Brian Clarke
Listen to Brian’s Memoir Here
I love what I do and firmly believe in the transformative potential of discovering our inner athlete. This is what I try to convey to my clients and the humble way I strive to create a healthier world for all of us.
Aloha, I’m Brian Clarke. I’ve been a full-time, professional fitness trainer and marathon program director since 1979. Now, in my early eighties, I still enjoy helping endurance athletes improve their game.
I first began my coaching career during the early days of America’s recreational running boom, and I decided to buck the trend by charging a fee for my coaching services. I developed an “advanced” marathon training system and by 1982, I’d developed a following and a reputation.
Many found marathon training to be more challenging than they’d expected, and I stayed in business by knowing how to slow athletes down and, also demonstrating the efficacy of my mission, which is still the same as it was back then: that I could get them through the marathon safely, competently, and enjoyably, with a proven training program and friendly group support.
I saw clearly in the early days that accomplishing my mission would require a thorough understanding of the training process. My initial goal was to understand the way my college coach and Nike co-founder, Bill Bowerman, had trained me while I was on the track team at the University of Oregon in the mid-1960s.
His method was eventually known as the Oregon System, but I developed it into what I call the Hard-Easy System. It’s the best system yet devised for training endurance athletes.
The highlight of my running career was the 4:06 mile I ran in my junior year. That year was seminal for me because, as I reflected on it later, the Oregon System made so much sense.
I eventually wrote three books on the subject to better understand the adaptive training process. The course I currently teach on the Hard-Easy System has been in development since the early 1980s; it represents my most advanced thinking about the endurance training process.
Using the Hard-Easy System over the 45 years of my coaching career has proven invaluable. It forms the underlying conceptual framework I used to train more than a hundred marathoners a year. Under my guidance, virtually all my athletes completed the Honolulu Marathon, few were ever injured, and many improved on prior performances.
When the pandemic hit Hawai‘i in March of 2020, my business was shuttered by the new pandemic rules. Chagrined by my vulnerability, I decided to create a new, pandemic-proof, training and education program for adult, recreational distance runners. I’m currently in the fourth year of that developmental process, and the work is going well. We teach courses on a variety of health and fitness-related topics, and we run a year-round training program focused on helping individuals meet and beat their personal milestones, whether they are competitive runners, recreational joggers, or fitness walkers.
Although I’ve been around for longer than most coaches, I am always looking for new ways to innovate and improve my teaching and coaching. I love what I do and firmly believe in the transformative power of discovering our inner athlete. This is what I try to convey to my clients and the humble way I strive to create a healthier world for all of us.
Brian Clarke at St. Louis High School
Brian had shown tremendous promise as a middle-distance runner during his junior year in high school (1961), placing second in the state meet mile with a time of 4:37.1. The conventional wisdom at the time was that high school athletes would become “stale” if they trained year-round. Nonetheless, Brian wanted to set a new mile record in 1962, so he decided to train throughout his senior year. In support of the year-long quest, Brian’s father heard that Ky Cole was the best runner in the state, and that he trained on the Punahou School track every Saturday afternoon. Brian and Ky hit it off immediately, with Ky taking Brian under his wing, and training him for the first six months of Brian’s senior year. Several months later, when Brian won the state meet mile and set a new state record (4:28.3), Ky was the first person Brian sought out to offer his thanks for getting him in shape earlier in the year.
Brian Clarke (far right) and Ky Cole (far left)
This photo of me and Ky was taken many years later. The other two men are Scott Hamilton (one the founders of the Mid-Pacific Road Runners Club, along with Ky and Norman Tamanaha, who was my high school coach) and Johnny Faerber, a gifted runner who was also head coach of the Faerber’s Flyers, a women’s running club founded in 1980.
Bill Bowerman coaching at U. of Oregon
Brian looked up to “Bill” from the first time he heard him speak about the key to success: “enjoying your activity.” Bill meant success in distance running, but his advice could have applied to success with any activity. Bill had tremendous success developing middle-distance track athletes during the 1960s and ‘70s (his star pupil was Steve Prefontain).
Brian Clarke at the U. of Oregon
Brian ran at the University of Oregon during the 1965 track season when Oregon won the NCAA Championship. Brian’s best time of 4:06 didn’t qualify him for the finals in the NCAA mile, but, under Bowerman’s aegis, he had learned the rudiments of the Oregon System. Brian used his understanding of Bowerman’s system during a 47-year fitness training career. In the process, Brian wrote three books on the “Hard-Easy System” while teaching a course and developing a video program that complement the system. Brian’s legacy continues with the best system yet devised for training endurance athletes.
Saint Louis High School: Brian’s first teaching/coaching gig
In 1971, Brian started teaching social studies at his Alma Mater, Saint Louis High School in Honolulu. Coaching cross country and track was part of the gig, with his teams being one of the best parts of his seven-year experience at the school. In photo 3, one of his first teams show off their “muscular” running bodies. Steve Warner (second from the left) wasn’t the fastest on the team, but over the years he and Brian became the closest.
Steve Warner
Now 70 years old and retired from the Hawaii Department of Education (teacher and principal), Steve has joined BC Endurance for fun and fitness. Though he knows he’ll never be as skinny as he was in high school, Steve thinks he can get below 200 pounds again with regular fitness training and the support of his fellow sensible eating classmates.
Brian’s coaching business
When Brian quit high school teaching in 1978, he took time to travel around the continental United States with his fiancé, Nancy Heck. Brian and Nancy were away for four months, returning home in time to witness the initial stages of Hawaii’s running boom. Brian was used to seeing a “big field” of eight athletes in the marathon during the early 1960s when marathons started at 8 a.m. in summer heat, without aid stations. But seeing a potential market in the 8000 athletes who finished the 1978 Honolulu Marathon, he immediately decided to try his hand at coaching adult marathoners for a living. His early career vision can be seen in the photo with his program printed on a white poster board.
Brian and Candy Smiley
Soon, also, he had a stable of athletes who wanted to improve their racing performances and were willing to pay him survival wages for effective coaching. Candy Smiley was one of Brian’s elite athletes, often finishing first among all females at local running events that attracted large fields of Hawaii’s best athletes. Candy did most of Brian’s workouts, but she did her own thing whenever it suited her. She also listened to every other coach in town, all of whom had their own training ideas and were willing to share them with an elite and inquiring athlete. To her credit, Candy asked Brian the same questions, which he struggled to answer cogently. Brian thought deeply about Bowerman’s training system, but it was nonintuitive and difficult to master in the early years.
The marathon training grows
Mike Coad, next to Brian in this photo, was a leader in the Honolulu Marathon Clinic, which was the major marathon preparation program on Oahu when Brian first started coaching professionally. Mike used to do Brian’s weeknight workouts in Kapiolani Park and the clinic workout on Sunday morning. When Brian decided to move his weeknight workouts to a downtown Honolulu location, Mike surprised him by dropping his association with the marathon clinic and following him to the new location. Mike usually disregarded Brian’s coaching advice, preferring simply to use the group as motivation to get away from work and do a walk in the evening. Mike stayed with Brian’s program for 40 years until he retired and moved with his wife to the Pacific Northwest. In the process, he witnessed the various phases of the program’s development, from a single leaderless group that strung out from the front to the rear, to many ability groups with at least two leaders per group to keep their groups together.
The marathon training grows (2)
At its largest, BC Endurance trained more than a hundred athletes for the marathon every year.
The triathlon training (Eve DeCoursey)
The allure of swimming and biking among Brian’s early runners forced him to start a triathlon training in 1983. Eve DeCoursey was one of Brian’s runners at the time, but she was also the top woman biker in the state. Eve and Brian became partners in developing Island Triathlon Training (ITT) in conjunction with a local bike shop. The 14-week triathlon training program was the first of its kind in the state. ITT prepared beginners for the annual Tinman Triathlon, with Eve handling the bike coaching and the finances and Brian handling running, permitting, and hiring swim coaches and other assistants.
ITT
In its heyday ITT had more than 50 athletes each year and charged enough that Brian was able to keep his head above the poverty line for 20 years until the marathon training took off in the mid-2000s.
The AARP Triathlon Training
The success of the Tinman training led to a tri-training gig with the national AARP. For three years, Eve and Brian prepared local 50+ year-olds for the AARP Tri-Umph Triathlon. One of the unspoken goals of the program was to get local fifty-year-olds off their duffs and doing something to stay fit and healthy. Most fell by the wayside once the program ended, but some kept at their training informally even years later. Steve Davidson (second row, third from the right) was in the original program and never stopped serious training, completing six Ironman triathlons and many marathons after the AARP program ended in 2003. Unfortunately, Steve was often plagued with injuries in those years. After a chance encounter with Brian, Steve joined Brian’s annual marathon training program and learned the tenets of the hard-easy system, picking up ideas that helped him learn how to train without injuring himself.
Steve Davidson today
Recently, Steve has resumed training on his own while continuing to finish the Honolulu Marathon and other long-distance races without injury.
Brian retires from racing in middle age
Brain met John Simonds during the annual turkey trot in 2000. The predict-your-time event was well-suited to chit-chat communication, and Brian found himself in conversation with John, who had been editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and was about to become head of the Hawaii Newspaper Agency. John also became a stalwart in the BC Endurance marathon training community, earning a reputation as a bright personality with a great sense of humor, and old enough, among the younger athletes, to be considered “first-to-meet-the-enemy.” When Brian dropped off the board of the Mid-Pacific Road Runners Club, John joined the board and for years he and Brian would talk after weeknight workouts about the personalities and doings of the club.
Brian retires from racing
Those years coincided with Brian’s last hurrah as a competitive athlete. Having won his age-division in the 2006 Great Aloha Run, Brian stopped training for races and began walking for fitness. When the pandemic hit in 2020, John took his leave of the BC Endurance program but continued walking on his own, knowing how valuable fitness walking could be for one’s health and fitness. Meanwhile, Brian has walked enjoyably and without injury every day for more than 15 years.
Taking BC athletes to Kalalau Valley
Brian feels extremely fortunate to have been exposed to so many outstanding people during his career as an athlete and fitness trainer. Ron Prescott (top row, fourth from right), for instance, was a stalwart in the middle years of the downtown marathon training. Ron was always willing to take on a new challenge, such training for the Tinman triathlon.
Leading BC athletes into Kalalau Valley
When Brian started leading groups into Kalalau Valley on Kauai’s rugged Na Pali coast, Ron and his wife, Chong, were among the first to sign up (the couple on the right). Always cheerful, Ron was the sort of guy you’d want on your team when high morale was a priority. For many years after leaving the training, Ron led a small group of BC Endurance expats who trained together regularly on their own. Recently, during a program workout, Brian ran into Ron and Chong out for a Saturday walk near their home in Mililani Town in central Oahu.
