Jack Lovelock - Athlete and Doctor

Jack Lovelock, it remains a legendary name in New Zealand's sporting history. Until recently all I really new of him was that he was famous for winning Gold Medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The footage of that race is now almost folklore stuff and is unforgettable for the highly parochial commentator losing his composure as he calls the finish of the race.


photo courtesy Jacklovelock.com where you can also buy the book.


I recently learned a lot more about the Lovelock having read Dr Graeme Woodfield's biography on New Zealand's original Olympic track gold medalist.

The book is an in depth look at Lovelock's life from his early years growing up in Timaru, and at Otago Medical School, through to his time at Oxford University in Britain where he was a Rhodes Scholar and his early years as a trainee doctor St Mary's Hospital.

A talented sportsman in his younger days he finally settled on running, which he had always shown a special aptitude for. His move to Britain in 1931 led to numerous opportunities to further his running over the ensuing period. Races against Cambridge university and the top United States universities were common.

Lovelock attended the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a young 22 year old. Short on big meet experience, and prone to nervousness on big occasions, he faded to 7th in the 1500 meters. Shortly afterwards however he went to set a world mile record of 4:07.6 while representing the British universities at a meet against a Princeton/ Cornell team. That remained his personal best for the mile.

Further success followed at the 1934 Empire games in London where he won the mile and in 1935 he won a race dubbed 'The mile of the Century' where he beat home some of the best middle distance runners of his day in a time of 4:11.2 in what was a very tactical race.

By the time the 1936 Olympics arrived Lovelock was the hot favorite to win the 1500meters gold and this time he showed his class with a superbly timed run in the last 300 meters to win by 10 meters in another world record time of 3:47.8.

Lovelock retired from competitive running after the Olympics to concentrate on his medical career. He was now well regarded doctor with an interest in physiotherapy.

During the war years he enlisted in the British Army where he put his medical skills to fine use overseeing the treatment and rehabilitation of wounded soldiers. After the war Lovelock continued his distinguished career in medicine, eventually taking up a role in a New York hospital in 1948 where he settled with his American wife and two daughters.

The book also deals in depth with the mystery surrounding Lovelock's untimely death in 1949 when he tragically fell in front of a train at a New York subway station. Some have claimed that this was a suicide bought on by a depression. Woodfield attributes a fair bit of the blame for this unfortunate accident to a series of head injuries and concussions Lovelock suffered in the early 40's after which his eye sight and balance suffered as did his personality which is also said to have altered somewhat.

Though Lovelock went on to fulfil a distinguished army and medical career, he was evidently plagued by eye problems for the rest of his life which undoubtedly effected him. On the day of his death he was suffering from flu and had left work to return home. It is said that he had taken some new drug and that the effect of this combined with his bad eye sight and tendency for dizzy spells is thought to be the chief reason for his fall into the path of a train.

Jack Lovelock, long may we remember him as a fine athlete and a fine New Zealander.

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Dean Karnazes - Ultramarathon man

l recently obtained from our public library Dean Karnazes' original book, Ultra marathon Man.



This was another fascinating read from the man who has really taken the sport of ultra running to another level both in terms of the challenges he has dreamt up to continue testing the limits of his endurance but also for the profile of ultra running which he has been able to lift through smart marketing of himself and the sport.

I'll admit to being feeling a bit short changed when I first met Dean at one of his public speaking engagements while on a down-under tour some three years ago. He came across as a bit of a smart alec who seemed happy cracking jokes rather that enlightening us on how and why he runs the distances he's famous for.

In reality though I new very little about the man at that time and now having read two of his books its clear that as much as he is a runner devoted to pushing his limits and discovering new extremes of physical endurance, he is also a devoted husband and father. He is an extraordinarily driven person who has unbelievable willpower and courage to fight through the toughest of conditions to achieve his goals. He has also raised countless dollars for needy children through his running.

This book takes us back to his childhood, growing up in Los Angeles and gives an insight into the athlete he would one day become when as a twelve year old he cycled for ten hours across LA to his grandparents' house. He was a gifted cross country athlete at high school, competing against and beating kids several years his senior.

After falling out with a college coach he turned away from running until, as if suffering from a mid life crisis, on his 30th birthday he laced up some old running shoes and promptly ran a marathon in the dead of night after returning home from some birthday drinks. He had not run mile for over ten years.

One thing led to another and within a few short years he found himself at the start line of the famed Western States 100 mile endurance run.

The book goes on to explain in detail, and in very entertaining fashion, the nitty gritty of the life of an endurance athlete. The ups and downs, highs and lows that he has faced while putting himself through the pain and suffering of the Badwater Ultra marathon, attempting to run a marathon to the South Pole (yes that's the South Pole in Antarctica!), and running a 199 mile endurance race solo, in which every other competitor was doing so as part of a relay team.

If Dean ever gives up running he could quite easily become a writer as the book was a very easy read which kept me interested the whole way through. There were several 'laugh out loud' moments as I pictured the scenes of suffering that Dean was so accurately describing. The chapter on 'soiling the Lexus' just had me in stitches.

If you haven't read this book yet, I can highly recommend it as an entertaining and inspirational read.

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Danny Dreyer - Chi Running

It's been well documented throughout my blog the troubled past I've had with injuries in recent years first with Shin Splints and latterly an as yet undiagnosed heel/ arch problem. Consequently I'm currently in the middle of an extended break from running. As happens when one is injured we look for reasons and answers as to why we get these injuries. We also look for improved training methods to try keep from repeating the mistakes of the past.

A book I have taken a keen interest in, while trying to learn about a more efficient and safer running form, is Danny Dreyer's book, Chi Running. Chi Running is more than just a fancy name. It's a philosophy, a mindset, a group of principles and focuses which when combined together show the reader in a clear and logical way what is I believe to be a truly safer method of running.

I've read this book three times mow and each time the simplicity of Danny's explanations continues to just make such common sense to me. Not only does Danny explain in clear terms the technique but he also explains the why and how of the technique from a physiological sense.

To summarise Chi Running, the technique that is, very briefly

1. Posture - it all starts with maintaining an upright posture from head to toe. Danny calls this your column.

2. The forward lean - lean slightly forward, from the ankle, engaging your core muscles to maintaining your posture. Danny refers to the lean as your gas pedal, increase the lean to increase the speed.

3. The landing - as a result of the forward lean, your feet should naturally be landing at the base of your column and behind your centre of gravity. You will be landing on your mid foot rather than heel striking. This cuts down on the stresses transferred to the knee from heavy heel striking.

4. Relax - another big part of Chi Running is learning to relax. Danny says to relax your lower body. Rather than pushing off with each stride, your lower legs should be hanging limply when you pick your feet up. One of my favorite lines in the book is "If you don't use it you can't abuse it" referring to common overuse injuries like shin splints.

The book is full of other helpful hints and tips, including strengthening exercises, injury prevention tips (again which mainly revolve around relaxing muscles rather than using them, training programmes, racing, diet, interesting tips on how to run up hills and downhills.

I'm convinced that this method of running is right for me and will help me to stay injury free when I start running again. If you've been troubled by persistent injuries and haven't been able to find the right answers then I reckon you're a good candidate for Chi Running also.

To hear more from Danny directly click here.

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Abebe Bikila - The Barefoot Runner

I've been doing a bit more reading these days. I've been busing to and from work for about a year now (thanks to the astronomical fuel prices last year and a flash new bus way beside the the motorway which means we can just fly past all the other traffic). This gives me 45 minutes or so of spare time each way so I thought I could make good use of that time by doing some more reading.

I picked up a book titled "Barefoot Runner: The Life of Marathon Champion Abebe Bikila" from our local library which tells the story of the legendary Ethiopian distance runner Abebe Bikila. For those that don't know the name, Bikila was the first African to win an Olympic medal when he won the Marathon at Rome in 1960. Not only did Bikila win in world record time of 2:15:17 but he raced barefoot due to his inability to find a fitting shoe in the Olympic village prior to the race. Running barefoot was not new to Bikila having grown up running barefoot in the Ethiopian highlands.

Bikila's hero status was further enhanced when became the first athlete (and only second ever) to successfully ever defend his Olympic Marathon title when he won in Tokyo, four years later in a time of 2:12:12. The remarkable thing about this race was that he was able to win merely six weeks after undergoing an appendix operation.

Bikila almost went on to complete what would have been an even more remarkable hat trick of Olympic Marathon victories in Mexico in 1968. Sadly he withdrew with a knee injury at about the 17 km mark, while leading the race. In a nice touch his long time friend and mentor Mamo Wolde went on to win Gold that day thus continuing that Ethiopia's stranglehold on the Olympic Marathon.

Tragically Bikila was paralysed in a car accident in 1969 and was confined to a wheel chair until he died in 1973.

The book goes to some lengths to also cover Bikila's relationship with his coach, Onni Niskanen originally from Sweden, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, as well as political tensions, coup attempts, civil unrest and the disorder leading to the Emperors downfall in 1969.

I was slightly amusing when reading the reviews on Amazon. It seems that the author may have used a fair degree of poetic license to describe many of the events that took place, but never the less if nothing else the book gives a good account of Bikila's two Olympic Golds and his attempted third.

Bikila undoubtedly paved the way for the many talented African runners that would follow in his footsteps.

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Arthur Lydiard - Master Coach

I've just finished reading Garth Gilmour's biography, Authur Lydiard - Master Coach. It was a very interesting read about the pioneering coach of some of New Zealand's great middle and distance runners.

I've always known Lydiard was a respected coach and of his link to some of New Zealand's greatest Olympic moments on the track, but having read this book I now have a far greater appreciation of the full extent of what he accomplished, his theories on training and how well respected he is right around the athletic world.

It's not only in running that his methods have proven successful. His system of building up a base fitness by completing a large amount of slow aerobic work in order to boost any athletes endurance in their chosen sport is now pretty much universally accepted as the way to improve performance.

His training methods were self taught and were the result of endless miles of training, looking for what worked best for him. In the end he discovered that he could vastly improve his levels of endurance by running no less than 100 miles per week. Lydiard never sought to be a coach and rather than seeking out athletes, they seemed to gravitate towards him. Lydiard was only too happy to share his knowledge with those that were keen to learn and stay true to his system.

As his success grew, so too did his following and he soon had a whole group of young runners eager to join him and learn his methods. Two of those young runners ended up up being perhaps Lydiard's most famous success stories in Murray Halberg, who won Gold in the 5000m at Rome in 1960, and Peter Snell, winner of the Gold in both the 800m and 1500m in 1960 and again in the 1500m at Tokyo in 1964.

I think it remains one of New Zealand's biggest regrets that no one in those days seemed to appreciate what a truly world class coach we had in Lydiard and sadly in the mid 1960's he was forced to leave the country to pursue his coaching career further. Over the next 40 years Lydiard travelled the World spreading his word and training champions not to mention other coaches. There were plenty prepared to line up at seminars to hear the man speak. Even in his final years, right up to his death in fact in 2004, Lydiard was still conducting regular seminars in the United States to packed audiences.

Lydiard's influence was not only felt at Olympic level but he is also regarded as one of the fore fathers of the jogging revolution which has swept the World over the last 50 years. It was Lydiard's view that jogging had such health benefits that he started up the Auckland Joggers club to encourage recreational runners to take up the sport.

Lydiard's friend and fellow coach, American Bill Bowerman, seeing the potential jogging had to improve the health of millions of Americans, took the jogging message back to America and the jogging revolution was soon born.

For some classic early footage of Snell and Lydiard click here. Thanks to Ewen for bringing this fine piece of history to our attention in his blog.

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50 Marathons 50 Days

I just finished Dean Karnazes' latest book, 50 Marathons 50 Days. For those that don't now (in case a non runner stumbles across this blog) Dean Karnazes is an elite ultra marathon runner. In 2006 he ran 50 marathons in consecutive days in the 50States. The book is basically a dairy of the whole event packed with little tips and helpful hints ranging from how to prepare for a marathon, training tips , diet and loads more.

I found it a worthwhile and interesting read which was written in an easy to follow style which sort of put you on the tour bus so to speak as if you were almost one of the crew along for the ride.

It was pretty obvious that Dean enjoyed connecting with as many locals as he could while he was running each marathon. Even though he may have been suffering from sleep deprivation from the long hours on the road after each marathon or perhaps a little staleness towards the end of the 50 days, Dean always came back to the running public which he would turn out to see him and be a part of his adventure.

Dean's durability is amazing. Having covered over 1300 miles and wearing out out 5 pairs of shoes, the worst he suffered was a couple of blisters and three lost toenails.

Dean is certainly proof of what the human body is capable of achieving if one has the motivation and desire to push to ones limits and beyond.

Well done also to Matt Fitzgerald who co authured the book with Dean.

If you want to read more about what Dean's up to try checking out his Blog.

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