though, had to fight for decades to be able to earn a legal living.
I think running would have been cooler had professional running been allowed to develop– runners challenging each other one on one, packed stadiums replete with brass bands and brawling fans, colorful write ups in the next day’s newspaper. But the staunch separation of professional and amateur meant constant competition and zero crossover so eventually the larger, global spectacle of the Olympics caused “professional” running to crumble.
This is not supposed to be a commentary on runners acting entitled to Lane 1 (it’s just supposed to be a set-up for a larger story) but hey there’s never an excuse for being an asshole.
“Anything, including self-deception, that distracts a runner from the task at hand will be a detriment to performance.”
-Kenny Moore
In 1975, twenty world-class distance runners descended upon Dallas to partake in rigorous psychological and physical testing– the first tests of their kind. Scientists wanted to find out whether runners were just legs and lungs or something special (or what made their legs and lungs so special).
One psychological test asked the runners what they thought about during races. Earlier tests on sub-elite athletes revealed complex narratives used to disassociate the runners from discomfort: one runner, a carpenter, built a house during races, completing the house by the time he reached the finish. Another, a musician, ran through Beethoven symphonies. Another pretended to be a train. The scientists were eager to learn how truly elite athletes dealt with discomfort, and were utterly disappointed.
When asked what they thought about during races, every single elite runner answered “the race.”
When probed further and asked how they approach pain, the most eloquent answer they received was “If I feel bad I try to push harder, because the others are probably feeling bad too.”
The point is the race. Discomfort is a given. Why construct a means of missing the reason for your training?
During one particular humid half-marathon, I misjudged how I felt and began dropping the pace halfway through the race. Two miles later, I realized the severity of my mistake; I slowed and wallowed in self-pity for a mile, until a lone spectator on the endless highway home locked eyes with me and said “Focus.”
I did not know this man, but he gave me the single best piece of advice I’ve ever received mid-race. Focusing, rather than wallowing, seemed such a novel concept. I felt bad. I had to finish. Neither of these indisputable facts would change over the next three miles– why dwell on it? So I focused. I realized I felt bad but not dead, and, doled out efficiently, had enough energy to finish respectably.
You must treat yourself objectively over the course of the season, carefully destroying your body to make it stronger. You must treat yourself objectively during races as well– taking meticulous stock of your capabilities to cover a distance as efficiently (quickly) as possible. You cannot do this without ironclad awareness and focus.
When you are racing, think about the race.
