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HISTORY OF RUNNING: Boston Billy

Nerd Alert: in this (hopefully regular) series of posts - 'HISTORY OF RUNNING' - I hope to merge two of my interests: history and running. I am a history teacher, after all. Athletics is one of the oldest sports in the world, and it's modern structure was standardized for the 1896 Olympic revival. In the 100+ years since then, training methods have evolved a lot, and yet...we can still learn lessons from past greats. This is my attempt to analyze history and apply lessons to today.

Why Start with Bill Rodgers?

  1. Rodgers' training logs from 1973-1977 are posted online. While so many elite runners like to keep their training secret, a huge chunk of Rodgers' formative training is posted online for anyone to read. Check it out here.
  2. Bill Rodgers is the epitome of the citizen-runner who led the running boom in the 1970s. He trained his butt off for years on end without lucrative sponsorships or prize money (often while working a school job), just for the opportunity to lace 'em up and compete with the best in the world. I suppose I see a little of myself in that mold (minus the national/world class level).

Brief Background

Bill Rodgers is one of the most famous and influential figures from the first running boom in America in the 1970s. Along with Frank Shorter, he helped establish the US as a powerhouse marathoning nation (sounds weird now, doesn't it?) while also opening up the sport to mass participation by citizen-runners who were willing to train hard for the opportunity to line up with he country's best and see just how good they could be.

Between 1975 and 1980, Rodgers won the New York and Boston Marathons four times each (finishing Boston in an American Record time twice). His fastest marathon was a 2:09:27 run at Boston in 1979 for his second American Record. Perhaps the largest hole in his resume is the lack of an Olympic marathon medal...he finished a disappointing 40th at the 1976 Montreal Games and then never had an opportunity in 1980, thanks to the US boycott of the Moscow Olympiad.

While Rodgers had racing success around the country (and around the world), his legacy is tied most closely to the Boston Marathon, so much so that his nickname is "Boston Billy." This is partly due to his winning the most iconic marathon four times in five years, but also due to the fact that he lived and trained in Boston, representing the Greater Boston Track Club and coached by the legendary Bill Squires. He even won his first Boston while wearing a hand-lettered "GBTC" t-shirt!

Rogers winning the 1975 Boston Marathon in his hand-lettered t-shirt.
Source: http://www.bunnhill.com/BobHodge/Rodgers/Races/races75.htm

What Can We Learn?

Looking through Rodgers' logs, there are three lessons that I think are very valuable and easily applied to the modern runner:

  1. Consistency is key. There is a remarkable consistency through Rodgers' log. As you read through it, you'll notice there aren't too many mind-blowing workouts or fancy schedules, just a lot (a lot) of mileage. I mean, two weeks before hist first Boston victory, he ran 128 miles! And then one week after that race, he was back to a 132-mile week! One January week in 1977 -- complete with an interval workout, an indoor race, and a 22-mile long run -- he comments three separate times that his mileage is too low...while getting in 119 total for the week! How many people today would ever say they same thing? At times the mega-mileage has its drawbacks, as he writes after a disappointing DNF in Boston in 1977 that "too much training was not strength building but tired slower running...not enough speed (race pace) training," but I think the overall month-to-month and year-to-year consistency of training is something we can all strive for -- even if we're not all averaging 130 miles per week.
  2. Do a lot of your training at an effort that feels good. Reading through the logs, you'll see a ton of comments on runs labeled as "good" or "OK" pace. This is before the days of fancy GPS watches and pace-tracking technology, so runners had to train by effort -- and most of his mileage seems to be run at an effort that feels good on that particular day. Read into that what you want about his daily pace, but most likely that pace varies by day; some days he's probably running faster and some days slower, even at the same effort. There's certainly something to be said for an intuitive, effort-based method of training that stresses listening to your body, a skill that everyone relies on while racing but too often ignores while training.
  3. You should probably be racing more. In 1975 he raced a total of 23 times (avg. once every other week) with 3 marathons. In 1977 he raced 26 times with 5 marathons. Nobody does that anymore! In nearly every city in America nowadays there's at least one road race just about every weekend -- how many people can honestly say they take advantage of those opportunities? I'm happy if I can get ten races in one year (this year I got eight). What's interesting about racing as often as Rodgers did isn't the results that it produces, but the attitude that accompanies it: smaller races aren't the end-all-be-all of training, but are merely workouts, competitive opportunities on a timed, measured course against runners of like abilities. Balanced with appropriate recovery it makes sense that racing more often would produce better results in your season's goal race -- if you want to get better results in one particular race, then it should be intuitive that you should practice racing more. But too often we avoid racing for fear of it interfering with our training schedule. Maybe it's time to make racing a part of the training plan.

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