“…When you reach the 20-mile mark of a marathon feeling utterly spent, but finish somehow, you suspect you can conquer other seemingly unbearable events in life. After you discover you can set tough goals and prevail, you realize you can accomplish almost anything you put your mind to.
“You don’t have to look to the marvels of the Benoits, the Coes, the world-class to find your heroes; look inward to your own struggle and discover yourself. What you find may startle you, it may expose you to a whole gamut of emotions, but it will never bore you. And, as Theodore Roosevelt promised, your place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – from Running Your Best, Epilogue by Ron Daws
Got the idea on Steve Hoag’s birthday. He would’ve been seventy-three the day I thought, hold it, you write about gone folks you never knew all the time. Like you write about people you never talked to. I reference my legendary Mike Ditka piece. https://www.jackdogwelch.com/?p=8786
Anyway, where was I? I can do the same thing with runners. I can, too. And because Ron Daws was so important to Steve Hoag, pulled together what I could, wasn’t a lot… I am gonna start with him.
I pretty much did start with Daws myself. Burfoot, Vitale and Jobski. Buddy Edelen. Started with them.
Ron Daws (1937-1992)
(from the 1996 Souhrada Family Newsletters and various sources)
Ronald (Ron) Harold Daws
Born: June 21, 1937
Died: July 28, 1992
Father: Harold Earl Daws (1910-1942)
Mother: Bernice Kelly Daws (1891-1983)
Wife: Marlene Larson Slettehaugh
Three Children: Kathleen (Kathy), Darryl, Aaron
Ron is the grandson of Barbara (Souhrada) Daws
He was so slow in the first year of high school track, he quit the team. A teammate insisted he give it one more try and he managed to run 5:22 as a soph. Hard work led to 5:02 as a junior and 4:41 his senior year. More hard work didn’t help all that much. Think 4:30 and a 9:43 two-mile as a collegiate. “I started off so slow,” he was known to say, “I couldn’t help but get better.”
Ron Daws Personal Records
1M: 4:25
2M 9:09
3M 14:09.8
10K 31:15
10M 51:09
20K 1:04:07
15M 1:18:10
25K 1:21:14
Marathon 2:20:23 (4th place Boston 1969)
Ron Daws Boston Marathon Training, circa 1967
by Twin Cities Track Club
Excerpt from April 1967 issue of The Long Distance Log, one year before Daws would place third in the Olympic Marathon Trials in Alamosa and earn a spot on the 1968 Olympic Team. Daws eventually authored a few training books, including The Self Made Olympian, Running Your Best, and others. He also coached many local athletes, including coaching Steve Hoag to a second-place finish in the 1975 BAA Boston Marathon, where Hoag ran a near 5-minute personal best, 2:11:54.
Daws would place 18th in the 1967 BAA Boston Marathon, finishing in 2:28:42, about 5 minutes off his personal best. His best finish at Boston was in 1969 when he finished 4th place, in a career best of 2 hours, 20 minutes, and 23 seconds. You can read his interview from the 1967 issue of the Long Distance Log, HERE. Page 11.
In preparing for the Boston Marathon I go through three phases of training, starting from scratch
with 5-mile runs. (In November after 4 weeks rest).
1st phase- Long runs to get in good general condition. Up to 125 miles/week. (8-10 weeks)
Example Week
Sunday- 20 miles
Monday- 15 miles
Tuesday- 18 miles
Wednesday- 12 miles fartlek
Thursday- 18 miles
Friday- 15 miles
Saturday- 15 miles
2nd phase- 2-3 days interval work on indoor track & hill work (8 weeks)
Example Week
Sunday- 22-25 miles
Monday- 6-7 sets of 10 x 110y each (15 seconds)
Tuesday- Hill workout (Lydiard)
Wednesday- Interval workout
Thursday- Lydiard’s hill workout
Friday- Hill workout
Saturday- On track: 1-3 mile time trial or intervall workout
3rd phase- Marathon Training.
Example Week
Sunday- 30 miles
Monday- Hill or 80 x 110 yards
Tuesday- Hill workout
Wednesday- Interval workout
Thursday- 18 miles
Friday- 15 miles
Saturday- Longer intervals (i.e. 10 x mile or 3 x 5-mile)
“In Alamosa Colorado, seven days before the ’68 Olympic Trials, all the runners herded into the college dorm to watch the ’64 Games film. During the marathon coverage, Abebe Bikila came into focus as he “floated” down the Japanese thoroughfare…”Bikila’s expression was intense, not a frown but forever unsmiling as he patiently drew away from Ron Clarke and the rest of the world. He was immune to the noisy crowd, the other runners, his healing appendectomy…everything. His gaze on the road ahead never faltered and his cheeks and lips quivered with each stride as though he were counting. His determination and excellence were classi and so intense that a shudder went through me. My eyes collected water until it seemed I was watching through a rain-streaked window. “in that moment, I knew I had to get into the Games. I wasn’t sure how I would do it, but I knew I had to be a part of them.”
Random quote from snowshoemag.com. Minnesotan Ron Daws used one technique in training that Zátopek favored when Daws unexpectedly qualified for the U.S. marathon team for the 1968 Mexico Olympics: wearing heavy clothing to acclimate and simulate the heat in a summer race.
Here’s the complete, never-before-fully-told story of that event by Amby Burfoot. https://www.rrca.org/news-articles/news-archives/2018/07/26/alamosa-1968-the-historic-first-u.s.-olympic-marathon-trials Promise me you’ll come back.
“There is more to failing than picking yourself up out of the dust, brushing off the grime, and trudging onward. For every defeat, there is a victory inside waiting to be let out if the runner can get past feeling sorry for himself.”
SYNOPSIS OF RUNNING CAREER OF RON DAWS
1953 Began running at Central High School, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1960 Declared Outstanding Cross Country Runner at University of Minnesota
1967 National Marathon Champion-represented USA at Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada
1968 Placed third in National Marathon
1968 Member of USA Olympic Team running 22nd in Mexico City, Mexico
1969 Placed 4th in Boston Marathon (placed 1st from USA)
1969 Represented USA in Korean Marathon
1969 Raced at London, Ontario, Canada
1970 Achieved 2nd place in National Marathon
1973 Placed 1st of the Americans who ran in Kosica, Czechoslovakia
1974 Placed 21st in Boston Marathon
1978 Ran Choysa Marathon in Auckland, New Zealand
1980 Ran 10 Mile in New Zealand
1980 Ran Half Marathon in London, England
1980 Ran Marathona Atlantica Boavista, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
1981 Ran Marathona Atlantica Boavista, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
1982 Ran 10 KM Road Race in Auckland, New Zealand
1986 Inducted into the Road Runners Club of America Hall of Fame
Ron Daws was a runner who competed in the 1968 Olympic Marathon in Mexico. Daws helped organized the Minnesota Road Runners Club. He began training intensively for the 1968 Olympics about four years beforehand. He finished 22nd of 82 runners in Mexico City on October 20, 1968. For a period of five or six years, following the Olympics, Ron took his family with him for two weeks into the mountains near Colorado Springs, to a Running Camp. Here he lectured and coached runners. He continued running marathons until 1983 and took many pupils under his wing. From the mid-1960s to the middle-1980s there wasn’t anybody who ran in Minnesota who didn’t come into contact with Ron Daws. He was the guru of the running community.
In Ron’s first book, The Self-Made Olympian, he explained the New Zealand runner and coach Arthur Lydiard’s system. His second book, Running Your Best, also included workout charts, quotes and anecdotes gathered from 25 years at the top of his sport. He also wrote articles for Runner’s World magazine. He was commissioned by the magazine to paint watercolor collages of five or six famous runners. His work was published in the magazine’s 1988 Olympic section. He also illustrated his second book.
He continued to run 10k and 5-mile races but fell in love with cross-country skiing. He said running was great but skiing far excelled it.
Joe Henderson’s Writings
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Ron Daws
(This piece is for my latest book titled Pacesetters: Runners Who Informed Me Best and Inspired Me Most. I am posting an excerpt here each week, this one from August 1992.) [Joe is currently in rehab, recovering apace – long and slow -from a big stroke. – JDW]
OLYMPIAN DAWS.
History repeats. Suddenly it is 1984 all over again for me.
That year’s Olympics had just begun in Los Angeles when my car radio reported, “A famous running author has died while running in Vermont. Jim Fixx…”
Now the Games had just opened in Barcelona when I came home to find a note: “Call Jim Ferstle. Has sad news.”
The running writer from the Twin Cities told me, “Ron Daws died last night.” The news hit me like an aftershock.
Fixx was my friend, yes, but beyond that he was a friend to every runner who read his books. So was Daws. They’d started out much differently as runners, but their stories ended much the same way.
Jim Fixx was a late-starting runner. He’d been an overweight smoker in his mid-30s, then became a 10-mile-a-day runner who still couldn’t outrun his old habits or a terrible family history of heart disease. He was 52 when he died from blocked arteries.
Ron Daws started running as a kid and never stopped. He made the 1968 Olympic team as a marathoner, and few Americans have ever gone further on less talent.
Ron never smoked, was never heavy and had no worrisome family history. He had just turned 55 when he died from what the autopsy report said was advanced coronary disease.
Such attacks seldom if ever come without warnings, says Dr. George Sheehan. Ron had warnings scattered among some very good runs. He had to stop and walk during a five-mile race in June.
Yet he later took a 37-mile trail run while vacationing in Canada. His last weekend, he complained of slowness and stomach pain during a 14-mile run on Friday. Yet he came back on Sunday, his next-to-last day, to run trouble-free for 2½ hours.
Jim Fixx was a cerebral man whose last moments were active. Ron Daws was a restless man who died in his sleep.
Two memories of Ron stand out. The first was meeting him at the Olympic Village in Mexico City before he ran his marathon. He was studying the assembly-line shoes in a shop and pointing out why those he cobbled himself at home were superior.
The second memory was working with him as editor of his book, The Self-Made Olympian. He hated the title I gave it, disputed much of the editing and didn’t swallow his objections quietly.
In both cases I remember the somewhat wild look he got in his pale blue eyes when he mounted a crusade. Ron was seldom pleased with things as they were, whether constantly tinkering with shoes, with training systems or working on his book.
Lorraine Moller heard of Ron’s passing as she was about to run the Olympic Marathon in Barcelona. She was once married to Ron Daws, who as her coach introduced Lorraine to this event.
It would be nice to think that as she ran that marathon, she remembered the words Ron ran by – and later wrote and coached by: “You can do better than this.” At age 37 she upset all forecasts by winning the bronze medal.
UPDATE. Before his passing, Ron Daws succeeded in revising and retitling The Self-MadeOlympian to his liking. He called this edition Running Your Best: The Committed Runner’s Guide to Training and Racing.
Ron’s ex-wife Lorraine Moller had a long and diverse racing career. She competed internationally for New Zealand at 800 meters when that was the longest distance open to women and later in their first Olympic Marathon, in 1984.
Lorraine was the only woman to run the first four marathons at the Games, the final time in Atlanta at age 41. She later published a book, titled On the Wings of Mercury.
I couldn’t find an actual obituary for Ron.
Closest I decided was by running pioneer Ted Corbitt. Daws and Corbett tussled a time or two.
IN MEMORIAM RON DAWS 1937-1992
Former U.S. Olympic Marathoner Ron Daws has died at age 55.
Daws once served as Chairman of the Road Runners Club of America Standards Committee. The RRCA Standards Committee, established in 1964, was mainly concerned with the certification of accuracy of long distance race courses. Course certification also facilitated the administration of the RRCA’ s Standards Certificates Program. In the latter, three running performances, at different distances, in specified times, earned runners an RRC Standards Time Certificate.
Eventually, the RRCA Standards Commitee, plagued with minimal cooperation from road race directors, went out of the course certification business, and the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU} Standards Committee, chaired by Ted Corbitt, of New York City, took over the whole program of course certification in the U.S.A. This AAU Sub- Committee on Standards was originally set up to certify National AAU Junior and Senior Championship Courses, and to improve the lot of long distance runners. Today, this combined effort continues to evolve and to advance the cause of accurate race courses as the Road Running Technical Council (RRTC} of TAC/USA.
Ron Daws was born June 21, 1937, in Minneapolis, MN. He died in 1992, as the Barcelona Olympic Games were getting underway, of advanced coronary disease. He reportedly was a non-smoker, was never overweight, and had no family history of heart disease. However, he had not felt well during the last two months of his life.
In 1960, Daws graduated from the University of Minnesota, where he was a teammate of Buddy Edelen, who in 1963, set a world best marathon time of 2:14:28, and who finished sixth in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic marathon race. By 1969, both Daws and Edelen were serving on the AAU Sub-Committee on Standards.
Daws worked as a Research Analyst for the State of Minnesota, and later he lectured on running. Daws got married and had several children. He was once married to marathoner Lorraine Moller, age 37 (Competing for New Zealand} who copped the bronze medal in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Marathon, just after Daws died.
Highlights of Daws’ running career included the following: Daws helped to start a regular long distance racing program, and to start accurate race course measurement in the State of Minnesota. He ran his first marathon in 1963, in 2:41. His career best was 2:20:23. He finished in the top ten in the Boston Marathon four times. Daws broke American track records for 15 miles and for 25Kilometers.
Daws built a treadmill in his basement to get in some sensible workouts on cold Minnesota winter mornings. He won the 1967 National AAU Marathon Championship on a brutally hot day, on a hilly course, and he made the Pan Am Team. In 1968, he journeyed to high altitude in Colorado and made the U.S. Olympic Marathon team. However, attacks of sciatica affected his performances in both the Pan AM and the Olympic Marathon races.
His hobbies included photography, painting, and playing the guitar. He spent a lot of time making, altering, and repairing running shoes.
Daws was an active running enthusiast from early childhood until he “cashed in his chips.” (to use one of his favorite expressions}. In recent years, he continued to run, but his main competitive fires were quenched doing cross-country skiing.
We who remain, can say a prayer for Ron Daws’• spirit, in appreciation of his efforts to keep the momentum of the emerging course measuring movement alive.
He did this at a time when it was very difficult to find volunteers to do these kinds of behind the scenes, unsung tasks.
New York City, New. York
0.9-/14/92
Ted Corbitt
https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2792874
https://runmdra.org/mdra-races/ron-daws-25k/
hansonsrun@hansonsrun·Oct 2, 2018 Although you may not have heard of RON DAWS no one book has ever done more for shaping the way I view training for the marathon than his story. “The Self Made Olympian”. A must read for self discipline and dedication to a goal. #RunningHistory
