Running Interview
with Amby Burfoot, Chief Editor of Runners World

I grew up the son of a youth sports director, so I played and enjoyed all the big American sports. When I was in 10th grade, I was basically the worst player on the basketball team. One day our coach was angry at us, so he made us go run the 3-mile cross-country course, and I finished ahead of all my teammates.

Soon I started thinking it might be fun to switch to a sport where I might have a better chance to succeed. I did this the next fall, and performed quite well from the beginning. This was encouraging, so I kept training harder and getting better. My miles/week went from 35 in high school, to 70-80-100-110 in college.

My last year in college, 1968, was the year I won the Boston Marathon. I was only 21 at the time. The next December, now 22, I ran my personal best, 2:14:29 at Fukuoka.

I didn't train to be a journalist, but Runner's World was getting very successful and very much stereotyped as a "West Coast" magazine in the late 1970s, so they hired me to add some seriousness and an East Coast presence. It was a dream job, and I couldn't believe my good fortune. More than 30 years later, I still feel the same. I've always believed there's only one key to writing well about running: be authentic, tell the truth.

My background as a serious runner has, I hope, helped me to succeed at this. I suppose I should add another key writer quality: Listen well, and practice sincere empathy. When your subject sees how interested you are in his/her life, you'll get a fuller, more detailed explanation of that life.

I never thought I had any great talent as a runner, which I measure by one's 5000 time. At my best, I don't think I could have broken 14:00. But in the mid 1960s, I believed that running rewarded those who worked the hardest, and I was willing to work harder than anyone else I knew. I went to college during the "sex, drugs and rock n roll" era, and believe me, the only things I did were study and run. I went to bed at 9:30 every evening, so I could be up at 6 the next morning for my run. On weekends, I usually ran a 20 miler. The training was all very slow, about 7 to 7:30 per mile, but of course I raced often with my college team. That was my speedwork.

I don't think this training was intelligent, and I don't think that any amount of other training would have made me a 13:30 5000 runner or anything close to that. But I have now changed my thoughts on hard work and running success. I don't think the hardest trainer necessarily wins, but the most talented athlete.

The East Africans have convinced me that they have more athletes with high levels of talent in their population than the rest of the world, and that the athletes at the top of their talent pile probably are faster than ours. I now believe that virtually every sport rewards a particular body type and genome more than other bodies. Good examples: Sprinters, sumo wrestlers, gymnasts, etc. For some reason, the East Africans got most of the chips when it comes to distance running.

I think we have quite a bit more to learn about training for distance running, particularly in the areas of long and short term periodization. We know how the successful runners train, but we don't know if a different kind of training might achieve equal or even better successes.

I believe a runner can still achieve reasonably high fitness and racing success on three workouts a week. I often just do 3 a week myself, filling in additional exercise time with walking and recumbent bicycling. I especially like the recumbent, at home, because I can read newspapers and magazines while getting a low intensity workout.

My 3 running workouts in order of importance would be: long run (8-10 miles or more); tempo run (3 to 4 miles); and interval training (800 meter repeats a little faster than my 5K race pace.) I find that I can't do long runs any more without it being a social affair, so I always have 3-4 training partners when I go longer than 6 miles or so. And, truth be told, I can't remember doing a long run longer than 13 miles in the last 5 years or so. I still enter marathons and run them in about 4 hours (without pushing hard), which is more than a minute a mile slower than my predicted time from the half-marathon, which I am currently racing in about 1:34. In other words, I don't race hard in the marathon because I don't do true marathon training. My weekly running mileage is usually 15 to 25 miles per week.

Of course, I remember when we had no good distance shoes in the mid 1960s. Then the first ones arrived from Japan with a firm outsole and no midsole whatsoever. We all wore them, loved them, and never got injured, for the most part. So should shoes be minimalist or were the only runners in the 1960s the ones truly born to run? Good question. I don't know the answer.

I've been lucky enough to be largely injury free during my 103,000 total lifetime miles. I've particularly got no joint problems, ie, knees, hips, backs. This has been confirmed by MRI. I think I was one of those born to run, and I appreciate how lucky I have been. I have a high arch and should wear cushioned shoes, but generally like light training shoes without any gimmicks. These "feel" best when I run in them, and seem to treat me well. I like shoes with a beveled heel on the outside. I'm not sure all shoes have this feature, but it's another something that seems to work for me. I'm a heel-foot striker, but not heavily, and I have a short, "shuffle" stride.

I have often said, "The first intelligent runner hasn't been born yet." By this I mean that we all repeat the mistakes of all who have come before us, rather than learning from their advice. As far as injuries go, I believe there's one piece of advice that's far more important than all others combined. This is it: When you're injured, rest until you've recovered from the injury. If you don't do this, the same injury will keep coming back, as well as "compensation injuries." All the other advice is good of course: Increase mileage slowly, take rest/easy days before and after hard days, take periodized rest periods of several weeks to a month during the year.

I also think many runners would be well served to take a full easy week once a month. By that I mean, a week with a 50 percent mileage cutback and no hard days. But I find this advice difficult to follow myself when I get motivated for a race, and I don't know how many other runners would succeed with it.

I have to say that Mizuno shoes have been my favorites the last 10 years. I like their simple lightweight trainers. I tend to believe that the plastic wave plate makes these shoes somewhat more responsive than the foam in other shoes. This is probably all in my head, but the shoes feel right to me when I run in them.