Spring 1999 - British Milers Club

BMC April 1999 6/6/99 9:07 pm Page 30Running with Steve...by Matt PattersonMy relationship with Steve Ovett goes back to1973/74 when Steve had just won the EuropeanJunior 800m title from Willi Wuelbeck and IvoVan Damme. I was one of the top distancerunners in Sussex and had known this young'star' for the past fouror five years as wewere both membersof the same club,Brighton and HoveA.C. We raced eachother at the annualBoxing Day race in1973 and Steveeasily outsprinted meover 4 miles when hewas just 18 years ofage. What impressedme immediately withthis young man wasthe ease with whichhe ran and theeconomy of effortwhen he was runningPhoto by: Shearmanbeside you.From then, till I leftto work in Norway in 1984, we ran 'Stride forStride' practically every day at our home inBrighton, in the south of England and in manyother parts of the World. It was a wonderfulexperience - not only training with an athleticgenius but the exuberant and complex characterof Steve Ovett.Steve, although he may deny it, loved to run.I also suspect that he enjoyed the rigoroustraining we used to do around the streets ofBrighton and in a very short period of timeemerged a very tough but fair competitor.When I listen to Steve talking now about hiscareer he tends to trivialise the hard training heunderwent during his formative years. I knowthat his father read a copy of 'The Jim RyunStory' when Steve was 14/15 years old and hadhim running sessions of 20 x 400m on grass -this was when Steve was running sprintdistances!CONDITIONING WORK Ð 1979/1980Winter Months –Base Work and General Build UpThe winter prior to the Moscow Olympics(1980) we ran an average of 100 miles/week(160km) for over 20 weeks, with some weeks at110-120 miles/week. Steve wanted this winterto be the best possible he could manage - hewanted "to frighten the life out of people" withhis fitness level. Brighton is a very hilly townand this made our training even harder as mostof our runs included some very tough hillclimbs. The winters in the south of England canbe tough and occasionally we had snowfalls butusually they were cold and damp. As wetrained together nearly every day (twice a day)it was easy to adjust the training as we felt fit.Two or three times a month Steve would travelup to London to do a session with Bob Benn(800m runner) and to see Harry Wilson. We ranmost of our winter sessions on the road becausethe grass in many of the parklands would be toowet or muddy to run at a decent pace. At thatperiod in my career, I was running 49 mins for10 miles and 23/24 mins for 5 miles, so I wasable to run 10 miles in training at a comfortablepace of 53/55 minutes.Our hill sessions were very intensive butSteve revelled in this type of work. The longSTEVE OVETTÕS BEST TIMES:-400m 47.5800m 1:44.09 (1978)1,000m 2:15.91 (1979)1,500m 3:30.77 (1983)Mile 3:48.40 (1981)2,000m 4:57.71 (1982)3,000m 7:41.3 (1977)2 miles 8:13.51 (1978)5,000m 13:20.06 (1986)interval session in the park was rotated eachweek from the fairly flat course to the hillycourse. Some weeks we would run 8 x 1000mbut usually it was 6 reps. Our recovery rangedfrom 30 secs to 60 secs but there was no set rule- if we felt good we shortened the recovery. Itwas a fast jog recovery. If I felt good I'd shortenthe recovery even more, to make sure that Stevewas working his body to its extremes. Wenever worried about training too hard! My onlyconcern was that I might not be training hardenough for him and therefore holding him back.We talked about this on a few occasions butSteve did not want it any other way.There was another long interval session wealso ran in the park, close to the athleticstadium. They were about 4 minutes in durationand very hilly. We always ran this session inspikes as the grass was always lush. Ourrecovery was between 15 - 30 secs! We ran thissession at least once a week for close to 10years and when I travel back to Brighton andrun this course, I find it very tough. The steephills on this course made you work hard evenwhen you felt strong.Variety was very important in our training.As we trained so often each week and running toand from our homes, Steve lived either 5 minsjog or 100m jog from my home throughout ouryears of training together, we tended to look fordifferent places to train each year but stillholding on to the areas which we knew wereideal training venues. It was funny to see Steveracing in some foreign country on the TV in theevening after he was seen training in Brightonthat morning and then returning the followingday to do that evening session. We trained manytimes abroad but found it hard to beat Brightonas far as training venues go.For the first five years we very rarely used astop watch - track sessions were of course theexception. I loved to push my body to the limiton many of the sessions and Steve would beoperating on about 80% of his maximum. Wewould do these road runs and knew roughlyhow long in distance they were but neverbecame obsessed about putting a watch onthem. Steve never timed the sessions - heknew his body exceptionally well and that washis measurement of how he was going. Hecould do hard sessions (intensive) and wastotally recovered by the next day. The sessionsin themselves were a maximum of 20 mins -maybe that was the secret of his successes!When you observed Steve running atmaximum speed he looked so relaxed and thatwas his great asset - to run fast and keeprelaxed!Also, in all the years I have known Steve, hehas never recorded his training and I was theonly person who knew intimately what he wasdoing on a day to day basis. I realise now thatit was part of Steve'smake up - he did notwant to dwell toomuch on training andwe spent much ofour time running togetherand talking onissues other thanrunning. The trainingwould be done andlittle time would bespent on reflectingon what we weredoing. Only now doI have the time tolook back and realisehow long and hardwe were training. Itproduced the resultshe wanted!Photo by: Shearman30BMC News : Spring 1999