Herb Elliott: His Training, His Greatness

As you read the following(taken from Runner's Tribe) below, remember, Herb Elliott was a miler.
“I find that orthodox training is drudgery because it’s so unnatural to run for hours on end on a circular track.”   - Herb Elliott
Personal Bests:
      800m: 1:46.70 (estimated from 880 yard time of 1.47.30)

1500m: 3:35.60

Mile:  3:54.50

Highlights 

Olympic 1500m Gold, Rome 1960.

• Commonwealth Games Gold One Mile, Cardiff, 1958.
• Commonwealth Games Gold 880 yards, Cardiff, 1958.
• Former world record holder over 1500m and Mile. Held the 1500m world record for 9 years and the mile world record for 4 years.
• Herb's1500 meter record set at the 1960 Olympics was extraordinary. Barely beaten by the winning runner at the '68 Olympics (7/10's of a second), it was otherwise the fastest time till the 1984 Olympics, and who knows, with the increasing use of p.e.d.'s over the decades, it would not be unreasonable to wonder if that time was tainted by drugs. Let me quickly add that I am not accusing anyone of cheating but with the revelations of drug use in track and field that have come out in recent years you do sometimes wonder.

“I like to vary my training venues day by day, running on a golf course one day, the next day in a park, then on a racecourse, up and down the hills flanking the Shrine in Melbourne, along the Yarra River and even over cow paddocks. The change of scenery, the music of the birds and the sight of grazing cattle and sheep is soul-freeing and makes a training session real joy.”  – Herb Elliott

I train eleven months of the year, half that period devoted to strengthening work. Here is one of my typical weeks when I was eighteen years of age. (Younger athletes perhaps should not attempt quite so much and older ones a little bit more. It’s really a matter for personal judgment.)”  – Herb Elliott

Monday: A ten-mile run at any pace I felt like setting, always finishing hard over the last two miles or so.
Tuesday: Six or seven miles in the morning. Weight-lifting in the evening.
Wednesday: Ten miles hard against the clock.
Thursday: Six or seven miles in the morning. Weights in the evening.
Friday: Rest.
Saturday: Faster ‘fun’ work-out at lunch-time on the track. A hard five miles or so in the evening.
Sunday: Eight to ten miles in the morning. Eight to ten miles hard in the afternoon.
As Elliott matured, base training consisted mainly of long hard runs of between 8 to 16 km. The occasional (once a month on average) 32km run was also completed. As were sand hills (more below).
The estimated average mileage during this period was 60 to 80 miles per week.
“In the winter and spring of 1957 I must have run 2500 miles in training and lifted thousands of pounds in weights”  -  Herb Elliott
A fascinating athlete and man.