Tim Johnston Q&A

In the first part of our interview, Tim talks about his beginnings as a schoolboy runner, his development as an international, Herb Elliot, his successes and failures and his advice to aspiring runners:  move to Addis Ababa and train with your head not your computer!

How serious about running were you as a junior?

Very serious! I'd been serious about running since my first wins at age 9 (under-10s 100 yds (15 secs.)and 220 (35 secs.), 2nd in Long and High Jump!). At age 13, I defeated the entire school, including eighteen year olds, in a two mile road race. I started training on the track at 15, but only for the three months prior to the school sports. The rest of the year, I cycled, with dreams of the Tour de France!

In '58 and '59, I won the Hants. Schools Senior Mile, and went to the All-England Schools. In 58, I failed to make the final, but in '59 I was 4th, beaten out of sight by the new schoolboy star, Martin Heath.

In Autumn 1959, I joined Portsmouth, the club local to my boarding school, and began competing in cross-country races. That November, with just a couple of months' training, I came from nowhere to win the South of Thames Junior, then consolidated with 3rd in the Portsmouth Open 5-mile road race, beating everyone in the club except Martin Hyman and Bruce Tulloh [who went on to win the 1962 European 5,000m].

In 1960, my first year as a senior on the track, I went backwards. If I hadn't been due to go up to Cambridge in the autumn, I might well have packed it in!

It was at Cambridge that my running really flourished. I had two major influences:

(i) Herb Elliott: newly crowned Rome 1500 metres champion and World Record holder for the mile. He came up the same term I did, and was also my neighbour in the vacations. We used to run the South Cambridgeshire mud and hills together. He taught me how to use the terrain: run hard up the hills, then make a break off the top, when everyone else is ready to slow. One year, our select training group of five produced 1st and 3rd in the National Junior Cross Country, and 1st in the Scots Junior Cross Country.

Herb also introduced me to his particular form of weight training, which involved a series of whole-body exercises (e.g., clean and jerk, snatch, cheat press, cheat curl), medium weights, 3 x 8-10 reps with minimal recovery. I later developed it into a circuit-training routine, where the only recovery you got was when you switched from one exercise to the next.  It was very intense, great training for x-country.

(ii) Mike Turner: Mike was a year ahead of me, and two years older. He was notorious for his hard repetition sessions on grass and road. He invented the 'sausage session', where you ran strictly to the clock, with the fast rep. being generally twice the length of the recovery, e.g., 2 minutes fast, 1 min slow, repeated anything from 10 to 30 times.

My first two years, I generally avoided those sessions, as I felt I wasn't strong enough for them. Most of the guys who did the sessions with him, like George Lawson and Roger Robinson, were way behind me in races.

He also used St John's College playing field a lot. The perimeter was approx. 3/4 mile, soft grass, with a fast downhill, tailwind section. On successive days, Mike used to run 16 x 880, with 1 min jog, 9 x 1 mile with a 2 min. jog and finally 12 x 3/4 off 1.5 mins. I once managed 14 of the halves, but never attempted the other sessions.

Later, after I'd left Cambridge, I built on those sessions, going up to 24 x 2.5 mins off 1 min. and 40 x 1 min. with 30 secs. jog. The aim was to do at least 10 km. of fast running in each session, sometimes with accelerations in the middle of each rep. But in the end I dropped most of those intensive rep sessions in favour of fartlek and tempo runs, as the reps. were leaving me chronically fatigued.

When did you realise that you had the potential to become an international?

Difficult to say. You don't really know till you've actually made it.  In 1961, after finishing 12th in the National Junior Cross-Country- just behind a certain Jim Alder! - I was selected as reserve for the Junior International; many of those in front of me were too old for the team.

I was encouraged by the fact that Mike Turner and Tim Briault, whom I was starting to be able to hold in training, both made the Senior team.  The strongest pointer was the following year, 1962. After 3rd in the National Junior Cross Country, behind Martin Heath and Derek Graham (both too old for the International), I was selected for ECCU v Combined Services, where I finished a close 2nd to Alan Simpson, beating several guys who'd finished in the low teens in National Senior.

And in fact the following December I was selected for a small ECCU team competing in a 7k cross country race in Lyons, France, where I was outsprinted by John Snowden and a Frenchman, Lacour, after breaking away early on. I knew I could have won if I'd delayed my break.

What was your greatest success?

Well, getting the 30 km world record was OK, but it was a soft record, and I always felt that, with specific preparation and the right conditions, it wouldn't be hard to get it down below 1 hr 30, as Toshisiko Seko ultimately did [in 1981, running 1:29:18.8, which remains the World Record]. Seventy-two second laps are easy, and now you can take refreshment, which you couldn't then.

Other than that, I guess winning the AAA 6 miles and Marathon titles in the space of two weeks in 1968 wasn't bad. Don't think it's been done that often.

Probably my best race ever was a half-marathon at Celaya, Mexico, at an altitude of 6,000 feet, a month after the Olympic event. I just took off straight from the start, finishing in a record 62:33, almost 4 minutes ahead of Garrido, who subsequently ran 2'13" in Fukuoka.   Don't know if the distance was accurate, but years later I met some of the Mexican guys who were regularly winning New York in sub-2:10 times, and they told me the record was still standing. I see that recent editions have been won by Kenyans in 65/66 mins. It was one of those days that seldom come along when you want them to. I ran every kilometre as if it was the last, never really felt tired.

What was your biggest disappointment?

Well, obviously Mexico [Tim finished 8th - more on this in the second part of our interview]. But, more generally, my failure to realise my full potential. Many of my contemporaries, who were no more gifted or determined than I was, had more successful careers.

I dispersed myself, racing here, there and everywhere at a whole range of events, instead of concentrating on my strengths. Also, I trained too hard.

When I was still at Cambridge, only 21, I became a leading international cross-country runner on 50-60 miles a week. The fantastic training that I did in in Mexico in 1968 didn't really produce a commensurate improvement in racing performances. In my early years, I had amazing determination, which I wasted on minor races and killing training sessions. Someone of my light build (1m 75cm, 60 kg) didn't need the same volume and intensity of training as a David Bedford, a Ron Clarke or a Derek Clayton. If I were coaching now, I would be spending a lot of effort persuading athletes to train less. I don't mean necessarily more easily, but with more easy days between the hard ones.

Do you still follow the sport?

Yes, off and on. Golden League events can be a bit of a drag, unless a super-star like Bekele is performing. But I watch the big champs. Also, when I'm in Cambridge, I try to involve myself with the University runners. But there's something not working. They're as keen as we were, and train hard, but the results are poor - as they are in UK as a whole.

I think there is both a technical problem and an attitude problem. I accept that it must be very hard to be a British distance runner. You fight your way up to international level, then find yourelf up against the African Supermen.

Well, the first thing is to go and take them on on their home ground, as I did. To be competitive at international level, you need at least 2 two/three-month sessions at altitude per year. And I don't mean medium-level places like Font Romeu, Boulder or St. Moritz. You have to go to at least 2,000 metres, with regular sorties to 3,000m.

Mexico City is out these days: too polluted. For my money, best bet is Addis Ababa. Big-city facilities to keep boredom at bay, with a great range of restaurants, and plenty of places to run. A forty-minute taxi ride to Entoto hills at 10,000 feet. Miles of woods and meadows. But the only Brit I've heard of who goes there regularly is Mo Farah. Kenya is good too, but the problem is the boredom factor - and the food...

On a technical level, I suspect that the problem I noted with the Cambridge University runners applies nation-wide: loads of computer-generated repetition and interval sessions and few or none of the group fartlek sessions over road and country that used to be the backbone of British club running.

For me, the most beneficial sessions were those I learned from training with Herb Elliott: go out and run hard over demanding terrain - and when it gets hard, run harder still!

There are many other improvements that I believe could be made at technical level, which I'd be happy to pass on if anyone from UK Athletics ever cared to ask me. But so far, nobody has...

Comments

[Rob McKim]

HI
Just came across this article about Tim Johnson. I'd like ot pick his brains. I had a few Sunday morning runs with Tim when I lived in Cambridge in the 80s and I recall we were 1&2 in the Cambridge 10. I got injured and dropped out the sport soon after but got back into coaching a few years ago and have some talent coming through and welcome chance to talk to guys like Tim who are a wealth of knowledge