Long Slow Distance
The Humane Way to Trainby Joe Henderson
Bob Deines
Robert D. Deines, Pasadena, California. 22 years old (born June 6th, 1947). 6'1", 140 pounds. Occupation: mathematics teacher. Training: 100 to 120 miles a week at about 8:00 pace. Times: mile -- 4:16.1 (4:22.8 on fast training), 2-mile -- 9:00.4 (9:20.2), 3-mile -- 14:01.0 (14:16.0), 6-mile -- 29:55 (29:55), 10-mile -- 49:58 (51:56), marathon -- 2:20:48 (2:40:58).Twice Bob Deines and I have found ourselves together for runs, at distances I consider long but which are just an average day's mileage for him. We've gone a total of 35 miles and didn't once cover the same ground, either in running or in conversation. Deines, a thoroughly relaxed and articulate 22-year-old, talks of his long, slow running as well as he runs it.
On-the-run conversation is one of the more beautiful aspects of LSD, offering an enjoyable social aside that's unavailable in faster types of training. Try sometime discussing the merits of slow training, the war in Vietnam or the weather while gasping through a series of hard quarters on the track.
Deines has refined his en route talking to almost an art form. He keeps a steady flow going, shifting easily from topic to topic as the miles pass by comfortably. First during a run in the Berkeley hills and a month later at Stanford, Bob offered insights into his running attitudes.
Despite blond hair that he wears at near shoulder length, Deines can't really be classed as a rebel. It's more accurate to call him an individual who guards his individuality closely. His hair is a symbol of that, and in a way so is the slow training that he carried out during two stormy years of conflict with his coach, Dixon Farmer, at Occidental College. Bob thinks he looks best in long hair so he wears it long; to hell with what others think and say. He thinks he runs best and likes it best on slow training so he trains slowly; let the coach yell all he wants.
"The first day I ever ran," Bob said, referring to the fall of his senior year in high school, "I ran five miles at slow pace on the track. It felt great. Almost anyone who doesn't know anything about running would begin like this before picking up more 'sophisticated,' 'scientific' ideas. I became more sophisticated and spent three years running fast intervals before realizing I was best off running just the way I started -- long and slow.
In his single year of high school running. Bob only reached 4:48 for the mile and 10:10 for two. His college freshman year improvement was only marginal and included his first marathon experience -- "my slowest and most painful one." He ran 3:21 in the 1965 Culver City race, hardily indicative that he'd be going almost an hour faster within two years.
Slowly, the continuing influence of his teammate Rick Spavins, himself a friend of slow-training Amby Burfoot, got Bob to doing more and more relaxed road training. By late 1967, he had sworn off fast work completely and was running his marathon in 2:25, along with corresponding improvements in everything from the 440 yards up.
"Starting in the summer of 1967," Bob said, "I upped my mileage to about 90 miles a week. I was getting 100 to 110 in 1968 and have stayed at about that. I've even slowed down the pace since then -- if you can believe that -- to 7:30 to 8:00 and sometimes slower, usually just running two hours a day and three to four hours on either Saturday or Sunday.
"I might add that I never run more than once a day. Double workouts are too much added effort for the benefits gained. I'd much rather get in one solid, long run than two shorter ones. Besides, all that showering and changing is a big waste of time."
I've run with few other runners who creep along so slowly -- runners of any class, not just 2:20 marathon types. "Are you sure I'm not slowing you down too much?" I was compelled to ask Deines several times. "Of course not," he answered. "This is the speed I always go, if you can call this 'speed'."
"Don't you ever get the urge to go any faster, Bob?"
"I keep telling myself, 'Pick it up if you feel like it.' But then I ask myself, 'Now when have I ever felt like picking it up in practice?' It doesn't seem to matter. At Alamosa [1968 Olympic Marathon Trial and pre-race camp site], Gene Comroe accused me of sneaking out at night or something and doing speed work. He couldn't believe I wasn't doing any.
"Sometimes up there, a group of us would get together for a long one. We planned to go slow, but gradually the pace would start picking up. A race would be developing. I didn't want to race and would usually watch them disappear. Ed Winrow was the only guy who would run regularly with me."
As it turned out, Deines, the slowest trainer of all at the Alamosa camp, came within one minute and one place of making the Olympic team. "I was surprised to come up on Steve Matthews at the end," he said. "He was legendary among the runners at Alamosa for doing things like 20 miles in under two hours. He was the hardest trainer up there. What surprised me even more than catching him was that I outsprinted him. He is a 48-second quarter-miler, and my best is only 57."
Bob went on to attack a major myth -- that slow training produces slow racing. "I don't feel that slow training hurts one's speed at all," he said. "Although my times for the shorter distances are not too good, even my 440 and 880 times are improving over what I ran on interval training. One of my biggest thrills was running 1:58.8 for the half and beating runners who'd been training on 24-second 220s.
"Regular racing helps keep me sharp, but I am not convinced that it is completely necessary. If it is, I think that two or three races are sufficient to recover any lost sharpness without doing any speed training. It works out to almost an exact formula with me. I'm usually a little sluggish in my first fast race. It may take 4:27 to run a mile. But if I run within a week or two it's sure to be 4:17.
"The 10-second improvement seems to be pretty standard. But I've found that if I train fast, if I go faster than normal once or twice during the week, I often don't race well."
Deines doesn't go out with missionary zeal attempting to recruit other runners to his way of thinking. He didn't try to revolutionize Occidental's running system, only his own.
"I may not have the greatest method in the world, and I don't claim to," he quietly told me. "But I enjoy it, it works for me and I don't get hurt." That's a three-part combination few runners can match.
In terms of how his training works, the statistics speak for themselves. Pick a distance and compare "before-after". He picks up his quota of minor aches and pains, like any runner under any system does, but they've never disabled the deceptively frail-looking 6'1", 140-pounder.
I'll vouch for the fact that he thoroughly enjoys his running, for itself and not just the rewards earned. Both days we ran together, conditions weren't the best for him. Both were mornings-after, when hangover-like feelings from a previous day's race were with him. Still, without a hint of self-coercion, he eagerly took to the roads for two-hour-plus jaunts.
Deines' ambitions remain remarkably low for a young man with his talent. Competition is important to him, but not necessarily the high placings and fast times that have gone with his recent racing.
"Competition has always been for me an enjoyable experience," he said. "The important thing is taking part and achieving victory over myself and my own goals. Winning is not the most important aspect, and if too much emphasis is placed on it enjoyment is lost."
Future plans: "I don't foresee an end to my running career," he said. That statement says a lot about him.
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