V 6 N. 37 Book Recommendation and a Mike Larrabee Story

For some history of research in distance running you can  open the following link coming to us from
Phillip Sparling  via Dr. David Costill.   A synopsis of several compendiums of research on running and recommendations of several other books you may have already read.   How many of the runners in the picture taken with Kenneth Cooper and Michael Pollock can you identify?  Some are household names, others a bit less known.  All are studs from the 70s who participated in a major research project.


http://blogs.bmj.com/bjsm/2016/05/07/distance-running-part-ii-landmark-research-projects-and-science-based-books/




On another subject we received this link to a story on Mike Larrabee,  1964 Olympic 400 meter champion from the L.A. Times.   Imagine winning an Olympic Gold medal today and returning to the classroom teaching math.

Mike Larrabee

The story came to us from Larry Loveridge who wrote the following:

Greetings From North Hollywood--

You have a great Blog. I left the following comment there, but was unable to post the photo I had wished to share. Here is the comment and I have attached  the photo and an LA Times article about Mike Larrabee..

Thank you for this blogger site... I attended and ran cross country and track (hurdles, sprints, jumps) 1962-1965 at James Monroe High in what is now called North Hills, CA. All my shoes were purchased through Cliff at his store at 10436 Magnolia in North Hollywood. And Mike Larrabee was our math teacher at Monroe in 1964 and he'd come out and run fartleks with us for workouts before he went over to Tokyo. Literally, he WAS a man among us boys. We even made him an honorary Letterman of our track team. I later keyed my events to the Triple Jump and Intermediates and toured the US representing the US Navy and then as a member of the All Military CISM team to Ireland and Europe. My teammates were the likes of Charlie Greene, Mel Pender, Jim Kemp, Geoff Vanderstock, Tracy Smith, Kenny Moore, Neal Steinhauer, Les Tipton, and our coach was Ralph Higgins. I still have my original Adidas and also the TJ shoes I jumped in from that era.

Thanks again for you diligent work with the site.

Larry Loveridge

North Hollywood CA


   

It was the Viking track team he joined Monday — his first day of classes after his return trip from Olympic competition in Tokyo. The student body cheered at a noon rally as Larrabee became an honorary varsity letterman.

Here I am with those original shoes... In 1964 (Note the Riddells on the left.)