John L. Parker’s in the house!
A friend of mine sent the Sir Tony Waldrop story to John L. Parker (famed author of Once a Runner) and here’s what he had to say about it:
VERY interesting. He sounds like someone Bacheler would get along well with. And he had such a short flash of brilliance there that not many people remember him. But I sure do. He was just unbeatable during that stretch and I always wondered if there was some kind of story to his sudden disappearance from our tiny little universe. I’m grateful to Joan for getting him to tell his story.
jp
Here’s another quote from John that my friend sent in:
Oh, here’s another ponderable about Waldrop: I’m not sure exactly when they changed it, but if his 3:55.0 was on the *old* garden track, it had to have been worth about a 3:48 on a good outdoor surface, and probably a 3:52 on a decent 10 or 11 lap board track.
I ran on it a number of times, including the Milrose Games, and it was SLOW. It was wonderfully comfortable to run on, but it was really soft. I think I even commented on it in Once a Runner.
Makes Waldrop’s streak all the more impressive when you realize how good that 3:55 was.
jp
3 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Did you ask Mr Parker when “Again to Carthage” is going to be finished?
Hahaha. I’m joking of course. That is pretty cool.
Comment by Keith "I'm not running down Mt Hood next yr" Handlon — 10/19/2005 @ 10:42 am
Actually, the 3:55 was at the San Diego Indoor games, but I am sure the tracks in 1974 were not like the 8 lap, double-mondo, perfeclty banked surfaces the current collegiate athletes race on. I have the benefit of having raced on indoor tracks in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s (and 00’s as a masters runner) and I can tell you my 9:07 3k on an 11 lap board track was equivalent to the 8:56 indoor PR I ran in Barcelona on an 8 lap dream track.
btw, Waldrop was the first person to break 4:00 at Madison Square Garden (Milrose Games).
Comment by Joan — 10/19/2005 @ 12:55 pm
Joan,
Thanks for the consitently good interviewing you do. I used the gist of Jim Beatty’s description of how wonderful it was to surrender all decision making to Igloi to explain Jim a little in “Bowerman and The Men of Oregon.” I wonder if I could ask a favor. How does one go about contacting John Parker these days. He kept my “Best Efforts” in paperback at his Cedarwinds, but has been out of touch, no doubt pounding away heroically at his sequel.
All Best,
Kenny Moore
Comment by Kenny Moore — 6/10/2006 @ 8:25 pm