Author: The Author

When talking about the avalanche of information that the distance runner was subjected to in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s , there were many slim paperback volumes published by the Americans, bigger books with more depth from other sources (we have covered van Aaken (Germany) and Arthur Lydiard (New Zealand) and magazines.   Magazines such as “Runner’s World”, Marathon and Distance Runner”, “Sports Illustrated”, “Jogging” (which became “Running”) and so on which all contained fairly detailed articles of variable quality on any and all topics of interest to runners.   New obsessions such as ‘shoe technology’ appeared.   But the best of them all was the magazine which pre-dated the Running Boom and which is still being produced weekly is the British “Athletics Weekly”, affectionately known as AW.   

One of the key features was the “AW Questionnaire” in which a top athlete was quizzed on many topics including his training and racing.   Eagerly read they were at times not really informative about training – eg the top athlete whose training was noted as Sunday: long run, Monday Road run; Tuesday: Track session, . .  etc – but more than 90% of them gave food for thought, or at least prolonged discussion on the hoof on training nights.   These questionnaires did influence both theory and practice.   eg When Joyce Smith was quoted in an article as saying that you had to stay relaxed but running fast at the end of a marathon, but it was difficult to simulate in training.   Her husband Brian had said that she should do a long run on the appropriate day in the morning, then go out that afternoon, before the fatigue could possibly have left her system and run a short relaxed fast run of about two or three miles.    That resonated with lots of runners who adopted the habit for a period of their training for the marathon.    She was a wonderful runner and what was good enough for her was more than good enough for many men who had read or heard of the theory.   

We reproduce three of the AW questionnaires here as examples of what we had available at the time. 

Bill Adcocks        Lachie Stewart        Mike Tagg

Colin Youngson – a good Scottish International marathon runner with respectable marks at all distance events up to and including the 50 mile Edinburgh to Glasgow road race, in addition to ten first three places in the SAAA Marathon championships (including three victories) and notable runs in marathon races all over Europe, comments as follows.

Two other interesting characters were interviewed in more detail for Athletics Weekly: Don Faircloth in 1972; and Bill Rodgers in 1978. Their training notions are worth examining.

Jim Alder, Ron Hill and Don Faircloth: first three in Empire & Commonwealth Games Marathon in 1970

Don Faircloth was born in November 1948, so he was only 21 when he finished very rapidly to secure third place in the 1970 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games Marathon. In that race, he recalls feeling both strong and fast, due to an intensive training regime.

In early 1970 he raced the Kent 20 miles road race – and was surprised and delighted to win in an impressive 1.43.50. Then, on a very hot day, he won the Inter-Counties 20 miles. Don reckoned that heat did not affect him, since he worked outside as a gardener for eight hours a day! Then he won the classic Polytechnic (AAA Championship) Marathon – and was selected, along with Ron Hill and Bill Adcocks, to race for England in Edinburgh, where he came close to overtaking Scotland’s Jim Alder for the silver medal, yet well behind gold medallist Ron Hill. Don’s bronze medal was achieved with a very fast 2.12.19.

Don described his 1972 training as follows. On a Sunday, I run up to 20 miles. I do that in one session. It’s in the morning – I run as hard as I can for 6 miles, to the track to pick the club lads up; then I do about 6 to 8 miles of relaxed running, along with repetitions and paarlauf bursts with the others. Then I run up to 8 miles home, and push that hard too. Monday is a two-session day: I train in the dinner hour without running to work, so it’s a straight hard run, and in the evening I do anything up to 13 miles, most of it with Fred Stebbings – and he pushes it quite a bit – which helps, of course. Tuesday: I run four to work, do a fartlek session in the lunch hour, and take a long way round to do 10 miles home in the evening. I’m home and finished all my training by six eery evening, and this is great for me as I can do other things like odd jobs about the house then. On a Wednesday, I do virtually the same with some changes in route, adding some extra hills and doing some running on the country, but it’s always as usual three sessions. Same on Thursday and on a Friday I run to work, run a hard six in the dinner hour and, as I need to get my kit home, I don’t run back, but I may do an easy five that evening, depending on whether I’m racing the next day or how I’m feeling. Saturday is usually a tough cross-country race, or anything up to 15 miles with the club boys on Lloyd Park. This is my winter routine, but it doesn’t vary that much, except that I train more on the country in the summer, obviously as it’s lighter. I hope to get more speed sessions in when it gets warmer but by nature I shy away from speed as it hurts; but it’s still something I must get down and work on. I’ve been on three sessions since the Maxol Marathon in 1971, and really it suits me because I find it helpful to run to and from work.

(In 1971, Don Faircloth raced for Great Britain in the prestigious Kyoto Marathon (Japan), finishing second in 2.14.58.6. Unfortunately, possibly due to such intensive training at such a young age, he was prone to injuries, particularly stress fractures in shin or foot bones.)

Bill Rodgers (‘Boston Billy’) was an American marathon-racing legend, who won his local classic Boston Marathon four times; and also won the New York Marathon four times. His break-through came in March 1975 (when his age was 27) when won a bronze medal in the IAAF Cross-Country Championships in Morocco. He raced the 1976 Olympic Marathon. Bill’s personal best marathon was 2.9.27, when winning Boston in 1979. He went on to run 2.18.17 as an M40 Master! Overall, he ran faster than 2 hours 20 minutes in a marathon on 35 occasions.

He describes his 1978 training as follows. “I’d say pretty much about 95 per cent is done on the roads and usually around 6.30 minutes per mile pace. In the Fall, the Summer and the Spring, I usually do more track work. I try to hit the track like once a week, unless I race. In terms of the track workouts, they could be stuff like repeat half miles or three-quarter miles or miles usually maybe faster than race pace, with a three-minute jog between the miles. One workout I was doing last summer was run a quarter of a mile, jog 200, run half a mile, jog 200 …. and I’d do six of each. But I’ve never done really intensive track work like a lot of people do. Ultimately, I might; last summer I did some faster half miles, and I’ll try for more this year. I run some times in the woods, trails – stuff like that – and that’s pretty much about it. On the road, I generally try to hit around 20 miles a day – in two sessions. Usually, one about 11 to 13 miles, the other 8 to 10. I usually do about 22 miles on Sundays. I think I need 140 miles a week to be competitive. Sometimes, to get ready for a marathon, I think I have to go even higher. I know I’m in good shape if I can go 20 in the morning and 10 in the afternoon, or vice-versa, like once a week for a period of five to six weeks building up to a marathon.”

Kenny Moore is a highly respected American distance runner.   Also a talented and well known writer and journalist who never followed the precedent set by other international marathon runners and wrote about himself.   His main influence on others was the example he set by his running and the detail he put into his writing.   For a resume of his early career we need look no further than the start of the Wikipedia article.

“Moore was born in Portland, Oregon, on December 1, 1943. He attended North Eugene High School in Eugene, Oregon. He went on to study at the University of Oregon, where he raced for the Oregon Ducks under coach Bill Bowerman. He received All-American honors on three occasions and was pivotal to the Ducks winning the team national championship at the 1964 and 1965 NCAA University Division Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

After graduating from Oregon, Moore won the 1967 USA Cross Country Championships, as well as the USA Marathon Championships four years later.   He also won the San Francisco Bay to Breakers – the largest footrace in the world – six times in a row from 1968 to 1973, becoming the all-time leader in victories in the race.

Moore first ran the Olympic marathon at the 1968 Summer Games. He led early in the final, but finished fourteenth after suffering from severe blisters.  It was still the best performance among American competitors.   He joined the U.S. Army later that year, but was permitted to continue racing. He set the record for best time among American runners at the Fukuoka Marathon in 1969 and 1970, finishing runner-up in the latter race. Upon completing his military service, he returned to the University of Oregon and graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing in 1972.   He again participated in the marathon at the Summer Olympics that year. Although he tripped and fell one mile into the race, he recovered and narrowly failed to win a medal after finishing fourth.”

That’s the outline, but at this point most would be asking how good he was as a runner.   We see from above what his competitive record was but how fast was he?   He has personal best times 

In the Marathon in the Mexico Olympics in 1968 there were 74 starters, 57 finishers and Moore was 14th in 2:29:49.4.   The conditions there were notoriously bad for endurance runners and in the marathon several high quality runners failed to finish (eg Jim Alder dropped out at 30 Km), other well known men were well down the field (John Stephen Akwari was 57th, Ireland’s Mick Molloy was 41st, New Zealand’s Dave McKenzie was 37th).   His splits are here with the rest of the top 15.

Came the 1972 Games in Munich and the difficulties were man-made rather than because of the altitude and heat.   It was the kidnapping of the Israely team and subsequent shoot out at the airport that almost caused the marathon and other events to be cancelled.   It went ahead however and Moore ran very well indeed.   There were 62 finishers and, although he was fourth he was only second American to finish.   First 15 again, but no splits unfortunately.

Just under 15 minutes faster than in Mexico.   The performances in the Fukuoka Marathon in Japan were quite spectacular.   His first run was on 7th December, 1969.   First time round he finished seventh in 2:13:27.8 compared to the winner’s 2:11:12.8.   The winner was Jerome Drayton of Canada prompting the writer K Ken Nakamura to point out that for the last four years the first runner in the race was from a British Commonwealth country.   The first eight were

Kenny Moore and Frank Shorter

In 1970, on December 6th, he was second in 2:11:35.8,  behind Akio Usami (Japan) who ran 2:10:37.8 which was a Japanese National best time.  After that race the top 15 best marathon times ever run were as follows.

Having established his credentials as a marathon runner, an international marathon runner, the question on everybody’s lips is: “How did he achieve so much?   How did he train to reach these heights in the races that counted?   One of the problems at this distance in time is that although he wrote well about the sport and about its participants, he never wrote in any kind of detail about his own training and racing, how they were planned out or what help he had when doing it.   We do have the following information from “How They Train” by Fred Wilt (supplied by Colin Youngson).   There is a considerable amount of detail here with warm-up, summer, autumn, winter and spring training plus general training.   Note that he includes training marks as ‘personal bests’ which is not general practice.

There is bit more insight in the article   Kenny Moore Marathon Training – LetsRun.com   from which the following is taken.   It is preparation for a particular race, the New York Marathon in 1978.

TRAINING: Ken trains at 9AM and 3PM 6 days per week and one long run on the 7th day beginning in late AM. His longest ever run is 43 miles. Preferred racing frequency is once a month and dwindling. Ken’s easy days are 3-5 mile jog in the morning and sometimes and easy three mile jog in the afternoon on Pre’s Trail. The following workouts were done prior to the 1978 New York Marathon.

Mon, September 26th –Easy day.

Tues–Brainstorm Eric Heiden, embellish notes,–run 6 x mile on Pre’s Trail in 4:40-4:44.

Wed–Easy day and garden work.

Thurs–Easy day.

Fri–32-mile run.

Sat–Easy day.

Sun–Easy day.

Mon–6×330 on grass(last 6 45.5-46), easy 6 miles.

Tues–Easy day.

Wed–Easy day.

Thurs–6 x mile @ 4:40.

Fri–Easy day.

Sat–Easy day.

Sun–28-mile run.

Mon–Easy day.

Tues–Easy day.

Wed–3×660(1:42), 440(66), 330(48), 220(32), 110(15), jog 10 miles.

Thurs–Easy day.

Fri–Easy day.

Sat–6 x mile @4:36

Sun–Easy day, fly to Washington D.C.

Mon–15 miles easy.

Tues–Easy day.

Wed–10 mile run, 1st five at 7:00 pace and second five at 5:00 pace.

Thurs–Easy day.

Fri–Easy day.

Sat–Easy day.

Sun–New York City Marathon, 2:16:29. Ken did not run for the next 8 days but on the 27th of October won a pumpkin carving contest at Bob Newland’s house.

Details such as these were avidly consumed by the runners during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s by athletes and were major influences on how they trained.   The latest in “Runner’s World” or “Track and Field Log”, the new book by one of the top runners sold out in the first edition – and often in subsequent editions depending on how good the athlete was or how successful the coach was.   Kenny Moore was one of the best runners and one of the best writers. 

The picture above shows Arthur Lydiard and two of his most famous athletes – Peter Snell and Murray Halberg – on the cover of his best known book which altered distance running training dramatically.   This was not just in his home in New Zealand, nor in the several countries in which he worked as a professional coach (Finland, Mexico) but wherever there were distance runners, distance running coaches.  He also appealed to people who just wanted to run for health reasons and is credited with starting the jogging boom which was developed by Bill Bowerman.      Not all those who know and like and have adopted his approach to training realise that he was a very good runner himself.   The photograph below shows him on second place on the podium after the New Zealand National Marathon in 1949.   The following year he represented his country in the Empire Games in Auckland finishing 12th in the marathon.

Lydiard presided over New Zealand’s golden era in world track and field during the 1960s sending Murray Halberg, Peter Snell and Barry Magee to the podium at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.   The rather hackneyed question of “Where were you when …” becomes for us “When did you first hear about Arthur Lydiard?”   For most of us it was at these very Olympics when the three already mentioned won medals for the country.   Snell was magnificent, defeating Moens of Belgium and the very smooth running George Kerr of the West Indies, Halberg was a source of wonder when he beat Grodotzki of a united German team and Magee?   The spectacular marathon in every sense of the word: run in the dark, two Africans shoulder to shoulder for most of the way, the one in bare feet from Ethiopia beating the Moroccan by 25 seconds with Magee third.   Times:  Bikila 2:15:16.2 (a world best), Rhadi 2:15:41.6 and Magee 2:17:18.2.   By the way, Magee had run in the 10,000m where he finished 26th, two days earlier.   Marvellous running by all three and that was when we heard of Arthur Lydiard.   We were desperate to hear more, that was true whether we ran 800m, 10,000m or 42.195 km.    

What did we read before the book appeared on the shelves?   The BAAB Booklets on Middle Distance Running   or   Marathon and Distance Running by such as Jim Alford which were good but nowhere as detailed as Lydiard; at club level experienced coaches followed the Conditioning period over the winter (often just a lot of steady running), a pre-season period and then the summer racing season.   These were often of unspecified lengths of time and individual coaches had their own tips and wrinkles.   Lydiard’s notions of the periodised year and coaches working backwards were revolutionary.

The following brief account of his training philosophy is taken from the Wikipedia entry as being the most succinct overview.

The marathon-conditioning phase of Lydiard’s system is known as base training, as it creates the foundation for all subsequent training. Lydiard’s emphasis on an endurance base for his athletes, combined with his introduction of periodisation in the training of distance runners, were the decisive elements in the world-beating success of the athletes he coached or influenced. All of the training elements were already there in the training of Roger Bannister, the first miler who broke the 4-minute barrier for the mile, but Lydiard increased distance and intensity of training and directed periodisation towards the Olympics and not the breaking of records.

Periodisation comprises emphasising different aspects of training in successive phases as an athlete approaches an intended target race.

• After the base training phase,  ie marathon training phase above), Lydiard advocated four to six weeks of strength work. This included hill running and springing. This improved running economy under maximal anaerobic conditions without the strain on the achilles tendon, as it was still done in training shoes.
• Only after this were spikes put on and a maximum of four weeks of anaerobic training followed. (Lydiard found through physiological testing that four weeks was the maximum amount of anaerobic development needed—any more caused negative effects such a decrease in aerobic enzymes and increased mental stress, often referred to as burnout, due to lowered blood pH.)
• Then followed a co-ordination phase of six weeks in which anaerobic work and volume taper off and the athlete races each week, learning from each race to fine-tune himself or herself for the target race. For Lydiard’s greatest athletes the target race was invariably an Olympic final.

Lydiard was renowned for his uncanny knack of ensuring that his athletes peaked for their most important races and, apart from his tremendous charisma and extraordinary ability to inspire and motivate athletes, this was largely a product of the periodisation principle he introduced into running training.

The progressive sharpening towards the targeted race is illustrated in this Pyramid by the ‘Running Wizard’ ( a site well worth visiting for many reasons – go to

http://www.runningwizard.net/

In the base training phase of his system Lydiard insisted, dogmatically, that his athletes—not least 800 metres athlete Peter Snell—must train 100 miles (160 km) a week. He was completely inflexible on this requirement. In the 1950s and 1960s, during the base phase of their training the athletes under Lydiard’s tutelage would run a 35 km Sunday training route, starting from his famed 5 Wainwright Avenue address in Mt Roskill, through steep and winding roads in the Waitakere mountain ranges. The total cumulative ascent in the Waitakeres was over 500 metres. After laying such an arduous endurance base Lydiard’s athletes—including Murray Halberg, Peter Snell, Barry Magee and John Davies—were ready to challenge the world, winning six Olympic medals amongst them in the 1960 Rome Olympics and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. “

The emphasis on the word ‘dogmatically’ is mine.   Like all ambassadors or evangelists for a new method he insisted that it was done exactly his way.   Many found it impossible to run 100 miles a week – their bodies just could not handle it.   But he, and those who had come through his training in person, stood by the dosage: Peter Snell for instance credited it with all his successes including world records and Olympic medals.   He was of course, wherever he went, expected to advocate what was in ‘the book’.    Lydiard wrote several books with the able assistance of Garth Gilmour, but two were pioneering works – “Run To The Top”    written in 1962, and    “Jogging with Lydiard” in 1983.   

In the late 1960’s he went to work in Finland where he enjoyed great success and is credited with the success 0f such as Pekka Vasala who won gold in the 1972 Munich Olympics and Lasse Viren who won double gold in 5000m and 10,000m at both Munich and Montreal Olympics.     He then moved on to Mexico where he was again successful in raising the standard of endurance running without emulating international games success as he had done previously.

Lydiard with some of his great New  Zealand squad – spot Halberg, Magee, Snell, Puckett

In Scotland his notions were adopted with enthusiasm, partly because of the obvious success that the New Zealand group had found with them, but also because it said in clear terms  “Here Is What You Do”: 10 weeks of this, six weeks of that, etc.  But there were difficulties for some in following it through for personal reasons to do with their physical make up.  Although it was often possible to work round that, there were also difficulties with the weather.   When he said that there were never any reasons not to go out, his runners were out in all weathers, that was fine.   

An example: the book was produced in 1962 and reached Clydebank in time for winter ’64/’65.   Two of us decided to give it a go and working backwards from the SAAA Marathon in 1965  started on our 100 mpw in October.   That was a particularly hard winter.   Lots of snow – icy pavements and even worse on occasion when it was black ice.   If most of your running had to be done on roads, then black ice was to be avoided.   There was also at that time serious mist, almost fog.   Nothing like the pea soupers of old but dense enough for us to not hear traffic which was going slowly and quietly along the road.   Nevertheless, with these minor reservations, his periodised year was adopted in Scotland with a fair degree of success by followers.   The joke question was “Aye, but do you do your 100 miles a week fast or steady?”   

Lydiard and his five principles remain as possibly the best and shortest guide to endurance running:

You can read more about the man, his theories and his deeds at the following links (note that the second one is a 33 page document):

Free Starter Plans — Lydiard™ Foundation (lydiardfoundation.org)

ARTHUR LYDIARD’S LECTURE (webs.com)

Training of Peter Snell – SweatElite

There are lots more but don’t forget the comprehensive article in Wikipedia at 

Arthur Lydiard – Wikipedia

Frank Shorter at Boston in 2022

In the 70’s and 80’s many of the top marathon runners were approached and were pleased to accept invitations to write their thoughts, opinions and theories on training and racing long distances.   Ron Daws and Kenny Moore in America were among the most avidly read.   Frank Shorter was probably the most successful among them and we include him here.   He is a representative of a group of runners giving advice and examples of his training.   

Frank Charles Shorter (born October 31, 1947) is an American former long-distance runner who won the gold medal in the marathon at the 1972 Summer Olympics and the silver medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics. His Olympic success, along with the achievements of other American runners, is credited with igniting the running boom in the United States during the 1970s.    He ran and raced on all surfaces: track, country and road but it is as a marathon runner that he is best known.   His record there is really phenomenal.   We should start by looking at his pedigree as a runner.

First, we’ll look at his world rankings

Domestically, his USA rankings were as follows.

The rankings given are all exceptionally good – remember the standards in the USA at the time and that, in Olympic years, all the top 5000m and 10000m specialists would be ‘bustin’ a gut’ to make the teams.   As an all round endurance runner he is ranked very highly among the world’s best.   His personal best times certainly stack up well in any company: 

If there is still any doubt at all of his pedigree as an athlete, look at this extract from Wikipedia for a bit about his competitive record.

Shorter won the U.S. national cross-country championships four times (1970–1973). He was the U.S. Olympic Trials champion in both the 10,000-meter run and the marathon in both 1972 and 1976. He also won both the 10,000-meter run and the marathon at the 1971 Pan American Games. Shorter was a four-time winner of the Fukuoka Marathon (1971–1974), generally recognized as the most prestigious marathon in the world at that time and held on a very fast course. His career best of 2:10:30 was set at that race on December 3, 1972. Several months later, on March 18, 1973, Shorter won the elite Lake Biwa Marathon in 2:12:03. He won the prestigious 7-mile Falmouth Road Race on Cape Cod in 1975 and 1976 and Atlanta’s 10-kilometer Peachtree Road Race in 1977.   Shorter achieved his greatest recognition in the marathon, and he is the only American athlete to win two medals in the Olympic marathon.”

The runner always asks the same question about any top athlete – what training does he do?   

•  “Runner’s Tribe”    says the following.

Training Specifics

“I’ve always had a simple view of training for distance running: two hard interval sessions a week and one long run – 20 miles or two hours, whichever comes first. Every other run is aerobic, and you do as much of that for volume as you can handle. Do this for two or three years, and you’ll get good” – Frank Shorter.

The magazine comments – Shorter was incredibly consistent. During the entire 1970s decade, he averaged 17 miles per day, every day.  Some interesting points of note about Shorter’s training:-

• He needed 10 hours of sleep per night, otherwise, his training suffered.
• He ran 7-10 miles every morning except Sunday.
• He listened to his body carefully and trained just below his limit.

Well, there’s something there but not a lot.   A very good, but not outstanding, distance runner of my acquaintance said training was “two effort sessions a week, long run on Sunday and plenty of steady running.”   That recipe is the one followed by distance runners the length and breadth of the country.   10 hours sleep a night is difficult for many to fit in.   “Every other run is aerobic” says nothing about how many other runs or the length of them.   But what training did he actually do himself?

•   There is a lot more detail in the    sweatelite article    which you can find at  https://www.sweatelite.co/frank-shorter-training/It goes into far more detail than most with theory mixed in with practical information.   It is a recommended read if you are interested in what a superb long distance runner was doing in the 1970s.   A couple of extracts from the article –   

  “Frank started out in college as a 5000m runner and he says that this laid the foundation for his training and racing right through his career, continuing to approach his training in a very similar way even when stepping up in distance to race marathons. His training was very polarised. Frank is adamant that he never ran intervals slower than 65s/lap pace – right around 5km pace.

  Looking to extend his range and move in to marathoning, he moved to Florida in 1970 to train with Jack Bacheler who was one of the preeminent US runners at the time. Bacheler’s Sunday ritual was a twenty-mile long run – Shorter joined the weekly pilgrimage.

  Frank was self-coached from his junior year in college onwards but found that seeking out mentors (who often happened to be training partners) was what worked well for him.

  These long runs with Jack Bacheler were very slow according to Frank; just jogging, not timing anything, chatting the whole way. He said that he learnt from Jack the importance of going very easy on easy days. One of his mottos was ‘never go so hard on your easy days that it interferes with the next hard day’.”      and further down –

  Frank said he would run twice per day except Sundays. He would do two interval sessions per week, as well as a race most weekends. When not racing on the Saturday he would go to the track for speed work – a regular workout being 16 x 200m in 27-28s, float 200m between.

  Frank’s reasoning for doing such fast workouts relative to race pace (especially when racing the marathon) was that in his mind, the greater the delta between training pace and race pace, the more comfortable and therefore sustainable running at that race pace becomes. Once he was feeling more comfortable running these workouts and was happy with how fast they were, he would begin to shorten recovery rather than increasing the pace of intervals.

  Some more example sessions include:

  6 x 800 in 2.08 down to 2.00 (jog 200-400 recovery – depending on altitude and fitness)

  12 x 400 in ~61s average, finishing under 60 (jog 200-400 recovery)

  Shortening the recovery and increasing the speed of the recovery jog in these workouts was used to simulate the surges experienced in races – improving the ability to recover quickly even at a higher pace. Sometimes the 800s would be run as 200 in 35s, 400 in 60s, 200 in 35s… Which Frank used to simulate surging in races.”     

• According to      “Running   Coach”       [ https://blog.runningcoach.me/en/2015/10/06/everyone-can-learn-from-running-legend-frank-shorter/ ] this is what his training weeks looked like:

(Source: Timothy Noakes, Lore of Running, Capetown 2003, 419.)

• “How They Train” by Fred Wilt was a real mine of information for the dedicated marathon runner: information about all the top endurance athletes of the day, how they trained and raced.   As a very good athlete himself he knew what information was relevant  and also what aspiring marathon runners wanted.   (Not always the same thing).   The following page from the above book has been provided by Colin Youngson.

The above sources are all very illuminating with the extract from Fred Wilt being the most comprehensive and illuminating.   

NOTE:   Unlike Lydiard and van Aaken, he trained the same all year round.   That is a comment that has been made time and again in magazines and books.   There was no periodisation of the racing year.   Yet he obtained results on a year round basis.   

But what did he recommend others do?    The book illustrated above is probably the best known of his in this regard.   The List of Contents is always a good place to start when examining any book –

There were many similar books written by top marathon and ultra runners of which this is only one.   Looking at the list of contents as printed above may help you decide whether it is for you.   Remember that he did his running at the time of the “Running Boom” in the 1970’s and this book was first published in 2005.  It was written by an Olympic marathon winner with all the credentials listed above.  It has been reprinted often and the version that I have was printed in 2018.  You will note that he has, towards the very end of the book, racing programmes for 5K, 10K, Half Marathon and Marathon.      His Marathon Racing programme is reproduced below:

An excellent runner at a wide range of distances (both competitively and time-wise), a good writer and a highly respected figure in the athletics world, Frank Shorter was one of those that people all over the world wanted to emulate.

Tom Osler, 1940  –  2023.

Like many of those mentioned as having the answer to the problem of success in long distance (ie further than six miles) running, Tom Osler is now not mentioned or quoted in books or magazine articles on the subject in this country.   I that because his ideas are out of date, because they have been assimilated into the mainstream or because they were just plain wrong in the first place?   They were nonetheless discussed by runners, male and female, who were interested, in some cases obsessed, with racing effectively in endurance events.   Like many of them, he was very intelligent.   

The Ultra-Running History Podcast – well worth a read and most of what follows is from that link – tells us about Tom.  You should read it, at the very least it will make you think.    You can find it at 

( https://storage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-22220662/documents/ba7f2be930784700a1c4a0f3311cb096/The%20Tom%20Osler%20Story.pdf  )

He was a mathematician, former national champion distance runner, and author. He published his training theories in his 1967 booklet for the ages, “The Conditioning of Distance Runners”.  His pioneer 1976 24-hour run in New Jersey, brought renewed focus on the 24-hour run in America. In 1979, together with Ed Dodd, he co-authored UltraMarathoning: The Next Challenge. He is a member of the Road Runners Club of America Hall of Fame.

Osler was an excellent student, but purposely lowered his grades for a while in order to fit in as a “regular guy.” Then the gang in his neighborhood picked distance running as “that day’s form of athletic torture.” Osler jumped in headfirst and started to run. When he was fourteen years old, he had dreams that he would be the first person to break the four-minute mile. He said, “When you are young, you have dreams that seem very attainable.” He did a test mile run and finished in 6:30.

In 1957, Osler went to Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia where he studied physics and won many academic awards. Osler loved running and found time during his busy college life to also be deeply involved with road running. In 1959 he helped found the Road Runners Club of America and was its first co-secretary. He raced multiple times a month in many shorter races put on by Browning Ross (1924-1998) in Philadelphia and throughout New Jersey.

Osler said, “At the time you only ran in a proper athletic setting. You ran in a park or on a track. You certainly never ran on the streets. If you did, you were stared at by everyone.” Yes, he ran on the roads. “Other runners would ask me, ‘how do you stand the ridicule?’ My answer was that I simply ignored it.”   Frequently he was stopped and questioned by police while running, thinking he was running to try to get away after doing some crime. Once he was even pulled into a patrol car. Osler said, “He popped out of his car like a jack-in-the-box and tackled me. Before I knew what was happening, I was in the car beside him.” For his first six years of serious running, he raced at every opportunity. In a field of about 50 runners he would finish about 15th to 20th.   

But over-training started to plague him. He said, “I had a sciatic nerve condition that left me unable to walk. I still remember going out to train and going so slowly due to hip pain that even the dogs looked at me puzzled.   They couldn’t decide if I was running or not and were confused as to whether to chase me.” He soon figured out that rest and healing was just as important as training.   In 1963 after reading Running to the Top by Arthur Lydiard, he adopted the method of slow training and took his first “great leap forward.” He started to run steady miles, often reaching 70-75 miles a week, much of it on the road. As he coached himself, some wins started to come and he finished the 1964 Boston Marathon in 2:47.

Osler became life-long friends with future American ultrarunning legend, Ed Dodd, in the early 1960’s when Dodd was still in high school. They would do long training runs together. In 1965 at the age of 25, Osler was “beaten soundly” by Dodd, age 19, who became captain of St. Joseph University cross-country team. This increased Osler’s motivation and “the old competitive zeal was put into high gear.”  In July 1965, Osler went to Falls Church, Virginia, to compete in a one-hour track run against a highly competitive national field. He hoped to finish in the top ten. He ran away from the field, lapping them and won with 11.3 miles. He became highly ranked in the nation for 1965 and won the 25 km national championship. He raced nearly every weekend and won about 30 races in 1965 for distances from 3-15 miles, both on roads and cross-country .   

In 1967 Osler was inspired by Ted Corbitt to give ultramarathons a try. With running buddies, Neil Weygandt and Ed Dodd, he began doing 50-mile training runs from Collingwood to Atlantic City, New Jersey. On August 13, 1967, Osler won a club 40-mile fun-run in Egg Harbor, New Jersey. Confident that he could do well, he began preparing to run in the 50-mile national championship to be held in November 1967. He worked up his runs to 55 miles. He ran every afternoon after classes covering 75 to 80 miles a week and averaged 7.5 minutes per mile.”

And it is as an ultra runner that Tom is best known.   He won the National AAU Marathon in 1964, the National 30K championship in 1967.   In 1967 he also won the National RRC 50 Mile title and ran his best ever marathon in 2:29:04 at Boston and was fourth in the National AAU Marathon in Holyoke.   He later completed a 24 hour run covering 114 miles.   He had found his events.   How did he train for them?   He wrote a slim book in 1966 called ‘The Conditioning of Distance Runners’ where he said that distance running training should be at a comfortable pace 90% of the time.   Remember that in the 60’s many were running intervals four or even five times a week.   Lydiard was being accepted as the top coach at the time and Osler adopted and adapted a lot of Lydiard’s thoughts into his own training.   He wrote another (lengthier) book called ‘The Serious Runner’s Handbook’ in 1978.   The 32 pages of his first book had turned into 180+ and had much more information.

Divided into three parts – Training Smartly, Staying Healthy and Racing Quickly – 40 pages are devoted to training which in itself has 5 sections – Methods and their Uses, Base and Sharpening Work, Planning a Base Schedule, Planning a Sharpening Schedule and Final Answers on Training.     Part Two deals with injuries and illnesses, shoes, eating and drinking and the weather.   Part Three covers Techniques and Tactics, Racing 3 – 20 miles, Racing the Marathon, Racing Ultra Marathons and Predicting your times.   It is maybe an idea to look at the first part first.

He starts by laying out five types of training

1.   Walking: ie walking at a brisk pace pace of 3 – 4 miles an hour. (NOT heel-and-toe race walking!)
2.   Running mixed with Walking: ie. A mixture of running and walking enables an athlete to cover immense distances with little fatigue.   For instance, he says, a well-trained runner could cover 40 miles in training by alternating 2 miles in 15 minutes and then walking a quarter mile in 4 minutes. 
3. Long, slow continuous runs which he says develops the cardio-respiratory system.   The slow pace is less likely to injure muscles and tendons which is not the case with faster running.
4. Interval Speed Runs.   After a definition of fast repetitions with intervals, he tells us that this enables the runner to relax well at a faster pace.   
5. Fast, long, continuous runs.   After saying it is the hardest form of training, he describes what he means by this.   The runner selects a distance – usually 5 to 15 miles – and runs it in training at a pace which is close to his racing pace.

Before going on to Base and then Sharpening Work, he credits Lydiard with being the source of modern training methods.   When he describes his own methods of training and rationale for them, there is however a similarity between them although they are different.  

Base Training: The runner’s base level is the result of his inherited endurance and his own experience of endurance related activities (walking, cycling, swimming, running, ski-ing, etc).   The point of Base  Training is to develop the cardio-respiratory system to increase the overall endurance of the runner.   It is important, he says, to maintain a relaxed and non-competitive atmosphere and not burn up the runner’s nervous energy.    It can be done at any time and can also be a health generating activity for almost anyone.   If a runner has done his sharpening training, he should return to base training.   Base Training should last for at least six months, preferably a year, before sharpening training begins.   He should not run the same distance every day, walking during some of the runs is allowed (even encouraged) and suggests the following of one way of doing this: 

He also points out that some runners do hard day, easy day, hard day, easy day, . . .    a pattern that is also very effective.   He also says that with the exception of the time trial or race, all these runs should be at a comfortable or relaxed pace.   Certainly one should not be running so fast  that continuous conversation is difficult.

The purpose of the race is to remind the runner of the race pace because the training is done at a slow pace.   The long run is to help the circulatory system and give the athlete the experience of staying on his feet for a long period of time.    The runner begins this period with a low mileage of 30 miles per week which is gradually increased until the long run is about 22 to 25 miles.

Sharpening training:   The sharpening training begins about 6 weeks before the race in which the runner aims for peak performance.   This is much more difficult for two reasons:   (a) There is a greater strain placed on the runner’s body and resistance to illness is less.   (b) Great care must be paid to every aspect of sharpening or a low peak or even complete failure will result.   A typical week would look lie this.

What’s a relaxation – speed workout?   The aim is to run at speed and stay relaxed.   The emphasis is on relaxation and only secondarily on speed.   eg in the first week of this period he would cover the distance of his previous medium runs, in this case 12 miles, as follows: the first three miles at base training speed of 7:30 per mile; during the fourth mile he does four fast breaks of about 50 – 100 yards; during the fifth mile, he does a long build-up of between 880 to 1320 yards; during the sixth mile he does 4  x  50 – 100 yard breaks; in the seventh mile he does another half mile build up; in the eighth it is another 4 sets of 50 – 100 yard breaks; ninth another half mile build up; the last three miles are at base training pace with another 4  x  50 – 100 yards.   The workout centres upon the 3 half mile breaks.   The 4 x 50 – 100 breaks are never at full speed which implies straining and a poor running action but he can attain near maximum speed in a relaxed fashion.   The load is increased as follows:  

Osler goes on from here to talk about how you know the sharpening is working, what signs to look for as it progresses, how to adapt training if there are any problems, etc.   The best way to find out what he meant is to buy the book – less than £4 on eBay – and read it.   We could only skim the surface here.   The list of contents below will tell you whether you want to buy it – less than £4:00, postage paid on eBay!

His name is unknown to many – most – Scottish distance runners but he did have an influence, especially in the 1970’s when many top marathon runners produced books describing their training and its rationale.   Where Osler was different was in the amount of time he devoted to long, slow distance running.  A very intelligent man, his book covers every aspect of distance running that anyone could conceivably be interested in and in detail but in language that every runner could understand.

Van Aaken on the right.

Arthur Lydiard was the man who asked his athletes to run 100 miles a week  for 10 weeks as part of their periodised training.   They all did it His own athletes included such as Peter Snell (800m/1500m), Murray Halberg (1500m/3000m/5000m) Barry Magee (marathon).      When his book  ‘Run to the Top’ came out in 1962, many seized on the magic 100 mpw (round numbers attract, his runners were successful) and put it into their programme.   Scotland was no different to the rest of the world – if it worked in New Zealand, Finland, Mexico and over countries where Lydiard worked and coached, it would work here.   Scots could be seen running along the road, over the country and up and down hills in their effort to reach the magic number.   The question in 1960s and 70s Scotland was not “Do you run 100 mpw”, but rather, “Do you run them fast or slow?”   Many found they could not manage to do that and race effectively but for a very high percentage of endurance men, it was a ‘must have.’

Then along came Germany’s Ernst van Aaken and long slow distance running.   LSD was the abbreviation for the training system.   Unlike Lydiard, the pace was defined – slow; and also unlike Lydiard the distance was undefined – long as opposed to 100 mpw.

Ernst van Aaken (16 May 1910– 2 April 1984)  was a German sports doctor and coach.  Over time he was dubbed the Running Doctor and was responsible for the training method called the Waldnieler Dauerlauf (German: “Waldniel endurance run”). Several other coaches claim the honour but, insofar as it can be attributed to any one person, van Aaken is believed to be the founder of the long slow distance method of endurance training.

Once he had settled on this way of training, which he called ‘Pure Endurance’ , he was fanatical in his propagation of the method.   He advocated it at the expense of interval training which had been the prevailing heresy in the 50’s and early 60’s.   One of his athletes, Harald Norpoth won the silver medal for the 5000m in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Norpoth really was a class runner – in the European Championships in 1966,, he won bronze in the 1500m and silver in the 5000m, and set a 2000m world record of 4:57.8 in September 1966.   He had a relatively long career with third place in the European Championships 5000m in 1971 finishing only 1.2 seconds behind the winner.   Almost skeletal in appearance, he was 6’0″ tall and weighed in at less than 10 stone.   He was able to follow a fast pace and also had a feared finishing kick.   

The tale is told of a young Ian Stewart being defeated by Harald Norpoth after a really hard battle after which they were both totally drained; Lying on the ground Ian saw a TV cameraman passing and called him across.   Looking into the camera he is quoted as saying something like “That was bloody hard Harald and you won this time, but I’m telling you now, you can expect more of the same every time you come up against me!”    

Harald was coached by van Aaken and was the most famous of his athletes.   Although van Aaken had formed his theories and been practising them himself as well as being a strong advocate for them since 1947, it was the 1960s before they became common currency.   The following extract comes from the Science of Running website and can be read in its entirety at 

Ernst Van Aaken: The Pure Endurance Method – Science of Running

“His method consisted mostly of slow running, with  Norpoth’s training consisting of 90% of his runs at between the heart rates of 120 and 150.  Even during his harder tempo run, his heart rate only reached around 180, still well below his max.  Van Aaken believed that the key to running was to get oxygen into the body and increase the size of the heart.  To accomplish this he recommended running long distances at slow paces, thus lower heart rates (about 130bpm) and to only rarely accumulate any oxygen debt. At the time, this was revolutionary thinking because he directly contradicted the prevailing wisdom:  the famous German interval method designed by Woldemar Gerschler that said you run a repetition raising your heart rate to 180 and then recover until it reaches 120, when you start another repetition (and so on).

Van Aaken’s model depends, instead, on long runs with a heart rate of 130 and short bouts at race pace over a small portion of the desired racing distance.  An example of the short sessions might be 3x500m at mile pace with plenty of recovery (~ 5 minutes) after an easy run.  If you’re training for the 5k, then an example would be 2-3x1000m at 5k pace with several minutes recovery.  One example given for a 15 minute 5k runner to do 12x 400 in 72 seconds with a full recovery of 200 meters of walking or 400 meters of slow jogging.

In addition to his “pure endurance” method, Van Aaken had some unique ideas on what would change in the future in training.  In his book, he gives an example for  a runner who wants to run 3:20 for 1,500 and 12:45 for 5,000m.  Dr. Van Aaken believes that the training might include up to 40 kilometers a day spread out over up to 5 runs per day.  In addition, he believed  the limiting factor in distance running was getting enough oxygen to your cells, thus aerobic development was key.”

What did we take from it?   5 runs a day was one thing which to any working man – and we were all working men or women (for van Aaken was a proponent of distance running for women) – would have found almost impossible.

After reading his book, it was seen that there was much more to him than that.   From the same article as that quoted above, we get:

Van Aaken’s views on Speed and Mileage:

In Van Aaken’s book he has a chapter entitled How much? How Fast? to answer these questions. It starts with a generic chart for mileage per day based on event:

•    Race—Training done per day
•    400 meters— 6 kilometers
•    800 meters—  10 kilometers
•    1500 meters— 15 kilometers
•    3000 meters— 20 kilometers
•    5000 meters— 25 kilometers
•    10,000 meters— 30 kilometers
•    Marathon— 40 kilometers

In addition to the slow mileage and tempo runs, Van Aaken included some pure speed or sprint work.  He advised doing sprints of 50 meters. These sprints were to be done as sharpeners only occasionaly. The reason these were done is because they were so short, that no oxygen debt occured.  One of Van Aaken’s key principles is to not run in oxygen debt during training as this is not what the body was designed to do.”

He was a coach whose ideas were never seriously adopted by Scottish or British marathon runners.   He never laid out his yearplan as other more fashionable coaches did – Lydiard had his periodisation plan neatly laid out and British coaches had their own ideas nicely set out in Athletics Weekly or BAAB coaching booklets – and there was an almost wilful misunderstanding which boiled down to an almost scornful  “Who can do 4 hours running a day?   “Where can I get in 5 runs a day?”   Nor, to the best of my knowledge were these ideas discussed or mentioned at SAAA coaching courses.   Here then we set out his rules for running as set out by the man himself (note the comments on weight).

Van Aaken’s key rules for running:

(As found on page 56 of The Van Aaken Method)
•    “Run daily, run slowly, with creative walking breaks”
•    “Run many miles, many times your racing distance if you are a track runner; up to and often beyond if you are a long distance runner.  Do tempo running only at fractions of your racing distance.”
•    “Run no faster during tempo runs than you would in a race.”
•    “Bring your weight down 10-20% under the so-called norm and live athletically- i.e., don’t smoke, drink little or no alcohol, and eat moderately.”
•    “Consider that breathing is more important than eating, and that continuous breathlessness in training exhausts you and destroys your reserves.”

Diet and sleep

A central theme of Van Aaken’s method is that the athlete should have very little fat on his body.  The lighter the athlete the better.  He took this to the extreme with his athletes stating that the runner should eat very little, about 2,000 calories per day.  Which is not very much at all considering the vast amounts of mileage his athletes did.  He wasn’t strict on what the athlete ate exactly, as long as he did not eat too much.  It was recommended to eat a good amount of high quality protein and to limit your fat intake to less than 40 grams a day.  In addition, he believed that a runner should fast for a day occasionally.  Van Aaken said that the fasting taught the runner how to run with little fuel supplies and to teach his body how to burn fat.

In addition to his different views on diet, Van Aaken also had controversial views on sleep.  He believed that contrary to what most believe, that people sleep too much.  He would often limit his own sleep to only a few hours.

The web link above is very interesting to anyone involved in long distance running and who wants to know more about the methods advocated by Van Aaken including six takeaways from his training for today’s athlete.

In 1972 Van Aaken was hit by a car while out running and lost both legs. Confined to a wheelchair, he became also a champion for disabled sport and wheelchair racing. Other countries showed more interest in the man and his ideas and theories than we did and he held countless lectures mainly in the United States and Japan.   He also organized running races, especially marathons for women, besides ultra distance running events.

In the 1960s, and maybe more often in the 1970s we did talk about him but maybe not as much as we should have done – although his book ran into several re-prints.

I’d love to have a look through Hugh Barrow’s archive photographs and documents collections.   It must be vast – it’s certainly comprehensive so far as athletics and allied subjects are concerned.  eg the photograph, which he credits to Peter Hoffmann) above of husband and wife Alix (Jamieson) and David Stevenson at the 1970 Empire & Commonwealth Games contrasts with the twenty first photograph of former Scottish record holder, Victoria Park AAC star and American Olympian Alex Breckenridge taken in 2014 below.

We have recently discovered the benefits accruing to primary school pupils from the ‘mile a day’ programme.   Secondary schools have always had a summer term block of athletics with an athletics lesson once a week or so.   Hugh has this extract from Rugby school’s archives which indicate a realisation of the benefits of running well over a century ago – and they were not alone among the fee-paying schools.   Look at this double page:

Very detailed description indeed of the route, more detailed than many a cross-country run in the 21st century – if the 21st century had any cross-country run that involved such as crossing a brook and a stile.   These schools have a long record in promoting running and athletic sports.   Hugh as sent this one from Glasgow Academy one of the very first to have its own sports day which is one of the longest running in scottish athletics history.

Above we see an advertisement for H&P McNeil’s shop in Glasgow.   Peter McNeil was a founder member of both Rangers FC and Clydesdale Harriers and supported both clubs as well as sport in general.   His name is to be found as one who purchased adverts inside the programmes for sports meetings held by both clubs.   

Rangers Sports were a major feature in Scottish athletics from 1872 until their unfortunate demise in 1962.   Hugh has the above in his collection of athletics memorabilia.   There were also the Clydesdale Harriers Sports also usually but not invariably held at Ibrox –

Hugh ran in several Rangers Sports meetings which didn’t of course deny interest in the other sports meetings but the Celtic Sports died out before his time.  He did unearth this item though, which prompts the question, why don’t the sports pages employ cartoonists when covering major events?   A cartoon can often convey more than a photograph.   Note the drawing of Fred Bacon.   He was an amateur in 1893 and won many AAA titles and set records including the world one hour time.   He became a professional athlete and when he decided to regain his hour record, he chose to do it in Scotland.   Powderhall was the venue, 1903 was the year and he had three pacemakers – one of whom was Bill Struth who went on to become a legendary Rangers manager, and one of the most successful managers the world has seen.

Then there were the events of 1897 when there were professional championships held at Celtic Park.

We all like the quirky things from the sport’s history, the things that make us smile a wee bit.   How about this one that he found on Twitter.

Note too that the Rangers FC granted the use of the stadium to the teams for the match.   This of course made sure that the match would almost certainly make a profit which it is clearly stated would go to the unemployed of the city and of Govan.   The club frequently made such gestures.  While talking about Ibrox, a recap on the time Alfred Shrubb broke the world hour record

There are more historical items in the collection and we will extend this selection shortly.

.

The traditions of the various university blues and colours awards across Scotland varied from one to the other with procedures as documented on the University Blues  and University Colours pages which can be accessed via the links.   Graham has kept much of the correspondence dealing with his awards and adds to his comments on the Blues page:

Notice of Award of Full Blue for Cross Country in 1979 and for Track in 1981

Invitation to the Ball in 1980

Citation to be read at the presentation in 1980

The actual Presentation by Mrs Frank Clement

Into 1981 –

Formal invitation in 1981

Graduation photo to display the Colours tie.

The scarf showing the years on one side and his initials on the other

In which we see the scarf (large, nay huge square) in all its glory.

The World Cross-Country Championships had been held in Clydebank in 1969 and the Empire & Commonewalth Games in Edinburgh in 1970 had set a high standard.   The SCCU though did just that when the World Cross-Country Championships .were held in Bellahouston Park in Glasgow in 1978.   How big was it?   The programme below, courtesy Denis Bell, show us.

The event, the promises made beforehand, the decisions taken at the time and the controversies that they gave rise to are detailed in Tommy Callaghan’s well-written article which you can read     at this link .

Chris Robison (Spango Valley and Alex Gilmour (Cambuslang)

The Renfrewshire 10 miles road race was indeed a popular event on the calendar – that is easily seen by scanning the names of the winners, the range of clubs represented on the programme and the fact that it was as well supported by athletes from the county as strongly as by athletes from areas as far apart as Aberdeen and Edinburgh.   Unfortunately it was not always reported as well as it might have been in the Press and occasionally not well covered by Athletics Weekly.   1986 was one such year.   The entire AW report was this –

It was a hard, hard race between two hard runners, even if you didn’t know them, the fact that Tommy Murray was relegated to third would tell you all you needed to know.   

The cross-country relays were on 11th October and the report from new magazine “Scotland’s Runner’ from December ’86  reads as follows:   

“

The Spango Valley Relay team of 1986: Robison, Spence, Connaghan and Connaghan

 Fast forward to the County Championships on 29th November, 1986, and the coverage of the County Cross-Country championships was covered in much more detail.   This from “Athletics Weekly” includes the West District Championships result as a bonus (!) and for comparison, the Herald report is also reproduced.

Just looking over the first 10 or 12 places, it is clear that the race was of a very high calibre with eight of the top ten being Scottish internationalists and previous winner Cammie Spence in 7th position.   Into the new year of 1987 and the Renfrewshire County Five Miles Road Race, an open race for many years, was won by a Renfrewshire runner when Peter Fleming of Bellahouston defeated team mate Billy Robertson by 26 seconds and his team to a victory over Spango Valley by a massive 64 points.   The County Association continued its policy of encouraging the younger age groups with races for Youths, Senior Boys and Junior Boys.   The name of John McFadyen of Greenock Glenpark, winner of the Senior Boys title, would become well known as a quality middle distance runner over the country but especially as an 800m runner on the track where he would win Scottish and British international vests as well as being a multi-medal winner at Championships.   

There was also a Renfrewshire Women’s Road Race held on 22nd March, 1987 which was won by Eileen Masson of Kilbarchan.    Unlike the men’s open race, this was an entirely women’s event.    “Scotland’s Runner” report –

The men’s 10 miles championship was held on 11th April at Greenock with the victory going to Chris Robison of Spango Valley AAC from Hammy Cox of Greenock Glenpark Harriers.   The report from “Scotland’s Runner” reads as follows –

On to the gentler surfaces of the countryside and the first of the Renfrewshire county events was the relay championship on 11th October. and now, forget Spango Valley and Greenock Glenpark, Bellahouston was back with their team of Daly, McAngus, Thonson and Robertson winning the title from Spango Valley by 14 seconds.   The Spango team was minus Chris Robison but with three international runners they were still a strong outfit.   Kilbarchan was third 3 seconds later.   A good race.   Full details in the “Scotland’s Runner” extract below.

The individual and team championships were held on 28th November at Greenock and Tommy Murray won from Peter Connaghan of Spango Valley with only 16 seconds separating them.   Note that John McFadyen continued to progress, winning the Senior Boys race by 49 seconds.  Result:- 

Tommy Murray

The 10 Miles Road Race was held on 2nd April in 1988 and was won by Alistair Douglas, the Victoria Park runner, with four Renfrew men in hot pursuit.   The standard was as high as it ever had been with all of the first six being international representatives with Allan Adams who won the veterans race also being an international senior as well as international veteran.   Hill runner Suzanne Niedrum was also of that standard.   Spango Valley won the team race with Bellahouston 17 points behind and Dumbarton 9 points away in third.   Results:-

The track championships were held on 20th April at Crown Point track in Glasgow and the brief report in “Scotland’s Runner” tells us something about it.

And that was the extent of it.   It was not long however until the start of the winter season and after the normal start in the first week of Octiber with the McAndrew relay at Scotstoun,  the counties cross-country relays were as ever on the second Saturday of October, the 8th.   The RAAA event was at Paisley with Greenock Glenpark winning from Kilbarchan with the B team from Glenpark filling third place.   The Renfrewshire domestic championships, whether on road or country, were of a very high standard – perhaps the highest of all the county races at this point – and a testament to the unfailing work at club and county official, coach and administrator levels as well as the work pout in by the runners.   Four Scottish internationals in the winning team, with fastest three times going to members of that same team.   The results as published by “Scotland’s Runner”: –  

The individual championships were held on 26th November at Linwood, home of Kilbarchan AAC where it was fitting that the winner was Bobby Quinn of that club from Hammy Cox of  Glenpark and Tommy Hearle of Kilbarchan.   Spango Valley won the team race from Glenpark with Kilbarchan third.   Details below

Bobby Quinn running in the Edinburgh to Glasgow in 1985

The county 5 miles road race at Greenock was won by Glenpark’s Tommy Murray from Robert Fitzsimmons of Bellahouston and Tommy Hearle of Kilbarchan.  The team race went in the reverse order – Kilbarchan AAC, Bellahouston and Greenock Glenpark.  Complete results below:-

The 10 mile road race championship was held on 8th April.  Tommy Murray won from Chris Robison with Kilbarchan’s Gerry Fairley in third while the team race order was Spango, Kilbarchan and Glenpark.    Runners again came from furth of Renfrewshire – Glasgow, Falkirk, Giffnock and Dumbarton were all represented on the medal winners lists.   

We have to go to the “Glasgow Herald” for the report and result of the cross-country relay championships on 16th October, 1989.   Bobby Quinn led his club to victory in the team race.

1st December, 1989, saw the Renfrewshire individual and club championships and there was a new name on the Trophy – Gerry Gaffney from Greenock Wellpark Harriers was the man and he had his club’s name on the list of winners for the first time in a long time.  He won by 25 seconds from Chris Leck of Spango Valley and Billy Robertson of Bellahouston.   Complete results from “Scotland’s Runner” below.

The 5 mile road championship took place on 3rd February, 1990, at Greenock and there was a well deserved victory for Tommy Hearle of Kilbarchan.   A Scottish Schools international, a Scottish Junior international and a very talented runner he had had to face up to Bobby Quinn, Tommy Murray, Hammy Cox and several other top talents over the previous few years.   He won over previous winner Cammie Spence, and tough competitor Duncan McFadyen.   Result :-  

The 10 mile race, a popular open event, took place on 14th April, 1990, and held as ever at Greenock.   The open nature of the race was shown this year with hill running international Ian Murphy of Clydesdale Harriers winning the race by 40 seconds from Cammie Spence of Spango Valley and Gerry Gaffney of Wellpark.   Murphy’s team mate, John Hanratty was sixth, Pat O’Kane of Hunter’s Bog Trotters was seventh and Thomson of Irvine eighth.   

Ian Murphy, Tommy Murray and Graeme Croll of Cambuslang after the Bellahouston Park race in December.

13th October 1990 saw the relays return to Linwood and the home team, Kilbarchan, win the title and win the trophy again.   Their top man this time was Tommy Hearle who was not only fastest in his team but third fastest overall, only Tommy Murray and Peter Fleming being faster.   John McFadyen of Glenpark had been working his way through the age groups and was now a Junior Man and had the fastest Junior time. 

By 1st December, 1990, the clubs were all ready for the county championships.   These were held at Houston – another Kilbarchan venue but this time round Tommy Hearle had to give best to Hammy Cox of Glenpark Harriers.   His team was second though compared to Cox’s Glenpark’s third place – Spango Valley won.   

That marked the end of the Renfrew Amateur Athletic Association’s ventures for 1990 and the end of our coverage of the Renfrewshire Association’s promotions.   The clubs had grown in size with  Bellahouston Harriers, Greenock Glenpark Harriers, Greenock  Wellpark Harriers, Kilbarchan AAC, Linwood Pentastar AC among the best in the country, it was now promoting more age group events with U17 (Youths), U15 (Senior Boys) and U13 (Junior Boys all competing appropriately at local and national events, there were country, road and track & field championships all available for athletes and budding athletes to train for and there were coaches to do the training.   It was a very successful association.