An Open Letter Distance Runm
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r- An Open Letter U.S. Distance Runm stance vnn through this was, you the earlier state of US. mnning. 1n a word, it was depressed. Americans were lapfied in intermational rack .--?a' that this country UJ "too sop" to prodzcce the Tokyo Ga rsn T one of th kd Lindgm on the L . J. But Billy produced ... -.. ...... .,.-.Aer: a gold mdal gained in a furious kick past world ~ecord-holder Ron Clarke an Olrmpic champions-to-be Mohame , A major Olympic upse BILLY MILLS WINS THE TOKYO OLYMPI 1 &ZXd Schul and Bill Dellinger followed wid Wr13finkh in & through 12 weeks of Ofticers' Candidate School and trained very 5,000. AMan tmck distance mnnm wen? on tkir way. Or so nfGy little that year. &u&t. Even though I wasn't training a$ heavily as I needed to, I This GoMen Age ended as suddenly as it had bcgun. George Young was formuhting a plan for my running. My focal point became d Brian Dimer have taken bronws in abc st~~plechase,and Jim Ryun the Olympic Games. I wrote in my workout book in 1962, "Gold a sib in the 1,500. And, ofcoursc, Frank Shorn owns two mamthon medal, 10,000 meter run." duh. But no Ammtan man has meahled in an Olympic or World I began training in January 1963 with the goal of a gold Chmpionship 5,000 or 10,000 since Tohyo. TAG AigActfinishes wen medal in mind. Because I had taken the previous- year off, I S@vePn$ontaine's foud and Shoftcr'sji'', both way back in 1972. could only run about 25 miles a week at first. What can American thack twiners do to improve their world A myth has grown that I trained twice a day, 100 miles a standing? Billy Mills, now 52 and living in a Sacramento subarb, week for years leading up to the Games. I did not have the dresses dk question in his open letter. He has spoken widecly and well strength to run that much. on the mnning n'mit msince winning /ris 10,000. In July 1963, with an average for four months of 40 miles a His main point here: He was no better in 1962-63 than the week, I improved my 10K time by more than a minute. At that Amticans are now with Bamelona two years away and the World point, I thought, "I'm hardly training. I ran 30:08..I need more Championships in Tokyo coming next distance, I. need more strength, but summer. Wouldn't it & fimng if anoh ' I'm going to win the Olympic Milh-like bnakdmugh came'on the same I 10,oOo!" botkasheaw? - The first time I'd listed that as If an American'distance ru'nner my goal, I'd laughed,at it. Now I was Fame to me today, two years before dead serious. the Barcelona Olympics, and asked After placing third at the MU "What can I do to maximize my I Cross Country meet in the fall of chances of making the team (or being 1%3, I started doing something that a medalist, or winning the gold few runners did then and not many medal)?" I would start with a single do even now. It has come to be word of advice: FOCUS. Make that known in sports psychology as "affir- race your one goal, and don't let any- mation." thing else distract you from pursuing I told myself, "I truly am a great it. I distance runner." I wrote, "God has Runners face more distractions given me the ability. The rest is up now than they did in my day. They to me. BELIEVE, BELIEVE, can make the World Cross Country BELIEVE!" teams, or make a great deal of money I thought of myself as a gifted on the European track and U.S. road distance runner. For a full year, I told circuits. But by trying to do too I myself that I had the ability to much, they end up doing very little. My Olympic dream took shape in 1960. A teammate from the University of Kansas named three-mile race. The rule at Cliff Cushman had come the meet was that if you were back from the 1960 Olympic lapped and weren't one of the Games with a silver medal in ''MY Olympic dream top 10 runners, you had to the 400-meter hurdles. ) ) drop out. I was running 11th, I asked if I COUM see and the officials were trying to took sha~e1 in 1960. Cliffs USA warmup uniform. pull me off the track. I remember stroking the arm and thinking, "Maybe I can wear I refused to quit, and an official shouted at me, "You're an one of these at the next Olympics." embarrassment." That was very disappointing. I planned to win The dream seemed farfetched them. I had never won a the Olympic 10,000 later that year, and here I was getting lapped national championship, and my career had been very sporadic. and being told that I didn't belong on the track. The best I had done was fifth in the 1958 NCAA Cross Country It was at times like this when I wondered if I was fooling meet during sophomore year. myself. However, the focus was so strong that I shut out the dis- I had only run one 10,000 at that point. That was the 1960 appointment and went right back to thinking, "I am a great dis- Olympic Trials when I placed sixth. My time was 31:lO. tance runner." I remained focused on October 14th at 430 in the I would run the distance only three other times before the aftdrnoon, the day and time of the Olympic 10,000 final. Tokyo Qlympic final, but I would race it hundreds of times in I then increased the intensity of training too quickly, devel- my mind after the dream came into focus in 1962. oped shin splints that lasted for much of the Olympic year and With those Games two years way, TRACK AND FIELD was starting to have the plantar fascia problem that eventually NEWS might have listed me among the top 10 Olympic would end my racing career. From April to September, I missed prospects in the 10,000. My name would have been near the bot- workouts 40 percent of the time. tom of that list. I definitely wouldn't have been considered one However, my mileage climbed during the spring. I went of the three to make the team. from an average of less than 50 miles a week to more than 90. I I wasn't running much in 1962. I graduate from college that felt an incredible strength developing. year, married, took a commission in the Marine Corps, went I wanted to average 100 mile weeks. This was hard to do APMnDE WORLD PHOTO with my injuries, so I extended my "weeks" to 10 days. I added up the best seven days from those 10. This way, I could keep my mileage up and stay on track mentally while still getting the recov- ery days that I .needed. In the 10,000 Trials, I placed second to Gerry Lindgren, drop- ping my best time to 29:10, and felt I could have won the race if that had been my goal. I knew I could have gone at least a second faster for each lap at the Trials. So I wrote in my workout book "Gold medal, 10,000-meter run. Time, 28:25." Almost miraculously, my leg and foot pains disappeared a month before the Games. Two weeks after the Games, the injuries would return. Ron Clarke of Australia held the world 10,000 record at the time, which made him the Olympic favorite. In training, I picked out a spot on the road or track and told myself, "That's the finish line of the 1OK. I'm on Clarke's shoulder. If I get there first, I win." Everyday, I practiced outkicking Clarke on the last lap of the 10,000. Then I realized that Clarke might not be the only man therc with a lap to go. So I added a mystery man to my mental scenario and worked on kicking past him, whoever he might be. The Olympic race would be run on a Wednesday. On the pre- vious Sunday, I again wrote in my workout book, "God has given me the ability. The rest is up to me. Gold medal, 10,000-meter run. Time, 28.25." My Sunday workout was an all-out 200 meters. I knew I would be with the leaders in the race, and was focusing on the last lap. This was a final test of my sprint. I ran the 200 in 23.6 seconds. I wrote in the workout book, "My speed is there. Just stay with the leaders for 5-112 miles, and then the race begins. BELIEVE BELIEVE, BELIEVE!" "I wrote in mv workout book, old medal. 10.000m run. During the race, there were a couple of points where I almost dropped off the pace. But I hung in there. The reason I didn't quit was that long-term focus on this day, this hour, these minutes and seconds. The last lap went almost exactly as I had rehearsed it. I caught Ron Clarke and the "mystery man," Mohamed Gammoudi, just as I'd practiced doing it. I ran the last 200 meters in about 25 seconds, almost as fast as the single 200 a few days before.