by Andy Milroy
How to
break a world record?
Distance running can be a fairly
predictable sport; runners set off at an even
pace to finish in a time close to that they have achieved before.
Sometimes however a runner emerges who is touched by genius, who seeks to break
the mould. Over thirty years ago, such a
runner produced his greatest performance, a performance that still is regarded
with awe by ultrarunners across the world, not just for the times achieved, but
the sheer audacity of the run
On October 25, 1975, at Tipton in England,
perhaps the greatest 100mile race ever staged took place. It was a British Road
Runners Club promotion held three weeks after the London to Brighton Race. All
18 competitors had been very carefully selected from a far greater number who
had wanted to run, and although only three of these had previously competed in
a track “100miler,” all were vastly experienced ultrarunners.
The two most experienced entrants were
probably Ron Bentley, the then holder of the 24hour track record 259.603 km,
although until the last moment he was a doubtful starter because of injury, and
New Zealander Siegfried Bauer, who had averaged 124km a day in running the
1,600 km from Pretoria to Cape Town and 114 km miles a day on a 2125 km run of
the length of New Zealand. Bauer had also run 6:56:08 at the Unna 100 Km in
Germany in early September. But for many the most intriguing competitor was
Cavin Woodward, who had won the Brighton in 5:12:07, just over a minute outside
the course record, and who had also set a new world best for the 30mile track
event earlier in the year.
Before the race Woodward had looked at
Derek Kay’s splits in setting the world track best for 100 miles (11:56:56),
and decided that such even paced running was not his style. The Woodward method
of running a race was to go off as fast as he could for as long as he could:
“No matter what pace you start at, you will slow eventually, so start at a fast
pace which will give you momentum.” He added, “The reason why I go out in front is because I want to run my own
race. If you are in a bunch, and the front runners stop, you have to chop your
stride. In front I can speed up when I feel like it, slow down when I come to a
hill, judge the traffic, and do what I want to do.”
However, even he had his doubts about his
ability to blast a 100mile from the front. As he said later, “My one big
problem with this race was I did not know if I could cover the distance. The
longest race I had run was the Brighton; I knew I could run 50 miles, so I
decided to go for as fast a time as possible for 50 miles and then ‘hang on’ as
long as I could to see if I could cover the 100 mile course.” So he devised
three schedules. The first would break the world record of 11:56:56 by 20
minutes; the second would break it by five minutes; and the third would break
John Tarrant’s British record of 12:31.
The first schedule had ten mile [16km]
splits of 55, 59, 62, 64, and 65 minutes for the first 50 miles, giving a 50
mile time of 5:05. Woodward would see how things went, and if possible try to
break the world record of 5:01:01. Woodward used the carbo loading diet prior
to the race. He ate kippers, grapefruit and so on for three days, then ate
normally with potatoes, sandwiches and the like. During the race he was to use
the electrolyte drink supplied by the organizers, in this case Accolade, the
race sponsors.
A dull and misty dawn broke to reveal a
scene reminiscent of some medieval tournament, with brightly coloured tents
that would shelter the many handlers ready to bring aid to the present day
warriors who would be fighting out on the yielding but soft cinder track. The
day was never to be warmer than 12 degrees C —not really warm enough for
comfortable running.
When the race started, Woodward took off
like a marathon runner, a speed that appeared to surprise the timekeepers and
recorders as they sat in their drafty stand. Even those who were used to his
blitz starts had figured he would treat an event four times the marathon with
at least some circumspection.
The first mile was passed in 5:19, five
miles[8km] in 27:49, ten miles[16km] in 56:27, 15 miles in 1:25:22, and 20
miles [32km] in 1:54:26. At this point, Woodward was running at almost ten and
one half miles [17.5km] per hour, and his very fast initial pace had apparently
seduced the majority of the field to respond. Fifteen of the 18 at 20 miles
were inside a world record schedule. (But that is not too unusual in an ultra
race of that duration. Despite their most earnest pre-race pledges, male
ultrarunners tend to go off too fast!)
When Woodward reached 20 miles, he was 26
minutes ahead of the even paced schedule to break the existing record, and his
lead over the field was 16 minutes, with Martin Thompson of Australia in second
place in 2:10:37, Derek Funnell third just over three minutes back, and Tom
O’Reilly less than a minute behind him. They were followed by a group two
minutes later consisting of Siegfried Bauer, Fred Howell, Bill Carr, Alan
Richards, and John Berry. Woodward reached the marathon point in 2:31:22.
By 30 miles [48.2km] Woodward was now two
minutes and ten seconds inside his fastest schedule, so things were looking
good. He had a few twinges in his right calf, and shoe trouble, but nothing
major. The 50km mark was passed in under
3:01 – this is in a race that was scheduled as well over three times 50km!
By 40 miles [64.3km] he was 3:42 inside
schedule, so it was set up for the next ten miles. Laps of 1:36 were planned
for the next 20 laps, and 1:33 for the last 20 laps; he covered 80km in under
4:57 and reached 50 miles in 4:58:53 to
be the first man to run faster than ten miles [16km] an hour for 50 miles.
Woodward was relieved to have broken the 50
mile record; it meant that the effort had been worthwhile. Something had been
achieved even if he did not succeed in breaking the 100 mile world best. He
relaxed a little, knowing that he could take two hours longer to complete the
second 50 miles than he had the first, and still break the world 100 mile mark.
He pushed on for three more miles before he made his first toilet stop. He had
been determined that he would not do that until after 50 miles. Tom O’Reilly
was second through the 50 mile point with 5:32:49, having overtaken Martin
Thompson (5:45:20).
Woodward’s schedule for the next 50 miles
was ten mile [16km] splits of 74, 75, 76, 80, and 86 minutes. In the first 6
hours Woodward had run 94.54 km. He took
another stop to check on a blister at 59 miles but decided that it would last
out to the finish.
By 60 miles Woodward was nine minutes
inside his fastest schedule, and pushed on to take the 100 km world best with a
time of 6:25:28, taking a massive 34 minutes off the previous best mark which
had been set in Germany only the week before. (The RRC had only just decided to
start recognizing metric ultra distances, and Woodward was not really aware
there was a 100km world best. )
Thirty years later such 100km times are
still rare; only one runner has bettered it on the track. Reflecting on his
run, 20 years later,Woodward felt that he could easily have improved on the
6:25, remembering his various stops, but that might have had long term
consequences for his final 100 mile time.) In second place, Tom O’Reilly had
produced the then third best track mark of alltime of 7:00:18.
By 70 miles [112km] Woodward had fallen
back to six minutes inside his fastest schedule, but still covered 119km in 8
hours. Following a further stop at 78 miles, Woodward was now only two minutes
inside schedule. By the time 80 miles [130km]
was passed he was paying the price of his earlier speed and there was a
marked drop in his pace.
There was just the chance that Tom
O’Reilly, who was gradually reducing the distance between himself and the
leader, would provide an upset that would have been unthinkable earlier in the
day. However, O’Reilly himself was having problems. He had three bad spells
between 65 and 80 miles, and stopped each time. On the final occasion, the
tough veteran, Ron Bentley had said to him as he passed, “Get going.” He did,
and was not to stop again until he reached the finish.
Dr. John Brotherhood took a sample of
Woodward’s urine, decided that he was beginning to suffer from fatigue, and
advised him that his temperature was dropping too fast and that more clothing
was needed. An additional Tshirt, a pullover, and rugby shirt, plus tracksuit
bottoms, started to warm him up, and eased the pins and needles that he had
begun to suffer in his arms, perhaps because of his high arm action.
Despite these problems, Woodward took the
world 150 km best with 10:44:55, and
from then began to pick up his pace, with the end in sight. From 90 miles he
was running sub 5:00 minutes kilometres.
From 95 miles he pushed hard, all the time coming closer to his fastest
schedule. His last mile was 7:07, and he broke the world record by 18:02 with
11:38:54, bettering Derek Kay’s record set in Durban, South Africa, in 1972.
Woodward had taken 6:40:01 for his second
50 miles, a differential of 1:41:08 between the two 50 mile splits. His 50km
splits were 3:01, 6:25:28, 10:44:55,
with 54 minutes for his last 10.93
km. Mentally he had kept going, and
coped with the repetition of track running by checking his lap times and
working them out.
A large crowd gathered to cheer the winner
in the final stages, but now he had finished, the other competitors had to push
on steadily into the darkness for another four hours or more. Tom O’Reilly
finished 23 minutes 28 seconds behind for second place, (taking third place on
the then world alltime track rankings), and in third, a further 32 minutes, 19
seconds after came local runner Bill Carr, who had run a very even pace while
other runners had had their good and bad patches. The rest of the field came in
at regular intervals until Bob Jeans finished in 13th place, 12 minutes inside
the tough 16 hour time limit. The final results were:
1. Cavin Woodward
11:38:54
2. Tom O’Reilly 12:02:32
3. Bill Carr
12:34:51
4. Martin Thompson,AUS 12:42:50
5. Fred Howell
12:49:29
6. Alan Richards 12:59:48
7. Ron Bentley 13:29:56
8. Siegfried Bauer,NZL 13:31:55
9. Derek Funnell 13:49:24
10. Bob Meadowcroft 14:42:30
11. John Berry 14:55:38
12. Ken Shaw
15:35:44
13. Bob Jeans
15:47:58
Woodward commented afterwards, “I was told
before the race that the one thing I could not do was blast off with 5m30s miles [3m43s kms]. Of course I did, and I
broke the world 50 mile record. Then I heard, ‘He will now drop out somewhere
in the race, so who will break the 100 mile record?’ I went on and broke the
100 mile record as well . . . It was a great sense of
achievement when I did do it, as I had had doubts.”
“I did not want to prove everybody had been
wrong. I proved that it could be done. I hope I have altered the outlook of
some runners. I hope I proved that running even paced is not the only way of
winning races and breaking records. I would like to think that if a runner
wants to try and run ultras fast right from the start against the wishes of his
coach or trainer he could convincingly argue that that was the way Cavin
Woodward did it.”
If Woodward had not run the 100 miles in
his own way, it is possible that people would still be saying that the only way
to run a 100 miles is to start slow, and pace yourself through the race.
Woodward had no injuries following the race, and in fact represented his club
in the Birmingham League races the following weekend, being one of their six
scoring runners!
So how remarkable a runner was Cavin
Woodward? Well, British pedestrian George Hazael also broke the 50 mile and 100
mile records in one race, but that was back in the undeveloped days of the
early 6 Day Races in 1879.[Hazael’s
times were 6:14:47 and 15:35:31]
Woodward’s contemporaries, Mike Newton and Tom O’Reilly had the chance to see
Woodward at his peak. Newton, who
finished a distant second to Woodward in the 1978 Isle of Man race, described
him as a genius. O’Reilly, a good friend of his, made some interesting
observations. He felt that Woodward was not a remarkable runner at the shorter
distance, so his success was not due to just “talent”. [1500 meters: 4:11
(1976); 5 km: 15:01 (’72); 10 km: 30:47 (’72); 10 miles: 50:38 (’75); 20 miles:
1:46:04 (’75); and marathon: 2:19:50 (’73)].
Most of his marathon runs were tackled as
part of his training for ultra races, or as a depletion run for the
carboloading diet, so it would have been interesting to see just what he could
have achieved if he had focused all his attention on the marathon.
In O’Reilly’s opinion, Woodward’s success
as an ultrarunner was due in a large part to the fact he was extremely tough
mentally. Any man who can contemplate setting a 50 mile record and then
“hanging on” for another 50 miles to break the 100 miles, has got to be a
remarkably determined individual!
I asked both Woodward and O’Reilly recently
why they thought ultrarunners in recent years had not made substantial
improvements on Woodward’s marks. Only a handful of men have surpassed
Woodward’s 100km time, in an event that is now widely contested internationally.
Woodward’s comments were enlightening:
“People were more lighthearted in those days — if you blew up there was another
race next week. Runners have more to lose nowadays, there is more pressure, and
more to win.” When Woodward won the Migennes 100 km race in France in 6:26, a
course record, he won a bread board, the same as everyone else!
O’Reilly elaborated on this theme.
Admittedly, the top runners were fast marathon runners for that period (he himself was a 2:20 performer, and Don
Ritchie 2:19), but the main reason was that it was easier for runners to run
their own race in an ultra event. There is more stress now in the top events as
the runners run tactically, carefully watching their main protagonists. Twenty
years ago ultrarunners ran for their own satisfaction, there were no national
vests, and very little status attached to Ultrarunning. Running for your
country is a great honour, but also a great responsibility.
Will we ever see the like of Cavin
Woodward’s 100 mile run again, see a runner break the 50 mile or 100 km record,
en route to the 100 mile or 24 hour best? Well, a male runner only has to run
just over seven minutes faster at 50 miles than Woodward, 16 minutes faster at
100 km, and ten minutes faster at 100 miles to achieve that, and it is within
the bounds of possibility. If a runner comes fresh to the sport and is not
bound by the limits of what is assumed to be achievable, then anything is
possible. Who would have predicted in the heyday of Jean-Gilles Boussiquet that a runner would
set a 24 hour world best en route to a new 48 hour mark as Kouros did at Surgères?
Comparing the fastest 100 mile races:
Distance Kharitonov Ritchie Woodward Kouros
10 miles 1:07:41 1:02:24
56:27 1:03:11
20 miles 2:15:02 2:05:29 1:54:26 2:07:43
30 miles 3:21:07 3:08:17 2:53:51 3:13:05
50km 3:28:15 3:15:02 under 3:01
40 miles 4:28:04 4:10:57 3:56:18 4:19:31
50 miles 5:37:22 5:15:58 4:58:53 5:27:44
60 miles 6:45:38 6:24:37 6:09:45 6:38:39
100 km 7:00:22 6:39:59 6:25:28 6:54:43
70 miles 7:55:55 7:38:07 7:29:53 7:52:10
80 miles 9:08:51 8:54:45 8:50:01 9:09:07
90 miles 10:18:21 10:12:04 10:17:22 10:29:34
150km 10:41:47 10:36:42 10:44:55
100 miles 11:28:03 11:30:51 11:38:54 11:46:37
Yiannis Kouros’ mark was set on the road.
Kharitonov is by far the most even
paced effort. His 100km split was just over a half hour slower than his
personal best for the distance. He had
the advantage of having Ritchie’s record as a target, just as Ritchie had
Woodward’s mark as a target. Ritchie
broke Woodward’s record by eight minutes, Kharitonov broke Ritchie’s by just
under three minutes. Woodward took EIGHTEEN minutes off the previous record.
