#21 - Frank Shorter - Olympic Marathon Champion 1972

Frank Shorter is known by many to be the father of the modern day running boom. Frank won gold in the Marathon at the 1972 Olympic Games, won silver in the Marathon at the 1976 Olympic Games, was the USA XC Champion 4 times, was the USA 10,000m Champion 6 times and won the Fukuoka Marathon 4 times. He was also the chairman of the USA Anti Doping agency between 2000 and 2003.

In this podcast episode recorded from his home in Boulder, Colorado (USA) Frank talks about:

– his training philosophy in detail (Frank never trained at slower than 65sec/400m pace during interval sessions).
– being spontaneous with threshold/tempo runs, deciding some days to change an easy run to a threshold/tempo run.
– racing and training with Steve Prefontaine.
– Running with an injured ankle for over a year (and through the Montreal 1976 Olympics where he placed 2nd in the Marathon).
– winning the 1972 Olympic Games in the Marathon.
– placing second at the 1976 Olympic Games in the Marathon.
– practicing surging/changing pace in training (and some example training sessions).
– peaking for his key races.
– experimenting with restricting carbohydrate intake before the final carbohydrate load leading into races.
– circadian rhythms relating to peak performance.
– the new ruling on racing shoes and the parallels with doping.

SUBSCRIBE to Sweat Elite to learn much more about elite distance running: www.sweatelite.co/subscribe-now.