I started training marathoners in 1979 at the height of the running boom. I had run the mile under nationally famous Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon so I was arrogant enough to think I could train long distance runners. I was recently “retired” from seven years of high school teaching and coaching. But I was living on savings and not-so confident about coaching recreational adults professionally for the marathon.
My main training competition was the highly successful Honolulu Marathon Clinic. Though it was considered a “beginner” marathon training, it did a good job of preparing thousands to finish their first marathon. I was looking for people who had done a marathon and wanted to be fast—like Olympic marathon winner, Frank Shorter. I envisioned an “advanced” marathon training with a program for Shorter wannabes.
I found financial support from the organizers of the annual Honolulu Marathon, the Honolulu Marathon Association (HMA). Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had the resources initially to become a full-time running coach. Hardly smoothing my way, the free-of-charge marathon clinic (not the HMA) had conditioned the running community to be highly skeptical of a fee-for-service marathon training. “What could be so difficult about running,” people wondered. “It’s just putting one foot ahead of the other.”
It would take a while before people realized that Shorter was good because he was talented. But, at the time, most people were naïve about their potential, thinking they could be good too, as they had been in high school. I liked working with that athletic profile because they were ambitious and willing to work. My training program employed the usual mix of hill and interval workouts, and weekly long runs. I also advo-cated the Hard-Easy System I had learned at Oregon and had practiced while coaching high school athletes. In other words, I had a unique angle that appealed to my athletes.
“ I implored them to go out slowly in the marathon, but their pacing was up to them.”
One of the people I coached that first year was Willy Williamson, president of the HMA. Willy wanted to see what my system could do for him. And I was committed to giving him my best as his coach, not to say my employer. In those Wild West days, once the training program had been completed, I considered my athletes to be free agents on race day. I implored them to go out slowly in the marathon, but their pacing was up to them. Nonetheless, I was shocked when I saw Willy go by at five miles.
He was running tall and strong, with a huge grin on his face. Perhaps he thought himself a genius to have hired me as the HMA’s “advanced” marathon coach. Later, he marveled at how easy the pace had felt; he had “never felt stronger at five miles.” Yet, I knew immediately, with most of the race still to run, that he was doomed.
Willy was a great guy. He never let on about being disappointed with his marathon performance. He had crashed at 16 miles and had had to walk most of the long road back to the finish in Kapi‘olani Park. Later, I became the fall guy. The HMA soon pulled the monetary plug and, thereafter, I was on my own as a full-time professional to learn, teach, and coach the fine points of the marathon training and racing game.