Running Fast and Injury Free Summary Gordon Pirie’s Laws of Running

Running with correct technique (even in prepared bare feet), on any surface, is injury
..etc..

Running Fast and Injury Free Story

(Thursday March 5, 1992):

Pirie: Forgotten Man of Athletics
Sir, Under the heading “Athletics honours Pirie” (February 26) you report the tributes paid to the late Gordon Pirie at the memorial service in St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street. As well as his contemporaries, the athletics establishment, both past and present, and the press were well represented.

It is regrettable that this acclaim and recognition comes now, after he has gone, and was not expressed when he was alive. The country he served so well on the world’s running tracks thought him unworthy of an honour, while the establishment found no place for his profound knowledge of the sport and his boundless enthusiasm. It must baffle his many admirers worldwide that Britain offered him no official coaching post.

The argument was put forward in your sports letters (December 26) that the regular award of honours for sporting achievements did not begin until the Sixties, after Pirie’s time. This is not correct.

In the Queen’s Birthday Honours list of June 1955, Sir Roger Bannister, a contemporary of Pirie, was appointed CBE for his services to amateur athletics, clearly for achieving the first sub-four-minute mile the preceding year. In the same list, George Headley, the West Indian cricketer, was created MBE.

Picking at random, one finds in the New Year’s Honours of 1958 a CBE for Dennis Compton (services to sport), a similar honour for Dai Rees (golf) and the MBE for the boxer Hogan “Kid” Bassey (for his services to sport in Eastern Nigeria).

Rather ironically, in the same year, Jack Crump, the secretary of the British Amateur Athletics Board, with whom Pirie was often at loggerheads, was appointed OBE for his services to athletics.

Pirie’s services to sport far exceeded those of his British contemporaries; athletes or officials.

He was a giant of his time and it was his name that drew crowds to the White City and inspired the later Bedfords and Fosters. One suspects that he ultimately paid the price for speaking out and for being of independent mind without the necessary Oxbridge pedigree. The answers lay among that assembly gathered in St Bride’s, and ought to be revealed.

Mrs Jennifer Gilbody

Running Fast and Injury Free

Running Fast and Injury Free <excerpts>

“Running fast and injury free” is partly biographical (Gordon’s early years, experiences at Adidas – he invented spiked racing shoes with the late Adolf (Adi) Dassler – and the White City, Olympic participation, world records etc.), but it also outlines the training schedules that Gordon followed, including (in some detail) Interval Training, and sets out detailed training programmes for aspiring athletes to follow (of whatever level). In typical Gordon fashion, the book is highly controversial and radical (e.g. comments on running shoe design and running technique), whilst remaining very entertaining.

A quote from the book’s Introduction, illustrating Gordon’s accomplishments: “In the last 45 years, I have participated in three Olympic Games (winning a Silver Medal in the 5,000 metre race at the 1956 Melbourne Games), and have set five official world records (and a dozen or so more unofficial world bests). I have faced and beaten most of the greatest athletes of my time, and have run to date nearly a quarter of a million miles. Along the way, I have coached several of Great Britain and New Zealand’s best runners some of whom have set their own world records. In addition, I aided the late Adolf (Adi) Dassler (founder of Adidas) in developing spiked racing shoes, on which most of today’s good designs are based. This brief list of some of my accomplishments is presented in order to lend credibility to what follows”. Is the book radical? Oh yes.

For example: “There are three basic reasons for the injury epidemic currently sweeping the running world, which is making life unpleasant for millions of runners, and destroying many more who are lost to the sport forever.

The first is the most basic – very few runners know how to run correctly. Improper technique puts undue strain on the feet, ankles, knees, back and hips, and makes injury inevitable.

The second reason is more subtle than the first, though closely related to it. Most running shoes today are designed and constructed in such a manner as to make correct technique impossible (and therefore cause chronic injuries to the people who wear them). It is a common misconception that a runner should land on his or her heels and then roll forward to the front of the foot with each stride. In designing their shoes, most shoe companies fall prey to this incorrect assumption. The result is that running shoes get larger and clumsier every year. Far from protecting runners, these shoes actually limit the runner’s ability to run properly, and as a result may contribute to the injury epidemic.

The third factor accounting for the current plague of injuries is an over-emphasis on mileage in training, especially “long slow distance” (LSD). Without the constant maintenance of a proper balance in training including sprinting, interval training, weights, hills and long-running – a runner’s body simply will not adapt to the stresses it encounters on a day to day basis.”

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