Celebrating The Sub 4min Mile – 70 Years On!

Welcome to the New Levels Coaching Podcast. As coaches we want to share our knowledge and expertise with the running, triathlon and endurance sports community.

Each week, our host Lewis Moses, former Team GB International Athlete turned Coach, will be joined by a special guest and together they will aim to educate and inspire our audience to help them find their own potential. We want people to listen, engage, take the best bits and LITERALLY RUN WITH THEM!

Episode 26: Celebrating Sir Roger Bannisters Sub 4min miles 70 years on!

In episode 26 Lewis is joined by NLC coach Matt Long, who plays host in this special episode where they celebrate the 70th anniversary of the sub 4 min mile. Matt looks back at the famous day in Oxford when Sir Roger Bannister became the first runner to crack the elusive 4min barrier.

Matt wanted to get an insight into Lewis’ training, when he was focussing on the 1500m and the mile and they looked at similarities in the training and in particular around lifestyle. Some key takeaway’s for our listeners here, which Matt and Lewis explore in detail, particularly looking at work-life balance, as well the aerobic demands of the mile and the training which goes with that.

We hope you enjoy the episode, be sure to leave us any feedback as we would love to hear from our amazing community and don’t forget to like, share and subscribe to the New Levels Coaching Podcast.

Website: www.newlevelscoaching.co.uk

1 2 3 [Music] 4 welcome back to the new levels coaching podcast we are the endurance coaching podcast that brings the endurance World lots of inspiration and education so you can literally go away and run with it a very special episode this week and a slight Roar reversal because I brought my good friend and work colleague Matt long on board and Matt is going to play a horse this week to celebrate what is one of great uh Britain’s greatest ever sporting achievements the sub four minute mile as many of you may be aware some of you may not be it is actually 70 years the anniversary is coming up of that great day in Oxford where sir Roger banister broke that 4minute Mile and Matt wanted to come on and I wanted to share the podcast studio with Matt to talk a little bit more about that great day when we saw the 4minute mile the 4minute mile broken but also share some insights in what it takes to be a Miler what it takes to run a good Mile and unpick some of those training secrets of Roger banister himself but also look at more modern day training methods and how they might differ today and how some of you athletes May benefit from those too so I am going to hand the floor over to Matt who’s one of our coaches at NLC and I must say is very passionate about um the mile in particular but also self-development as a coach and looking back at what worked and maybe what doesn’t work now uh and he just has that real kind of Global Knowledge and in-depth knowledge of of the sport and the mile itself so I thought there’s no better person to bring on to kind of interview me about my mile experience but just to put the the shoe on the other foot as it were Matt and give you hosting rights for this this episode a pleasure thank you very much I mean the 6th of May 19 54 at the iffley road track in Oxford uh I’m feeling my age Louis I’m going to going to share with the viewers my my t-shirt here I actually got this t-shirt from a a Now defunk Sports Shop in Stoke on Trent called Born Sports this was the day before online B purchases and things like that there was nothing you could buy online and you would drive to this sports shop in Stoke in the 80s and 90s and and buy your shoes buy your T-shirt so I’m I’m actually wearing the 50th Anniversary t-shirt of Roger bannister’s 4 minute mile I can’t believe that on Monday I’m going to be there celebrating the 70th anniversary and if you’re watching this podcast before uh next next Monday the 6th of May 2024 please if you’re not running there I mean there’s got it’s going to be a fantastic day there are Community mile races in the morning on the road for recreational Runners like myself the British milus Club in the afternoon Lewis are going to have some Elite races on where they’re going to finish at 6:00 right to the hour to the minute that s Roger did his achievement 70 years ago they’re going to try and break the four minute mile again it’s going to be a fantastic day so get yourself there I believe there’s going to be lots of Legends there your mate my hero Steve K’s going to be there I think morel’s are going to be there elou is going to be there rou is coming over they’re they’re all they’re all we’re going to have these stars that tend to have a reunion every 10 years or so so it will be a great day in Oxford whether you’re running like me recreationally or whether you’re not I’m just a part of a midd and Masters wave of Runners you know we have the middle and Masters Organization for over 35s in the area we’ve got our own little Championship that uh uh Steve’s daughter Steve crm’s daughter Josie Kem is helping us organize so I’m really really looking forward to being a spectator and running nice well I’m just a little bit um I guess disappointed that I didn’t get the invite you know to the likes of cram and marcele and El garouge but heyo heyo I didn’t ever break the four minute mile Matt so well yeah again I wanted to ask you cuz I know it I think your 1500 best was 341 have I got that right it was yeah it was now I’m pretty sure that that under the iaf calculator that would be a 4 minute mile it was actually one of the one of the disappointing things when I ran that 1500 met PB I actually run the same time identically twice which is unbelievable isn’t it to the point which I did one in Vienna and uh I did one in Birmingham both indors I I tended to be better indors I quite like the indors surface might have been the conditions as well you guaranteed conditions although if you speak to Gemma she always used to say there was a bit of a wind a bit of a draft down the backat straight in Sheffield must have been that airon but yeah that that night I ran in Vienna in particular uh I felt really strong and i’ paced the race well and I was actually finishing really quickly and I crossed the line and almost felt like I had another 100 MERS in me and I felt like I could have gone that extra 100 MERS and that night I’m I’m certain you know you know you’re own body I would have gone Sub sub four minutes for the mile it does it does equate I think it equates about a 357 358 but unfortunately we didn’t get as many opportunities to run the mile then but this is why it’s such a good opportunity on Monday for people to go and run a mile or watch a mile and just be part of that that experience interesting isn’t it because it’s a slightly different demographic between us I must be around about 15 years or so older than you and isn’t that that American organization called bring back the mile bring back the mile yeah yeah I mean I had more opportun unities to to run over the mile I remember my best I think it was something like 4 minutes 43 at Blackpool on we we ran down a pier at Blackpool but it was a big thing and everybody wanted to run the mile so I perhaps had the opportunities to run a mile on the track and the road that you never had did you ever run the mile we did so I I’ve ran quite a few uh track miles but I say I could probably count them on one hand how many I did uh and I ran a couple of red miles but again probably I would say less than 10 in my whole career which you know for American students they might cover that in one season in America in the NC NCAA because they have the mile IND doors which is course uh very popular and I think it’s something that we miss out on here in the UK if I’m honest especially you know indoors where there’s an opportunity there if you take the 5K for example 5K is a discipline that we do outdoors um but indoors they do the 3K for for men and women and they compete over 3K at championships sure so if they can do that the 5K I’ve always thought why don’t we mix it up over 1500 you know especially because as we’re going to talk about I think Matt today some people come at the 1500 from a bit more of a strength background so if you’re in your winter training it’s actually a good position to be to go over a mile which is just slightly longer but it will make a little bit of a difference good Benchmark for where you are in the winter so I’ve always thought that and and I kind of I still hope that with Seb cor and everything they’re doing with World Athletics that they might just start to reinvent Athletics a little bit and bring back that mile a little bit more here in the UK brilliant so we talked about your your experiences over the mile I’ve said a little bit of about my experiences as a a club Runner but but what’s your favorite mild then I’m wearing a t-shirt and on the back of it I’ve got all these signatures right the way from Sir Roger Bannister all the way through from you know s John Walker and Phil bbay who I’ve mentioned all the way through to I think it was uh um El garouge who broke last broke the world record 3 343 point .13 I believe in 1999 interesting it’s not not you know nobody’s uh Gone quicker in the last 25 years out of all those races or or Beyond what’s your favorite what’s the best mile you’ve ever watched not been in well I think as as a collective the osw dream mile is just a great spectacle um yeah had the privilege of being there in 2011 it’s brilliant um absolutely brilliant and it’s kind of a signature event isn’t it in the Athletics calendar uh a couple of races stand to me personally I’m I’m very um I’m I’m very aware and I like to celebrate a lot of British success with with the mile and I remember Andy badley winning the the dream mile very unexpectedly that year and seeing a British athlete you know when it fair to say British middle distance running probably wasn’t at its Heights that it used to be and he almost turned the corner for us and I felt like that was a real step in stone to what we see now round about 2009 that would be yes yeah um but one of my other ones which I think was was really underrated was a good friend of mine and a coach at NLC Ross Murray ran the emsley car Mile in the year that he went to the Olympics in 2012 course and and Ross had a storming run that day he really did and I think he finished as high up as second in in that that race and he just do you know when you just see a friend do something that you’ve always thought they were capable of and they achieve it that was and we’ve touched it on a podcast before Matt where we said he actually had a bit of dip in form in midseason and he went went away and did some more aerobic work and he came back and that was the first race he did off the back of that aerobic work and boom it was like arguably his best ever performance which yeah so they’re the ones that stand out what I would say is I think sometimes the women don’t get as much recognition over the mile for me because of that four minute barrier there isn’t necessarily a barrier for the women as such Diane leather I think first sub five minute mile so five minute mile which was which was celebrated but that they are getting closer and closer 407 is down there now um but I want to give a personal shout out to to Laura mua because I think in terms of watching people as a 1500 meters as a Miler I really like the way Laura runs she’s aggressive um she her Cadence is just is brilliant to watch her style is brilliant I think she’s a brilliant role model she’s a fantastic person and I I hope in our lifetime we see the 4minute mile broken by a female wouldn’t that be amazing it would be amazing again you mentioned Oslo and and the bisl games I had the privilege of going there in 2011 but I my favorite is is from there as well I mean so many you know a handful of British athletes have won I mean uh Steve oette sebco they swapped the world record off ow Peter Elliot that that mustn’t be forgotten Olympic silver medalist in Soul in 88 he he won the uh the dream mile as well as I think you mentioned Andy badley but my favorite was was Steve cram I don’t think you were born or you might have been 1985 July 1985 was born yeah uh and I remember we we were on one of the Steve K training camps that that you support and new level support and I remember Steve cram saying it was so special because it was on BBC and ITV at the same time uh and it you know it was just I read something in the magazine the other day there was almost as many people watching Steve cram break the M world record that night it was close to night in Oslo as watched the World Cup Final in 1966 and for me I I remember um Annex door neighbors who still live next door to us and and and they invited the family round on the night the I mean these weren’t Athletics fans at all but everybody went around the house to have a few beers kind of coke I remember a bowl of chips it was all like like it was an event and and people that was the era for me where Athletics transcended I mean it would it had that Transcendence into popular culture that the Nextdoor neighbors that didn’t know anything about Athletics wanted to stay up and watch an attempt you know uh on you know on the world record different era fascinating era and great times which you know sadly I think that you know people like the um you know the Jake Whiteman’s the Josh Kerr’s brilliant achievements but they don’t quite get the recognition that the cram is the co theet got no I I agree and I think it was partly because at the time there was limited things on the TV I guess there’s limmited channels I mean I wasn’t born at that time and that’s why when when we say about what what mile performances stand out I obviously know about those performances but I can’t relate to them as much as you can where you were there you lived it you breathed it everybody was celebrating it together and it was huge right my parents still talk about it to this day National EV yeah and and we’ve celebrated you know um the crams the cuse the the AET era that that mile era where those records were tumbling but I still that and somebody said this to me just yesterday that the generation who remembered Steve cram are slowly dying out because the the people who were involved like you said at that time the youngsters don’t really remember that now and there there is video video footage of it of course Steve’s not that old I hope he’s not listening um but then we’re now creating our own memories off the back of that but I I was more familiar I guess the the big ones for me that I can relate to that which has nothing to do with them I was everybody staying up for Lyford Christie to do the 100 meters or or everyone watching Paul or Radcliff and we we’ve just laun to Paul Radcliff Marathon Academy this week but everybody tuning into to Paula’s Marathon was kind of that same feel it is and but I do feel like we’ve lost it a little bit and and maybe people like key hodgkinson are bringing it back a little bit and getting that personality and you know there’s there’s other people but I feel like the the bolts of the world we we need somebody who really pulls us sport to the Forefront of every mind yeah a big big Superstar I that’s the great thing about new level’s coaching here we are talking about you know the mile in the same week as the the Paula rlif Academy is is is going live it’s that that spread of distances isn’t it we’ve almost got two ends of the Spectrum in one week absolutely yeah yeah absolutely you’re right let’s stick with s Roger then let’s let’s stick with him because for me you know he has to be the greatest in a sense that because it for me it was the mental achievement of going sub4 you know because you know physiologists were saying you a human being will die it’s just not possible you know and so for me sir Roger did pave the way for the the crams the oet the elar roues the more sellers the buyers The Walker so let let’s stick with him and and again I’m looking for the commonalities between your experience as a you know a former British champion at 1500 meters indoors World Championship representative you know um because like like like him like many of our listeners you know sir Roger was an amateur in the truest sense of the word he was you know he was a medical student at St Marys he he managed to balance uh what limited training he did with his his medical studies and then maybe just for a short time for his his career so how how did you manage to get to that Elite level representing team GB abroad World Championships you know but you weren’t a lottery funded athlete unless I’m mistaken were you no absolutely not and it’s really good point you make Matt because I think this is where there is a little bit of a confusion from let’s let’s generalize the population here as we’ve got everyday Runners who go out they do it it’s their passion it’s their Hobby and they they know that they’re never going to be on that International scene or International level but their achievements are just as great as anybody’s because I believe your your achievements are all personal and if you’re ruin personal best that personal best should be celebrated as as much as anybody at the top level’s personal best yeah and we very much do that and you levels coaching so we’ve got your big big group of recreational Runners and then you’ve got your Elite Runners at the top who I would class as like your your paid athletes you know right at the top of the tree as you say lottery funded um maybe got some kit sponsors and they’re doing it fulltime but then what a lot of people don’t recognize is below that you’ve almost got this Elite level athlete or Runner which you were which you was who are working full-time as Roger banister was back in his day and you’re going to work every day and you’re having to train every day and you’re trying to find that balance around your lifestyle so there’s actually a lot of similarities and I found this has really helped me with my coaching when we we coach Runners of all abilities is they sometimes think well I can’t relate to you because you were at this standard and I’m not at that standard well actually you can because we we were doing the same thing we were trying to figure out how to balance our lifestyle how to fit our train in um how to rest and recover as best as we possibly can when you’ve trained late one morning you’ve got to get up the next morning to run and you’ve got to go to work straight after that and for me that was working in special educational needs school just around the corner from my house but I did make some very conscious decisions at that point in my life to um I was actually working at a special educational needs school over in centry which was a long commute for me about 50 minutes uh there and back but I loved it I know really loved the school uh Bingington field it was called and it was just yeah brilliant experience um and I wanted to stay in that in that domain but I knew I had to buy back some of my time so I took a big wage decrease uh you know I’m I’m quite open to sharing it it was 50% salary cut so a big big wage decrease I was living off around about 1,000 a month which uh I wasn’t a student anymore at this point I was um full-time in work yes so I I sold my car I got a job that I could walk to and walk back from I could come home uh on a lunchtime I could make my lunch at home and I could be home for around about quar to 4 4:00 and I could have a nap after work before I then went to training at 6 o00 and that subtle but I guess it was a subtle change but some some big changes in there too had a massive impact on my performance that year it just kind of skyrocketed for me nevertheless like s Roger the commonality is you were you were both spinning plates I call it you and again it’s it’s f fascinating I mean you know the listeners and viewers must be aware that so Roger you know he trained it was half an hour a day in his in he he he was um studying final year student at St Mary’s Hospital in the winter of 5354 which is when the record went May 54 wasn’t it as we said earlier but he used to train with with others at it was called the Paddington club and he’d go across to an ash TR a cinder track as we call it but you’ve never run I have my school had one yeah I was and maybe that’s why I got into Athletics because I had that access as early introduction yeah the cinder track it shows you what can be achieved on we’re not saying to people here just train half a half an hour a day but it shows you what what can be achieved a little and often you know and and and that that’s that’s fascinating really so that’s the that’s the first interesting thing that that we’ve all got a commonality with s Roger because back in those days to be a professional mean they wouldn’t have had Lottery funding of course but to be it was very much an of what we call a sociology gentlemen and players and you know the amateur tradition was seen to be pure and worthy whereas professional you can’t earn money from it so again things have have changed the M have of the the waters have mudded a little bit so but I mean that’s a great take take home for some of the some of the athletes that you are more like sir Roger you can relate to him definitely yeah I remember talking to his his son recently at the national running show over in Birmingham and thst was saying that you know that he thinks back to him getting the Train on the day of the race and you know coming from work to to go and race and and now at the elite end they wouldn’t necessarily do that like right at the top of the elite end you know and we’re talking about at this at this time back in May in 54 this was the Pinnacle of of the sport they were going for the sub four minute mile this was the top of the top yeah yet the guy who was attempting it was jumping on a train to to go and do that from work whereas now if we were going for the Pinnacle of the Pinnacle you know they’d maybe there be there two or three days before and getting prepped and ready and it’s it’s changed the landscape changed yet yet we’re saying it’s changed a lot but in some ways is Athletics not as popular as it was so has it lost its Simplicity I don’t know that’s just something to think about lots and lots of people there you know listening in will will you know want to have a go at the mile maybe some will be running in I don’t know British Masters championships Midland Masters Northern Masters championships uh um perhaps the junior championships this summer but you know to to be a good Miley you’ve got to have a well-developed lactate system you’ve got to be doing what we would call as coaches speed endurance work yeah and that again um has evolved because it was in its infancy when sji came about it was people like voldemar gersa that really revolutionized our thinking around interval training this idea that you don’t just go for a run you break the run into constituent Parts uh Herbert reindel was a a physiologist that worked with gersher in the 30s and the 40s so really I guess Soo is very much what we’d call as coaches these days guided Discovery so what what s Roger would do was things like 10 by I was going to say 400 meters but in those days it was 440 yards so s Roger’s interval training was very very simplistic it was very much like 10 by 440 yards on the the cinder track at Paddington as we’ve said and he’d be running those repetitions probably off very slow jog recovery maybe a lap or so but he’d be running them in something like 66 seconds in the the winter and then as he got closer and closer to May 1954 the times would come down to around about 60 seconds so his Improvement wasn’t by varying the session very much it was just by running a bit quicker what are your thoughts on on that and how does that compare to what you did your go-to sessions yeah I guess the there are go-to sessions and I over time we’ve learned what has worked in the past and and people like to repeat certain things that people have done and sessions become famous we were having a chat yesterday and the way back from our session we were seeing how sessions now even have names they’re named after people yeah um so just just for example you know we were saying the bondeno session which is a the the Michigan which is named after a team in in America and we we were saying actually the the sessions should probably be named after the coaches and not necessarily the athletes cu the coaches are the ones who divise the sessions but the athletes are the ones who execute them and they do become famous and we’ve learned from the era of Bannister you know repetitions of 400s or quarter as they call them in America quarter miles they they are very good and and I guess if you unpick it you think well they good because they tap into the right Energy System that you were talking about Matt so we can sustain a good effort for 60 seconds we can work on that speed endurance whereas actually if you tried to run for three or four minutes you’re looking at more sort of V2 Max or obic work there so the the intervals have got to be broken down and I I guess the most important thing is those interval sessions have to be specific enough to the event you’re going to do in this case the mile so race Pace specificity absolutely absolutely but there are certain sessions that you do like to repeat and I think there’s a couple of reasons for that let’s take you know there’s a classic 10 400s off a minute um and I would do that in the winter and sometimes I would do that 10 400s off 90 to start but that 990 would be more an active recovery and the Reps would be a little bit slower like a float or a jog recovery exactly that yeah um and eventually that would come down to 10 by a minute off a standing passive recovery so I’m trying to get the heart rate to drop down which is going to allow me to run faster so it becomes a little bit less aerobic and very much more speed speed endurance looking at running that that mile PA and building a lactic up in the system but what it did give you if you repeated it and I I did repeat it 10×4 is a measure of have have you improved as as Roger Bannister had and I remember doing that session and getting real confidence I average sort of 63.2 to start with then it came down to 62 and then by the end I was down to 60.8 average and I remember thinking in Winter that’s a good place to be sure and because in the summer if I could knock those out in 59s and we would go back to it at some point I know I’d be in real real shape so that’s one of the sessions I mean I’ve got another couple that I go that I would go to in the season but I think that’s is just a real indication for some people at home who maybe aren’t coached we call it have you got a baseline session where you do that Baseline session you can go back and repeat it after a period of time and monitor your progress exactly Benchmark where you are interesting and it’s it’s interesting that that that again and we’re going way back to the 50s with banister doing that but I interviewed we keep mentioning Steve CR but I interviewed one of Steve K’s training partners for a magazine article David sha yeah Sharpie European 800 meter silver medalist great you know in 1990 and he was saying that the work that he did with Steve and and Jimmy Headley their coach was very much not dissimilar to Banister in a way it was very much the 10 400s or the 12 300s so and again you know that that that my favorite race 34632 world record in Oslo 85 we keep talking about it but it’s still a British and European record so I guess the other take-home for people is that you know don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater as we would say in Burton on Tren there’s a lot lots of stuff that s Roger did and the people like Steve cram did even though it was decades ago it’s still relevant today would you abree with that AB yeah 100% And I sit down with Steve to this day and say what did you do um what did that look like what can we learn from that but the other thing I would say which is really important for athletes to to take home is you can take things from people and you can use them you’ve also be got to be very careful as to what those athletes could do compared to what you could do because it’s easy to sit down with Steve K and think God he did this this this this and this I’m going to do the same well there was a reason Steve ran 346 for the mile and the reason is he good as he was because he was Steve cram and we’re not all Steve cram and I know a lot of people have tried to train in the same way and actually really struggle to do that because they weren’t able to keep up with the demands of what Steve was able to do um but the principles remain principles are the same exactly that and I think that’s what is a really good point to highlight Matt is like we can take the principles away but how you put them into practice and how you execute them that’s the real skill and the Art of it and and that’s the skill and art of coaching recognizing that with the athletes you’ve got and if you’ve not got a coach that’s where it’s um it can be difficult for people but if you get it right and you learn your body and you become become a bit more intuitive then you can have real Success With It excellent just want to pick up on what something that we said a couple of minutes ago when we’re talking about the lact tech system speed endurance and that is race Pace specificity and I’m just just thinking about I mean again Steve cram that summer of 85 it’s no surprise that he ran the mile in 346 because he he broke a world record at 2,000 meters over distance he ran he ran a world record at 1500 slightly under the mile he he ran something ridiculous like 142 for 800 so s Roger would run the now defunct uh three4 of the mile distance yeah basically three laps of the track I think s Roger ran something like 252 before he broke C before he went to the Olympics or before he broke the 4minute m so how did you know that’s an under distance time trial isn’t it so how did you engender from a racing perspective how did you approach the mile did did you race 3K 5K did you do 800s did you do a th000 meters back in my day was a really popular event to do well how did you approach it yeah that’s a really good question M and I’m really interesting you use that 1200 M because I remember specifically in doors when there was a lack of races one time and John said right we’re going to do John nutal who was my coach at the time yes he said um we’re going to go to Sheffield indoors and we’re going to do 12200 meters and and we did a 12200 and then I had three minutes recovery and then I did a 300 so it was like a split 15 actually I think it was a bit more than this is not a race a session was it session session session yeah and and I ran sort of 256 257 for the the 1200 uh and then I I then had some recovery and then put out a 300 at the end um I would say that I was then better at racing than I was at training I always find it hard to get everything out of myself in training I tended to step up a little bit but JN said that’s that’s good you know we’re in a good place and it’s a good kind of sharpener but um before races what I tend to do really that that was very much in like the the buildup but I was very very much an overd distance kind of guy so I’d usually start my season with something 3K 5 K but more 3K when I was racing the mile or 1500 specifically I even opened up once with a 3K in December and that was only two weeks after I’d done a cross country a 10K cross country so I’d come off that strength like endurance work in the winter um and just said let’s go and do a 3K and see where we’re at in December and then when we come back in January uh we’ll be racing over 1500 a mile and and sometimes I do another 3K in December as well wow yeah so I’d always come at it from an over distance very rare I did an under distance I actually only ever did that once I dropped back down from altitude and I went did an 800 to to start off and I was amazed at how quickly I ran off that you remember when you have 149 15 15800 I I opened up that day 1 1508 I never actually broke 150 but I felt like if I ran another 800 that year or ran a couple I would have broken it but it still gives you a significant what we’ll call speed reserve the fact that you’re able to run a 150 gives you the confidence to attack a four minute M A 341 exactly yeah because then I was going through 157 158 through 800 and I just felt a lot more comfortable at that sort of pace sure yeah I think the learning for the athletes is you can approach any distance never never never mind the mile or 5K or 10K any distance you you can either approach it from an aerobic perspective like you were obviously an aerobic animal coming down to the mile or you can approach it from an under distance perspective you know you’re almost saying I’ve got the speed I can go up a distance you probably need a little bit of both don’t you yeah you do and I think like you say it’s important if you go back a couple of weeks people run a London Marathon they’ll have R that’s probably the most difficult distance to go over distance in but they’ll spend a lot of time doing under distance work 5Ks 10ks half marathons but then if you have someone who’s targeting a 10K they might do a half marathon so they they go above them above and below pretty much all distances until you get to those longer events the big endurance events where they tend to sit sit underneath but certainly with track and field the mile you know that’s why you relating to people like Camu did 142 we see key hodgkinson at the minute she runs eight but she runs fours I have a feeling she’s going to run some 15s this year um and similar with a 15 goals at the minute you see Laura mua cracking out a great 5K on the track as well so I think it’s because it lends itself it’s particularly the mile for me it was always that balance of you need some good speed in there but you’ve got to be strong aerobically too so you come aerobic point in this I guess what I’m thinking from a coaching perspective is we we’ve mentioned Steve Crown to death today but I mean Sebastian Co yeah uh coached by his or co- coached by his his late Father Peter Co George Gandy here at lra um you know and co-work with uh the founder of the British milers club Frank horwell and remember the British milers club are playing a massive role in in Monday’s celebrations with the elite races so all credit to them but you know this idea of mult paced training So Co would work over a you know a cycle of of of making sure he would he would train at 400 Pace 800 Pace 15 3K and 5K uh hallw system was a little bit kind of you know you spread those Paces out over a micro cycle I think nowadays what we’re seeing these athletes doing is is the kind of pyramid pyramid sessions where you you actually within one session are doing multi- paced work what what’s your thoughts about that yeah I used to do a lot of multipac work with with John with particularly cut down you know start at one pace 10K Pace 5K Pace come down and get faster and faster like a reverse pyramid exactly that yeah exactly that I really liked that I found that beneficial to me um I also felt like I was running fast on tired legs at the end of a session which helped me um but then I guess if from a coaching point of view now what do I like to do I like to have some of that in there but I like to vary the intensity of the the block so I like to see mixture of speeds within the block of training as opposed to just one session yeah my view on that is that if you’re trying to elicit a certain physiological response or a certain adaptation you’re probably best to do that in one hit as opposed to try and Vary that two much in in the session I think you can get too clever with it and say oh we want to develop Threshold at the start then we want to develop V2 Max and then we it doesn’t really work like that because when you’re within a session all those systems working together anyway they were already doing their jobs to to help you so synergetics I think is yeah that’s a good word isn’t it it’s a posh word Matt synergetics they’re working in Synergy with one another but I think the easiest way to explain it to our audience and the best way I’ve heard it explained and I I go back to black and white is if you if you’re going to train something then just train it don’t try and over complicate it you know if you want to improve your speed then do some speed work don’t try and throw aerobic work on the front and then some speed work because you’ll actually take away from the speed work and we see that a lot with endurance Runners they think oh it’s not enough if you just give me that speed work I need to do more to do more but if you do more then you’re going to take away from the one thing that you’re trying to improve which is the speed work so I think it’s not being afraid to vary your training and and add those different intensities in there and those different speeds and I would say the one of the biggest mistakes are the most common mistake we see with people when they come on board with new level’s coaching is they’ve not done that they they’ve ran one paste a lot of the time and they go out and they it’s because a lot of the time they don’t understand what to do or don’t know what to do and that’s fine so they fall into the Trap of just doing a lot of one paced work yeah Pace lock I think we call it which has its benefits lock pace for a marathon or a half but but also has its dis benefits as well if you can’t move move gear yeah and I think it has real benefits aerobically and that’s what happens with people is they they start running if they’ve never ran before and they get this real good improvement from just running because they’ve developed aerobic and they’ve come on from where they were of course but then eventually what you tend to see and we hear a lot from people is oh I’ve just found a bit of a plateau and that’s where you need to vary things a little bit more you need to be a little bit more calculated and smarter with your training because it’ll get you so far but then as you say m as you try to run faster or try to improve you’ve got to start to unlock certain things within your training let’s just go back to that that aerobic comment that that you made and we’ve we’ve done this in previous kind of podcasts haven’t we I believe I’ve used use the analogy which I use with my athletes of you know speed endurance work stress in the lactic system we know that we can only do that as a response for six to eight weeks before we pee we go stale and then if we push again make a mistake and push again we get injured so I always use the analogy of it’s like pulling out a plug from a bath yeah and I play this game sometimes when I when I when I’ve had a hard fell race I might lie in the bath Lewis and pull the plug out and I’m letting the water drain away I always think that’s the lactic system I’ve pulled the lactic plug out yeah but I play this game of turning around to the hot tap yeah and making sure that I’m putting more hot water more hot splashy aerobic water into the bath so I’m not that into the cold that’s still important now so Roger did it again the classic mistake of of banister is people go well he only ran 15 miles a week in the summer of 54 in the winter he was running 30 miles a week but he did a hell of a lot of of of hiking a hell of a lot of Hill walking which people forget to record their walking and their non-running activity so how important was aerobic Base building to you I mean I I guess what I want to say it’s you know to run a 4 minute mile which you were on the threshold of with your 341 yeah you know what kind of mileage or aerobic work do you need to be doing well I was doing quite a lot built up to it sensibly of course um but John progressed me we always had a two to threee plan each time to implement that but eventually I’d get up to sort of 80 mile a week in the winter so good good volume I would say for a 15 a meter Runner yeah um I would have probably liked to have done more if I’m honest I used to break down a little bit around the sort of 70 to 80 so we had to try and figure that out I even added some cross training in there certain points I’d go on the Nordic scheme machine and we played around with that for a period of time because I realized I got fit from from doing that and that helped to offload the body but at the same time gave me that nice big aerobic hit um but if you can work out a way to increase your volume running wise I do feel like you benefit from that in a conditioning sense so you you in the same way banister was probably conditioning himself from those long hilly walks yeah I mean 20 miles in the Peak District at weekends and that to double days I mean that’s you know it’s a significant difference between saying I run 15 Mile a week to saying you know I actually aerobically cover 60 mile a week or 70 mile a week yeah and if we look at that energy systems again like aerobically that walk for him probably sits really low but if you go to the Peaks and you try and walk any of those Hills I was doing that at the weekend I did 20 miles in the peaks of the weekend as a run but actually it was a run walk yeah because those Hills are challenging and your heart rates up when you’re walking so there will have been some aerobic development there from his walking but there’ll also been some big strength gains you know you use your calvs a lot when you you’re trekking uphill you’re using your glutes like if you’re descending you’re eccentrically loading the quads and the hamstrings are taken a little bit as well so um there’s all those factors to consider where he was probably developing a lot more than he thought yeah from from that walking being in there so it’s again not being afraid to see different modalities of training um not just the running that could help you develop aerobically particularly if you’re struggling to increase that volume yeah and I think that that’s a development from the 50s from s rogers’s day that cross training and with the triathlon culture we’ve learned that you can get aerobic gains from you know cycling and swimming as well that wasn’t there in s s Rogers day so I think for me the big big take home for people is don’t make the mistake of reading a schedule that banister did and thinking hit training is the way forward for the mile nothing wrong with hit training but you’ve got to have the base of that pyramid there definitely that base is so important it underpins everything you do you’ve said it on a podcast we’ve done in the past I think it might have been our first one together we talked about the Toblerone analogy the big base at the bottom yeah the bigger the Bas the more you can lay on top of it the more solid it’s going to be but if you neglect that and just do that high intensity work all the time that’s a top heavy pyramid and top heavy pyramids they tumble and and they will fall to pieces yes so it’s really important to to build that base and not not neglect it not neglect the speed either because that is important but predominately the 1500 meters a mile is still an aerobic event AB absolutely and I guess the final question I want to want to touch on the final theme is we’ we’ve had podcasts around D loading um regeneration you know let’s call it the good oldfashioned taper I mean famously uh for his Supreme effort in May 1954 so Roger took five days of passive recovery that’s without any ShakeOut runs as we’d call them probably a little bit excessive by today’s standards I mean you know it might be excessive if for people running the London Marathon the other week it’s hard enough to get our own new levels coaching athletes to take to take that amount of passive recovery how did how did your taper or I guess I’m asking you with your coaching hat on and your athlete how did your taper for a mile if you had one differ from what it would be for a big trail race which you’ve also done in more senior years what’s the difference yeah I’m going to I’m going to put my coach’s hat on first here because I think personally from my years of experience as an athlete and now my years of experience as a coach the biggest single factor that affects the taper is psychological it’s it’s very very rare that you’re trying to achieve anything in that taper that’s going to help you on Race dat other than I’m freshening up to race yeah the work has been done it’s in the bank the fuel’s in the tank you you’ve done it all and I’m talking in kind of the last week to to to five days that’s probably why banister did take five days off and it didn’t affect his performance because it was done it was it was done he was just freshening up can psychologically you handle that as an athlete if you can’t then you need to think about how you structure that taper and that’s what it comes down to for me as a coach I’ve got to work with the athletes in front of me and think to myself what is going to help them to get the best out of themselves on racer yeah whilst not overdoing it because that’s the key it’s like if people overdo it that’s the one thing you can do you can overdo it I’m not necessarily sure you can massively underdo a taper if I’m honest I’ve heard extreme examples of people there’s a story about a marathon runner Alex ha one of our coaches talks about a lot where someone have been involved in a car accident and didn’t train for like the last 10 days and did like one Jog and was still in pain and then medaled at the Olympic Marathon W didn’t run for almost 10 days like can you underdo a tap or actually are you just Super Fresh Steve crae I know we’ve mentioned him a lot you know he better thank us for this after if he’s tuning in but um he tells a story used to take 48 hours two days fully off fully off but then if if I put my athletes hat on and I guess keep my coach’s hat on partly you can only do that so many times in the season before you stopping training so sure you’ve got to pick your races carefully and this is where Marathon runers benefit because they get the marathon once they know when to taper 1500 meter Runners you might be racing every week um you allude back to the nights of the mile records going the 15 records going the 2K records going all those records are tumbling I think cram set was it three records in the space of 10 or 11 days at one point something like that yeah so how can you paper for every race while still maintaining your training qualities yes and that’s one of the considerations we’ve got to make so guess the take home for the listeners here is to to always disaggregate between your goal races and your process races absolutely like which one of those and and I would say in that period of time and this is what I would encourage people to do who are running the shorter distances particularly 5K and Below um is not necess necessarily see it as One race but see it as when am I aiming to peak in the season what what period of time have I got a two or three week window there when I can hit a few different races but I really want to be at my Peak because I believe that’s what cram did there he was in Peak condition he raced relentlessly got the results and then he probably went back away and went back to training after that back to his aerobic base yeah and we see that a lot whereas I think that’s a big mistake people make is they don’t actually map it out and say I want to Peak here you know we see it with Parker and particularly with K people just expect to show up every week and run a 5k PB but they’ve not mapped it out and they’ve not targeted a specific time of the year to do that even consider things when the weather might be better when the surfaces might be better on the ground so I think that’s a big takeaway for our listeners like when are you aiming to Peak it doesn’t necessarily just have to be a race it could be a period of time as well that you look at yeah there’s a different models of periodization and block periodization is one of them I often feel that some athletes almost feel that they’re bit like Premiership footballers that they’ve got to perform over 42 matches in the season at the same level and you can’t really do that as a runner can you no absolutely not that it’s just I I just relate it to to real life and again go back to black and white do you feel the same every day when you wake up do you feel great every day no so why how the hell do you expect to feel great every time you race it’s just not life it’s just not how it works some days you’re going to feel amazing some days you’re going to feel okay and some days you’re going to feel rubbish I like that Laura thirds that a lot of people relate to particularly with goal setting but I like it for races sometimes you have those days where it just doesn’t go your way and that’s fine yeah learn from them I think in coach education discourses we call it Windows of opportunity it’s knowing when those windows are open and when they should remain shut for me and there’s and something a little bit frustrating about that as an athlete because sometimes you go to a training session and you realize oh I am on fire here you know that that window is open right now and and I would say to people don’t be afraid to adapt at that time if you feel like you’ve hit a bit of a Rosy spell you know and and things are just clicking you might need to bring things forward a little bit it might be that you’re just in that that a great friend of mine Gareth turble who’s a brilliant mile a brilliant 1500 meter in a Irish International 336 I believe he said to me strike while the iron’s hot you know if the iron’s hot get to work yeah because it soon goes cold yeah so again it’s it’s it’s the kind of work we do with final surgy it’s having that schedule having that plan being proactive but also being flexible and react reactive and adaptive enough to tweak things really being responsive and that’s the job of of a coach isn’t it yeah yeah it is and and it’s difficult to do if you’re not coach and you don’t necessarily understand that but hopefully these podcasts and listening in and and learning from us and is giving you a bit of an insight it helps you to think about it a little bit differently and maybe try it because that’s ultimately what coaching is and and uh that’s what we do we try things uh and some things work some things don’t I don’t see it as failure we I see it as learnings we learn along the way and don’t be afraid to to fail and learn it’s one of the key messages from from Paula actually with the academy got again linking the mile to the marathon here um she said like a lot of people see it as failure don’t see it as a chance to learn and and grow and and don’t be afraid to put those in there intentionally to to fail because you give you some good learnings it’s been a pleasure to talk to you for the last hour or so L let’s just have a recap we’ve looked at lifestyle factors and and hopefully the takeaway for the for the viewers is that you you can balance yeah your work your studies with uh Elite level competition in in ls’s Cas so so work life balance has been an issue we’ve talked about speed endurance and how to kind of develop some go-to sessions for the mile and the middle distances as well we’ve also talked about race Pace specificity that’s the third thing we we we’ve spoken about under distance over distance approaching it in different ways we’ve also spoken about the importance of aerobic development and and your idea of you keep the base of the pyramid wide you know don’t invert the pyramid you know don’t make it go Topsy Turvy we’ve also said a little bit about tapering so a number of things there that you know whether you’re racing the mile whether it’s Monday or not or whether you you’re just running on the track this season or maybe focusing on the 5K at part room whatever your event is there’ll be some takeaways um from what we’ve discussed and just to finish off I’ve I like my little memorability you’ve told the the listeners we and viewers that I like my memorabilia you might want to hold this up to the camera because I’m going to take this on Monday because I want some autographs on the back of this replica program which was Oxford University’s uh well the program that s Roger you can see s Rogers signed that replica program from the the the 6th of May 1954 so I’ve got a question for you Matt it says price yeah 6D I mean what the hell does that mean I know well it was it was before pounds and Shillings we we went decimal didn’t we in 1971 which was the year I was born so that’s Shillings isn’t it and it stands for six shillings I believe it does yes wow and heners that’s more my dad’s day yeah so you’ve got the program and you’ve also got the replica I mean this is the uh not quite the 3A badge on it but this is I bought the colors isn’t it the same colors yeah so sir Roger banister there running for the amateur Athletic Association um nice little vest it’s even got the the date nice s Roger on so I shall be wearing this vest on Monday for my for my little M50 Midland Masters race I’m hope hopefully going to try and try and get a medal in this race we’ll see who else shows up I think it’s great though that these things still live on you know it creates that you know the aura around it is such a big I think it was voted wasn’t it the um greatest the greatest sporting moment of the century yes I mean when you think about the great sporting moments I mean you love your boxing as I do Ali versus Foreman in The Rumble in the Jungle but for that to be I think it was definitely voted the greatest sporting achievement of the 20th century it was it was kind of where we’re at with the sub toour Marathon I think it was what everybody thinks is impossible until it’s done and that’s a again a quote from from Paulo it’s like everyone does think it’s impossible until it’s done and yeah and I think I think the wonderful thing about it is I’m I’m visiting my 92y old relative in hospital at the moment and I I mentioned this to him and he he was actually early 20s 22 of remembered it and and and as I was explaining what I was doing and this podcast and it’s the 70th Anniversary I noticed that every other bed around everybody’s ears had picked up everybody was chipping in the bloke behind me the bloke across from him oh I remember that that was great and and it’s that kind of notion of transcendence there are only a few things in our sport uh like crammy in 1985 and the bowl of chips and everybody tuning in like s Roger you know there’s only a few moments in sport which really bring everybody together London marathon’s one of them but I think Roger’s achievement you know everybody in in the beds all these guys in in hospital beds 70 80 90 years old like my great uncle but they’re all like their ears pricking up I remember that I you know that’s what I remember that’s they all they weren’t Athletics fans but they were s Roger banister fans and I think that’s why it was so important for us to do this podcast because if we continue to celebrate it as Generations the memories live on you know you when you talk tell the story it feels like you’re there you get that feeling of all God what was it like on that that day and still when we talk about it like you say Josie and the team done a great job and I i’ stay in touch with Josie cram Steve’s daughter this day but when I met at the national running show with Josie and was talking to thirston and they were talking about the day itself and how his dad would describe the day to them and you know still gives almost gives you Goosebumps doesn’t it so it I’m glad we’ve been able to do this and and talk about it because I think it just does keep that memory alive of cuz it is slowly drifting further and further away before you know it’ll be a 100 Years of the the 4 minute mile which is crazy absolutely and at that point in time people might not be able to say well I was there I was there I was there but right now the generation are still here and it’s great for them to reminisce as well absolutely we always finished the podcast with one last thing it’s a handshake and a promise you always promised me something what am I looking for this week I want you to close your eyes and imagine it’s May the 6th yeah 2034 y will you promise will you promise if I’m still working for new levels coaching that I can do an 80th anniversary podcast I’ll even get the tipex out and change the eight the five to an eight and keep the T-shirt If the podcast is still rolling and we’re still doing what we’re doing can you what technology is going to be like in 10 years time won’t be podcasts we might be like I guess what could we be we like that abber experience in London where they’ve got like holograms on the stage it might be you and I on the stage but who knows where we’ll in 10 years time 10 years ago this might not have even been happening so that’s right yeah it’s brilliant that we can do it and thank you Matt thanks for coming in sharing your your expertise your knowledge I could say your your passion for this particular area uh is is just yeah I guess it’s it’s brilliant to see but it’s also really educational you know to to go back and to pick all those things and I know you you take a lot of pride in that and you spent a lot of time looking at the things that could contribute towards this conversation so thank you for me cuz uh yeah it’s been a really insightful uh listen and I always learn from being with you and I think we we bounce off each other quite nicely so fingers crossed our listeners and viewers have taken something away from it if you are tuning in on YouTube hopefully you got to see the the memorabilia as well if you are going along on Monday then I hope you really enjoy it and if you are thinking about having a go a mile do that would be my best advice don’t be afraid to go out there and test yourself over a mile it is a completely different experience with a lot of different events out there and it is just as challenging don’t just underestimate it because it’s a shorter distance it does hurt trust me as always enjoy your training enjoy your racing and we will see you all again very very soon