City Slickers Can't Stay with Me: The Coach Bob Larsen Story

We have to be careful we don't push too hard

and break.

Looking at the technique, his stride mechanics,

ground contact time, how far knee comes up on the drills,

stuff like that.

As he gets stronger and recovers from workouts,

his contact time is less, both as to how

hard he hits and also the time that he's on the ground.

You know, he's looking better each week,

so we have to be patient and not worry it.

The worst thing we could do now is push him too hard

and he gets injured.

The 1990s were a little bit of a lost decade

for American distance running, and through 2000,

we really were not very strong.

I went to the Olympic trials in the year 2000.

And we only had one qualifier in the marathon,

and he barely made the qualifying standard of 2:12.

And this was alarming.

Basically, Coach Joe

Vigil and Coach Larsen decided we needed to do something.

You know, we need to do something about US distance

running, and let's form a team.

We decided that if we put together a training

group up here at Mammoth with the right people that we could

have effect on American distance running, because almost all

of the medals that are won at World and Olympic Games

are with athletes training much of the time at altitude.

I followed Coach Vigil and Bob Larsen out

to Mammoth Lakes, California, where we put together

an incredible group of athletes all living and striving

to that same Olympic dream.

I've known Bob Larsen for a good 12 years now.

We're similar in that we believe that for distance

running that it's not just a matter of going

out and pounding out the miles.

If you try and run harder, you're

just going to over stride.

There's a lot of other things

that are important in a long-term goal

and plan for an athlete and building

them up over years and years.

Good work.

5:06.

The fact that Americans could go to altitude

and get in the proper training to catch the Africans

on the awards podium was a great eye-opener,

and it has been a fabulous turn of events to see a resurgence

in American distance running.

In 1939, my father was born in Minnesota.

My dad grew up in a very small, very dark cabin on a farm,

which is 50 miles from Fargo, which

is probably the most desolate, isolated place on Earth,

it seems.

No electricity and no running water.

I think that humbled him as a person.

I think it made him who he was.

He went to school with just a few classmates.

I think first grade through sixth grade

was all in the same exact classroom.

He walked to and from school every day.

Those stories of walking uphill in the snow both directions,

I think it started in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

Not exactly the weather you'd find

a future Hall of Fame coach in, let alone a distance runner.

So to come from that to where he is today is quite a journey.

My grandfather severely hurt his back.

He ended up having to sell the farm,

and I believe they flipped a coin.

Heads, they go to Los Angeles.

Tails, they go to San Diego.

It ended up hitting tails, and they

ended up going to San Diego.

I ran in an era when we

didn't know that much about the process,

how to get in good shape.

So we were really inquisitive even when I was very young.

I had a good high school coach, Raleigh Holt at Hoover High

School, and I was pretty good all-round athlete,

but when I found out there were guys

actually running a distance, I said, well, nobody can beat me.

I grew up on a farm.

City slickers can't stay with me.

And that's the way I ran the first few races.

The only thing I knew about was you're supposed to pass out,

because that what the first sub-4:00 miler,

Roger Bannister, did.

He would collapse at the finish line,

and people would carry him off.

So I thought that's what you're supposed to do.

So any point in a race, if somebody came up and started

challenging me, I thought, oh, this is great,

I'll be able to run so hard, I'll pass out at the finish.

That's a good mindset.

But that's how dumb we were in that we didn't know

much about what we were doing.

But we were beating everybody.

He likes to talk about that he was a runner,

but he'll never, ever give anybody times or details

or specifics, because, one, I think he's humble,

and, two, he always says, well, it used to be

a different era back then.

More than anything, Raleigh Holt, my high school coach,

talked me into being a coach.

I don't know what he saw in me.

I was clueless like a lot of guys that age.

But he saw something.

And I watched what other people had done.

And I was always inquisitive.

I was going to a lot of clinics.

But most the things we did, I developed as a runner myself.

At San Diego State, I graduated in four years.

Fifth year, they wanted me to stay around

and be the coach of the distance runners and track, which I did.

And so I was a graduate assistant.

So all those experiences I think really helped me.

And then getting the right guy.

They offered me the job to continue

at San Diego State full time, but I really

wanted to coach in high school.

I wanted to coach at each level.

And Monte Vista had only won one meet each year for two years

in track and cross country.

And it was a pretty new school, so they talked

me into coming out there.

And it turned out great.

Luckily enough, I got to run for Coach Larsen.

I'll never forget.

When I first came to Monte Vista,

I was five foot two, 102 pounds.

After just two months of running with him,

I was varsity material.

You know, when I started

it was all about toughness, more than anything else.

But I know it was a big part of what I was selling

when I went into high school.

I would run with the guys.

I'd use myself kind of as an example, and that helps a lot.

I mean, that gives you instant credibility.

When you have your coach that runs with you,

you don't want to lose to him.

When you saw me, my face would turn red and slobber

coming out of my mouth.

Even if I didn't say anything, and I was running that hard,

nobody wanted to lose to the coach.

So my goal was on every distance

run that we went, stay with the coach, stay with the coach.

What we were doing was a lot of race training.

Now we call it threshold training.

That was maybe the key single thing

that put us in front of everybody else,

because we were doing it on a regular basis.

I had guys that could make things happen.

And they weren't so good that it was automatic,

but once I got them going, they were tough enough

that what I was giving them as workouts would produce results.

Our big thing here at Monte Vista

was we didn't know the word lose.

Losing wasn't in our vocabulary.

We never lost a race.

They would run as hard

as I did when I was in high school, where

we'd have to literally sometimes carry them off the finish line.

And over the years, so many guys did that, and why they did it,

I have no idea.

But I'm so grateful to them, because even

if they weren't great talents--

and not all those guys were great talents--

they made up for the difference, because they

were just as tough as nails.

It's not just the coaching, you know.

Put his arm around you.

Just say little positive things that just you would absorb

and make you that much better.

Didn't matter if you are the first man,

the 10th man, or the last man, you were very, very important.

This is a family.

You stick with me, you are going to be very, very successful.

Whatever he said, we did.

He changed our lives.

He changed my life totally. Confidence.

Self-esteem.

Believing in myself.

I think instinctively I had something there,

and Coach activated it.

He put kerosene on the fire.

I figured I was going to stay about four years,

and I stayed exactly four years, and we were able to turn

around the program immediately.

Back in the day, they'd all be small.

Yeah, exactly.

Small or medium.

People must have thought we were weird.

Remember that uniform?

Long-haired guy in stripped pants.

I mean, come on.

Look at that finish.

Holy cow.

All right, guys, we need a quick picture.

Let's line up where these chairs are, right here.