Buddy Edelen might’ve been the original Original Gangster Of Running. “When he ran, a change came over him,” Fred Wilt wrote about Edelen. “You could see the amiability in him right to the time the gun sounded. Then his eyes darkened, his features flattened, his chest expanded, he stood up a little straighter. As the race progressed he had a quality almost like meanness. He just would not let up.”
STRAIGHT MAN IN A TWISTY RACE
A Forgotten Expatriate, Buddy Edelen Returns To Yonkers To Prove He Is The Best American Marathon Runner Ever.
JOHN LOVESEY for Sports Illustrated. June 1, 1964
Marathoners are a breed unto themselves, and Buddy Edelen (he pronounces the name eedalen), the forgotten American who has run the fastest and third-fastest marathons of all time and may become the first from his country to win the event in the Olympics since Johnny Hayes’s victory in 1908, is no exception. He runs races minus socks. Whenever he eats a beef sandwich he first removes the top layer of bread to rip all the fat from the meat. In competition, before pinning an identifying number to his chest he will tear off any excess paper from around the actual numeral itself, on the theory that the least amount of weight or wind resistance to overcome is best for his time.
His eccentricities begin early. His first action upon awakening each morning, even before he springs out of bed, is to reach for his wrist and check his pulse to see that it is throbbing along at a steady 38 per minute. His pulse, his weight, his hours of sleep, details of his workout and numerous other items concerning his well-being that day will be carefully recorded on paper before he turns in that night and eventually mailed to Fred Wilt, the old Indiana long-distance runner. Wilt is now an FBI man but he has never lost his taste for track, and in what spare time he has left from chasing down bank robbers and most-wanted criminals he carries on a voluminous correspondence with coaches and athletes around the world. He has coached Edelen by mail since 1960, and last Sunday the thousands of words and hundreds of 15¢ postage stamps seemed eminently worthwhile. In a U.S. Olympic marathon trial, Edelen fought off humid, 90° temperatures on the hilly 26-mile 385-yard Yonkers, N.Y. course and won by almost four miles, thereby becoming the first track man to be selected for the U.S. Olympic team.
Hardly a facet of marathon running exists that Wilt and Edelen have not investigated at some time, including running in training without taking a breath. Edelen reached a stage where he could exhale and sprint 300 yards before gasping another lungful. He once tried running to music by carrying a transistor radio, but the problem was keeping the set on the correct station as he pounded along. “I would love to run to the music of Quo Vadis,” says Edelen, “but I get bebop.” Wilt even had Edelen hypnotized, planting the suggestion in his mind that pain is pleasure, but the precaution was useless. If Edelen had not already become convinced of that masochistic theory he probably would not be running marathons in the first place.
Edelen’s odd behavior could, with little trouble, guarantee him a place in the first ranks of health faddists. This, however, is exactly what he is not. Like almost no other finely conditioned athlete you have ever heard of, Edelen drinks beer almost every day, smokes occasionally to calm his nerves, has a fine sense of humor and pursues—and is pursued by—pretty European girls, who often grow quite emotional over “Boody’s” light brown hair, hazel eyes, long, pointed ears and narrow, whimsical chin. A Midwesterner who went with a gang of roughnecks in his youth, skirting the edge of juvenile delinquency, Edelen has taught English to English schoolchildren at King John’s School in Thundersley since 1960, and by living the way he does has done more to enhance the image of athletics in England than any other performer since Chris Chataway, who smoked a cigar in front of the Russians after beating iron man (and ulcer ridden) Vladimir Kuts.
But all is not just fun and games for Leonard Graves Edelen IV, a former resident, among numerous places, of Sioux Falls, S. Dak., where high schoolers spent their Saturdays this spring washing cars to raise money to bring him to Yonkers. At 7 a.m. on a damp English morning an alarm clock breaks the silence of his bed-sitting room in Westcliff in Essex, and he rises. Normally he would sleep naked, but to keep warm in his cold room he goes to bed wearing his running shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. This is useful because when he gets out of bed all he has to do is pull a sweat shirt over his head and put on his soft running shoes. Bunched up slightly, as if to ward off the chill, he next moves across the room, which is decorated with trophies, to a stove. He brews himself enough coffee for two cups, makes some toast, on which he spreads honey, and reads the morning newspaper. About an hour later, after pinning his door key to his shorts and pulling a woolen hat down over his ears, he goes downstairs to the street.
As Edelen snaps into action he looks somewhat like a surprised rooster in full flight. His feet peck at the ground with a precise rhythm, but he seems to be sitting back on his heels, and his arms frequently move as if they are in a transport of their own. The style is ugly and defies logic, but the pace is as regular as a Beatle beat.
The run takes him to school, where he has left the clothes he will teach in that day. It is four and a half miles long and most of it steadily uphill. When he arrives after 25 minutes he does 25 to 30 situps in the school gym before taking a shower. At lunchtime all he eats is a single cheese sandwich. If he ate more, he says, he would not be ready for the training runs he takes after school.
Each Sunday, Edelen goes for a 23-mile run in the morning, and then generally increases the total mileage for the day to 28 by going out in the evening to do a steady two-mile run followed by 10-times-110 easy strides followed by a two-mile run home. On Tuesdays he follows his run home from school with roughly a dozen quarter miles at about 64 to 65 seconds each, with a minute’s jog between. After school on Wednesday he does a 15-mile run at a faster pace than the 23-mile run on Sunday. He totals about 120 miles of running a week, and when it is warm he sometimes has a swim in the sea. Frequently his training carries him from Westcliff-on-Sea into neighboring Southend, which is a minor sort of Coney Island, with gaudy signs advertising amusements, novelty hats—on which are printed slogans like “I am a Virgin (Islander)”—fish and chips, eels and oysters. In the summer when the promenade is crammed with holiday-makers, the sight of Edelen grinding out his relentless schedule provokes occasional laughter. In a rare moment of bitterness Edelen remarked: “You wonder where the hell they were in January.”
Edelen’s evenings are spent either with an English family or in a local pub. He drinks beer because his stomach cannot take food too soon after his vigorous workouts. Normally he manages two or three pints of his favorite drink, Guinness stout, which contains a mixture of vitamins, mineral salts and protein that not only replaces Edelen’s lost body fluid but provides sustenance in an easily assimilated form. It also helps Edelen, an insomniac, to sleep and, as Edelen points out, England’s national health service prescribes Guinness for nursing mothers.
Before dropping into bed each night Edelen cooks his main solid meal of the day, normally just a piece of grilled meat or fish. The only other usual items of his diet are a few peanuts and chocolate. Despite this, he seems almost absurdly convinced that he is a compulsive eater, but his concern is understandable. Marathon runners have to be thin, since a thinner body gets rid of heat more quickly.
By such strenuous methods Buddy Edelen has developed himself into the best marathon runner the United States has ever had. An American, however, could not be faulted for wondering whether, after Edelen’s long residence in England, he was still an American at all. To hear him talk you would not think so. He says “shan’t” when he probably should say “won’t.” He calls his apartment a flat. He refers to his track clothes as his kit. He speaks with a broad accent, causing his pupils in school to remark that while he does not sound entirely English, he does not really sound Yankee either. Touring Russia last summer with the American track team, he proved a source of amusement to his comrades because of his queer speech. After several weeks of associating only with Americans, however, his accent began to fade. “You’re starting to sound almost human again,” his teammates informed him.
Buddy Edelen was born in Harrods-burg, Ky., and his early life was a series of disturbing upsets and crushing frustrations. His mother was put in a hospital when he was only 7, and he has not seen her since. His father, now a successful Sioux Falls television executive, worked on the road during Buddy’s youth and had little time for his son. Buddy lived for a while with his mother’s sister. When his father moved to Wisconsin, he put Buddy into a Roman Catholic boarding school where, although not a Catholic, he began to contemplate a life as a priest. His father eventually remarried, and it was after this that Buddy, never getting on too well with his stepmother, came close to becoming a delinquent.
A life of crime eventually faded in favor of a life of track. In running Buddy Edelen found peace of mind. “No one really accepts you as being sane if you run as much as I do a week,” he confesses. “But if I rest a day or two after doing this tremendous amount of exercise. I feel very irritable and nervous. It’s as if something has been stolen from me. Training gives me a feeling of tranquillity.
“The reason I took up distance running as opposed to sprinting is merely that I’m virtually devoid of any natural speed,” he says (although the facts do not support him). “I’m just a plodder. Track runners consider me very, very slow. They say I have no kick, and that if they’re with me in the last 400 yards they’re bound to get past. Marathon men, on the other hand, think I’m fantastically fast. “Beware of Edelen in the last mile,’ they say. But this is only because I mix track running with marathon running. The fastest I’ve run the mile is about 4:16 or 4:17 on the way to two miles. I would say the more speed you have the faster you will be able to run the marathon. If you have God-given speed to run a mile in four minutes and the mental tenacity to develop the endurance, there’s no predicting what times are possible. I foresee men running the marathon in 1 hour and 50 minutes.”
Edelen’s first sport was not running but football. His father remembers him as a left end who “wasn’t very good, but once he got the ball no one could catch him.” Buddy scoffs at anything that tends to damage his largely self-made image as a plodder. Actually, he played tackle on the C squad at St. Louis Park High School in Minneapolis, where his family lived for a short while. A hernia operation before his sophomore year ended an unpromising football career. He was then four inches below his present height of 5 feet 10 inches, but weighed 155 pounds and was known, not always flatteringly, as “Butterball Bud.” His stepmother urged him to run track to slim down. Though now 135 pounds, he still has a weight problem and can put on 10 pounds merely by not training for two days.
Edelen worked hard during his last two years of high school, spent in Sioux Falls, won the mile in the South Dakota state championships and received scholarship offers from Minnesota and Nebraska. He chose Minnesota, but because his father’s financial condition was good, he could receive only partial aid. He had to work to support himself, and one of his summer jobs almost proved fatal. Repairing a roof in 120° heat, he collapsed. Rushed to a hospital, he was found to be almost completely dehydrated. He had also developed acute lung congestion and kidney trouble which even now bother him when he has pushed his training too hard.
At Minnesota, Edelen set several records in winning Big Ten track and cross-country titles and might have done better if he had not been dogged by injuries. The conference track championships in 1959 at Purdue altered his career. There he met Fred Wilt. Soon after, Wilt arranged through a Helsinki businessman for Edelen to travel to Finland that summer to work and compete in track meets. He was severely trounced by the more mature European distance runners, but he learned fast, returned to the United States, set an American record for 10,000 meters and then, stunningly, finished far back in the Olympic trials. Wilt blames the failure on Edelen’s obsession with his weight. “I think he didn’t eat enough,” says Wilt. “He had a blood test right after the race and we discovered his hemoglobin count was down to 12.5 grams per 100 cc. This means he was even more than anemic.”
Wilt later arranged Edelen’s present teaching job through Derek Cole, an English friend. Edelen arrived in England in 1960 and, except for one brief visit to America to run in several indoor track meets, he has not been home since. Says Edelen: “I was so happy living in England that at the end of six months I decided to stay on longer. I kept saying to myself that next year I’d be going back home, but I never have.”
In England he first gained prominence in 1961 by winning an important 20-mile road race. Then in April 1962, he won a 10-mile race in 48:31.8. This was the fourth fastest time in history and an American record. That June he ran the first marathon of his life, the classic Windsor to Chiswick race on the outskirts of London, a race that is occasionally started by the Queen.
Edelen says, somewhat facetiously, that he entered the event just for the chance to meet the Queen. After being introduced to Queen Elizabeth, it was all downhill, and he finished a bedraggled ninth. Edelen swore off the marathon. “I didn’t ever want to go through as much pain, torture and hell again,” recalls Edelen. “I was actually crying.”
Swearing off the marathon is something that all marathoners do but, like alcoholics recovered from a lost weekend, promptly forget. Edelen’s school headmaster persuaded him to have another go. In a gale-force wind, Edelen won the Cardiff marathon in 2 hours 22 minutes, missing Jim Peters’ course record by mere seconds. “That’s when I decided I’d found my event,” says Edelen.
He truly had. Last May he entered the Athens marathon and won in 2 hours 23.6 minutes, cutting 38 seconds off the previous course record set by 1960 Olympic Champion Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia. Within four weeks he lined up for the Windsor to Chiswick marathon again. The Queen was not there this time, unfortunately, for Edelen was in good form. “I knew I was moving with tremendous mechanical efficiency,” he said later. “At 15 miles I thought to myself, ‘Not much more than 10 left,’ and I went.” With a slight breeze to push him, he averaged just over five minutes for each mile and won in 2 hours 14:28 minutes, a time that was 47.8 seconds faster than the world’s best previous performance, by Toru Terasawa of Japan. The English papers groused for a while over whether or not the course was 60 yards short, a purely academic discussion since, because of varying terrains, no official world records are accepted in the marathon. But the importance of Edelen’s performance could not be overlooked, nor could the fact that he duplicated his form at Kosice, Czechoslovakia, Europe’s most famous marathon, four months later. There, before 30,000 spectators at the finish line (with perhaps double that number having watched him on the course), Edelen won by half a mile over Russia’s Sergei Popov in 2 hours 15:09.6 minutes, the fastest time ever recorded on an out-and-back course and the third best marathon of all time.
Despite its obvious propaganda value, hardly a word of Edelen’s victory leaked out to the United States. But then marathon running, outside of Boston, has rarely excited the juices of the American public. “Quite honestly they couldn’t care less how I run over here,” Edelen said before leaving England for the Yonkers’ Olympic trials, “and you can rest assured the AAU will not lift a finger to bring me back no matter how well I run. I’m looking out for No. 1, myself, now, and I shall remain in the environment I enjoy until just before the trials.”
A man of his word, Edelen arrived in Yonkers three days before the race. The midsummer weather could not have been worse for a person who had trained in the cool of an English spring, but Edelen ignored the heat that all but fried his nearest competitors. He finished a full 20 minutes ahead of Adolph Gruber and announced, “I did it on my alcoholic reserve.”
Edelen is now confident that he is in the best condition of his life. “I believe in the theory,” he says, “that if a man is subjected to a certain degree of stress over a period of time, his body gradually adapts itself to tolerate the strains. I think that each year you must become stronger and stronger. You either get better in this game or you get worse. You must move on to harder and faster training every year, to a certain degree. I have found over the past few years, apart from a few days and some minor pains, I haven’t really been forced out of action at all. The longest period of time I’ve gone without training has been three days in the last four years.”
If only because he has brought a stimulating originality to the exhausting world of long-distance running, Edelen would be a most welcome winner at the Olympics. After his triumph at Kosice another American marathoner, Hal Higdon, whose training habits are impeccable but who barely got back into the stadium to witness the award ceremony, was astounded to see the conqueror of the Soviets pull out a pack of cigarettes.
“That does it,” sighed Higdon. “I’m taking up beer and cigarettes.”
“No, no,” pleaded Edelen. “First you must train bloody hard. Think of how good I might be if I didn’t have these vices.”
What follows immediately is by Ben Fish for VintageRunning.com
America’s Buddy Edelen is one of marathons forgotten heroes, and is relatively unknown even in his homeland. What makes this so bizarre is the fact that in 1963, he became America’s first world record holder in the marathon since 1925 and thus became the nation’s first sub 2hr 20 and 2hr 15 marathoner.
Most runners will have heard of Frank Shorter or Bill Rodgers, but if one was to mention Buddy Edelen the common reply would be “Buddy who?”, a comical yet tragic quote that he used to joke about with his friend and former rival, Hal Higdon.
So why is Buddy Edelen such an unknown?
There are two main reasons; he spent his prime years (1960 – 1964) living and working in England, meaning that most of his phenomenal performances went unnoticed in the US. Another reason was the fact that he didn’t compete in the Boston marathon, which in those days, was “the” marathon to win and was virtually an unofficial world championship race.
Buddy’s unusual career had a straightforward start; he was a promising middle distance collegiate runner at the University of Minnesota and boasted solid personal bests of 4:29 for the mile and 9:03 for two miles in 1958. After graduating, Buddy was keen to carry on pursuing his running career and it was around this time that he met his coach and mentor, Fred Wilt.
Wilt was an ambitious coach who was hoping to spot talented young athletes with a strong work ethic in a bid to improve the standard of distance running in the States, which had fallen behind world standards over the past 20 years. He was influenced by the tough training regimes of Jim Peters and Emil Zatopek in the 1950’s. His idea was simple but brutal; Zatopek sessions of high intervals, Peters’ regular hard running at race pace, along with a weekly long run close to marathon distance on the road. In Buddy Edelen, he had a runner who could put those ideas into practice.
After meeting Fred Wilt, Edelen’s life started to take a completely different path. At his coach’s suggestion, he moved to Finland and trained out there for a few months, so that he could train and race with better runners whilst doing placement work as a teacher. Shortly after, he had an opportunity to teach in London and after consulting Wilt, was urged to do so as it would be perfect for his running.
It was 1960 and Britain was the leading nation in distance running after a post war boom in all events from the half-mile to marathon. Buddy embraced the British tradition of cross country running and initially fellow rivals and spectators thought it was an interesting novelty witnessing an American competing on the boggy cross country courses in a harsh winter, but it wasn’t long before he was a genuine threat in the big races. Edelen kept a thorough training diary and would post off his weekly training to his coach, which would duly be sent back with detailed feedback and plans for future schedules. Wilt was very impressed with his progress; he was now doing over 100 miles per week consistently and was competing with some of Britain’s best on their home turf.
His performances on the track had also improved and he managed to be the first American to beat the modest mark of 30 minutes for 10k. Despite establishing himself as a competent runner at world level, his exploits went largely unnoticed across the pond.
It wasn’t long before Edelen attempted his first marathon, which proved to be an unpleasant experience due to naive preparation, largely due to doing two tough sessions in the final week and an ill-advised smoked mackerel lunch on the day of the race! He staggered in with 2hr 31, over 10 minutes behind the winner, Ron Hill. Determined to make amends, he signed up for the Welsh marathon a month later and his form was good, in the lead up to the race he ran a solid 28:26 in the AAA’s six-mile championships, whilst it only gave him 9th place, it did give him a new US record.
In the final week, he still did sessions on Tuesday (40x 400m in 73’s) and Wednesday (2x 2 mile: 9:54, 9:57), though not as hard as previously. He then rested on Thursday and Friday and avoided mackerel before the race. His main rival would be Salford Harrier’s notorious runner, John Tarrant. The pace was initially reserved, covering the first 5 miles in 29:41, then it picked up with Edelen and Tarrant pulling away from the rest of the field. After 15 miles, Edelen made his move and was out in front on his own, he went on to win in 2hr 22:33, just a few seconds off Jim Peters’ course record.
With renewed confidence, Buddy started to focus more on the marathon. He got an invite to compete in the Kosice marathon in October 1962 and he ran solidly in windy conditions only losing out on victory in a sprint finish against Kantorek in 2hr 28:29. Only a couple of months later, he was competing in the Fukuoka marathon. Mamo Wolde set off at a fast pace, 30k was passed in 1hr 37:33 with Edelen only 50 seconds behind in 3rd. Buddy held on to 3rd, just finishing ahead of Kantorek by one second in 2hr 18:56, the first time an American had broken 2hr 20!
Things got even better in 1963, he ran in the AAA’s 10 mile in a tough battle against Mel Batty, the first mile was covered in 4:41 and halfway was reached in a blistering 23:59. Edelen couldn’t stay with Batty in the final stages, but held it together to finish less than 20 seconds behind in 48:28, which again, was another US record. Later in April he went on to win the Finchley 20 comfortably in 1hr 45:12. By now he was up there with the world’s best and had high hopes of competing in the much coveted Boston marathon, it would be the perfect opportunity to garner some much deserved recognition from his home nation. Unfortunately the organiser, Jock Semple was unable to raise enough funds and Buddy couldn’t afford the cost of arranging his own travel across. He did get an invite to compete in the Athens marathon, which obviously had a huge amount of prestige, but with a course record of 2hr 23:44 set by Bikila, it clearly wasn’t a fast course.
Edelen felt he had a chance of bagging the record and he reached 30k out in front and on schedule in 1hr 42. He ran the next 12k solidly and just about managed the record in 2hr 23:06, his best result to date. Next month was the Polytechnic marathon and he would be up against defending champion Ron Hill, who finished well ahead of him last year. This time Buddy was a very different marathoner and was prepared to go out at whatever pace was necessary. 5 miles was reached in 26:15 and 10 miles was passed in 52:20. The race was shaping up as a battle between Edelen, Hill and Juan Taylor, with the group picking up the pace, passing 15 miles in 1hr 17:03. Shortly after, Edelen started to pull clear with Hill trying to give chase, but Buddy was still increasing the gap, which had extended to nearly two minutes by 21 miles (1hr 47:55). He went on to finish in 2hr 14:28, not only was it a course record, but he’d knocked 47 seconds off the world record! It had been nearly 40 years since an American last achieved this momentous feat!
Not one to rest on his laurels, Edelen then went on to compete in the Kosice marathon again and this time he came out a convincing winner, setting a course record that would last for over 20 years. This phenomenal running still didn’t seem to impress the AAU (American Athletic Union) enough to allow Edelen to miss the US trails for the Tokyo Olympics; he would have to compete and win the Yonkers marathon. Whilst this may have seemed a straight-forward task, Edelen had a huge disadvantage against the other Americans; the most obvious one being that he’d have to travel thousands of miles on a budget with limited time off work. Not only this, but he’d have to acclimatise to the hot conditions, something that would be difficult when living in England. His way of dealing with the latter issue was to train heavily layered up in long sleeve tops and sweatshirts with jogging pants when out running, with the aim of getting used to running hard and being uncomfortably hot!
There was still plenty more racing throughout 1963 and within a couple of months he set another American record for 6 miles, running 28:00 for 4th in the AAA’s. The next marathon was Kosice in October, where he would be up against previous world record holder Sergey Popov of the Soviet Union and Britain’s Basil Heatley. There was also two Ethiopians running, Biratu Wami and Demissie Wolde. For the first 20k, the race was being disputed by these five competitors, but shortly after half-way, Popov was dropped. The Ethiopians constantly threw in 200 yard surges and managed to drop all but Edelen and in the last few miles, he unleashed a surge of his own, pulling away to win in 2hr 15:09, a course record that would last until 1978. It was a performance that Buddy rated as being better than his world record run, due to the nature of the course and the tough competition.
1964 would be the biggest year of his career; all the training and racing he had done was geared towards the Olympics in Tokyo, and the ultimate goal was the gold medal. First he would have to make the team, world record holder or not, for an American runner to represent their country they had to qualify for the team in a trial. This year it would be in the Yonkers marathon, in temperatures likely be in excess of 85 degrees Fahrenheit. The race was in May, so Edelen got to it and prepared as best he could, which meant running over 135 miles per week. Though it seemed crazy, it clearly worked; as it was indeed very hot in the race; 91 degrees Fahrenheit! He would be up against America’s finest; Johnny Kelley, who was still only 33 years old despite being a class marathoner for nearly a decade, who had an incredible record of eight consecutive wins in this race. The conditions forced the race to a cautious start and 10 miles was covered in a reserved 55 minutes. Edelen then started to increase the pace and moved away from Kelley and Hal Higdon with Norm Higgins managing to stay close to him until 15 miles, but then ended up blacking out after 20 miles! Edelen still didn’t let up and finished well in 2hr 24:25, but the statistics that really impress was that he won by a whole 20 minutes from Adolph Gruber and Johnny Kelley, and out of the 128 competitors only 37 finished!
Now Tokyo bound and one of the favourites for the gold medal in October, Edelen received some much deserved recognition from the American press. Sadly it was after the Yonkers marathon that things would start to go wrong. In that summer he started get niggles and twinges in his hips, legs and lower back, which was starting to hamper his training; the early signs of sciatica. It meant that Edelen was going into the Olympic marathon with less than ideal preparation; June and July was patchy by his standards and he was only able to get together some consistent training by late August.
By the time of the race, Edelen felt he was close to his best form, but the injury issues had planted a seed of doubt. The biggest threat was the defending champion, Abebe Bikila from Ethiopia. Australia’s track star, Ron Clarke took the field through 5k in 15:06, then 10k in 30:14. Bikila started to take over at 15k (45:35). Over a minute behind was Edelen, struggling with his sciatica and finding the pace tough. Bikila started to edge away from the field with only Jim Hogan giving chase at 20k (60:58), halfway was reached in a rapid 64:28, well under world record pace. Hogan gamely held on until 35k, when he ran himself to a standstill and was unable to finish. Buddy was managing to move through, but a medal was starting to look unlikely. By the end he managed to claw his way back to 6th in 2hr 18:24, but it was a distant six minutes behind Bikila who ran a new world record of 2hr 12:11. Britains Basil Heatley was 2nd in 2hr 16:19 and Japan’s Tsuburaya was 3rd in 2hr 16:22.
The sciatica continued to be a problem; in 1965 he won the Kefield marathon in Germany comfortably in a routine 2hr 21. Then it was another crack at the Polytechnic marathon, which would be a showdown against three Japanese runners; Teresawa, Shigematsu and Okabe. There would be no Ron Hill, Heatley (who retired) or Brain Kilby, so the British support was for the resident American. Early on Edelen fought hard to keep with the Japanese runners; 15 miles was covered in just over 1hr 15 and by 16 miles he could hold on no longer. Shigematsu won in 2hr 12 flat, a new world record with Terasawa 2nd in 2hr 13:41. Edelen finished 3rd in 2rh 14:34, only six seconds off his personal best, but it came with a heavy price; he later stated he “died a thousand deaths” in that race and the sciatica was terribly painful between 10 and 16 miles.
After five years in England, it was time for Buddy Edelen to return to the US, but by then his injury troubles only worsened. In 1966 he won the Denver marathon, despite the altitude and the conditions, it must still have been a very depressing result to cross the line in 2hr 51. It was the final nail in the coffin for Buddy, after all the hard work, his body couldn’t take anymore. The sub 2hr 15 result in London 12 months ago seemed a distant memory. It would prove to be his last race, and as with many class athletes, the final result didn’t do justice to such a great champion.
After his running career ended, he taught Psychology at Adams State, Colorado for a number of years. His life ended tragically short by cancer in 1997, he was just 59 years old.
Training
Edelen’s training was ahead of it’s time and one of the earliest examples of mixing fast paced runs, long runs and high interval sessions into a regime of over 130 miles per week. Even in the present day, his training is still relevant and provides a great example of how someone can run sub 2hr 15 marathons whilst holding down a full-time job. Here’s an example from 1963, the two weeks leading up to his world record:
Sun 2nd June: 11 miles steady road run. Mon 3rd: 23 miles steady in 2hr 04. Tue 4th: Session: 7 x (55 yrd jog, 55 yrd sprint, 110 jog, 110 sprint, 150 jog, 150 sprint, 220 jog, 220 sprint. Wed 5th: 11 miles in 55 minutes. Thur 6th: am: 6 miles hard. pm: Session: 4 x (440 yrd fast, 440 jog, 440 fast, 330 jog, 440 fast, 220 jog, 440 fast, 110 jog, 440 fast, 5 min walk). Averaged 64 secs on reps. Fri 7th: 20x 440 yrd (70 – 71) with 45 sec jog between each. Sat 8th: Club Match, Harlow: 1 mile (2nd in 4:23), 880 yrd (3rd, 2:07), then a 110 yrd leg in relay.
Sun 9th June: 23 miles in 2hr 01. Mon 10th: 4.5 miles home steady. Tue 11th: am: 4.5 miles to work fast. pm: Session: 25 x 440 yrd (66 / 67’s) with 220 jog between. Wed 12th: am: 4.5 miles to work. pm: 11 miles hard in 56 minutes. Thur 13th & Fri 14th: Rest. Sat 15th: Polytechnic Marathon, 1st, 2hr 14:28.
In 1964, a typical week looked like this:
Sun 23rd May: 28 miles in 2hr 39. Mon 24th: Rest. Tue 25th: am: 4.5 miles to work. pm: Session: 20x 440 yrd in 69-70 secs. 220 jog between. Wed 26th: am: 4.5 miles to work. pm: 15 miles in 1hr 18. Thur 27th: am: 4.5 miles to work. pm: Session: 25 x 220 fast with 220 jog. Fri 28th: am: 4.5 miles to work. pm: 11 miles in 58 minutes. Sat 29th: am: Session: 5 x 110 yard sprints, 10 x 770 yards in 1:55 with 350 slow jog between. pm: Session: 15x 150 yrd strides on grass.
Performances
6 miles: 28:00
10 miles: 48:28
Marathon: 2hr 14:28
My Buddy, Buddy Edelen by James Lujan
I just wanted to say..I knew Buddy…as a high school distance runner in Alamosa, Colorado in the 1960’s. I met buddy in 1965, one day on the road, seemingly just two runners who loved to run. We ran mile after mile until we ended our run that day…Silent, the two of us pushing each other.
He was past his prime by then…but still had hopes of earning a medal at the 68′ Mexico games. . As humble a man as I ever met. He invited me to run with him during his afternoon runs. He understood back then, the roads were empty of other runners and it got lonely and a training partner was refreshing. Buddy taught me his training techniques and cross training principles that helped me excel in my own right.
He taught about the four phases of training, and encouraged me more than anyone to keep the faith and enjoy the run. I will never forget that experience. Two years we ran together often…and before the entering into my senior years of high school, through his coaching and mentorship, he helped me unofficially break both the mile and two mile Colorado state records with times of 4:17, and 9:11, before going into the fall cross country season.
Unfortunately just days later I severely injured my ankle playing basketball- with torn ligaments in my right foot, I would not be able to run for months. So discouraged after nearly two years of daily training I never really recovered emotionally…before I decided to join the Army where I ended up going to Vietnam in 1968 just before the summer games. I knew Buddy came to Alamosa because of the high altitude that was similar to Mexico City’s at 7600 ft. above sea level.
But more than this, the high altitude, Buddy told me required less mileage than training at a lower altitude and this was to preserve unnecessary stress on an ailing back injury that had slowed him down in recent years. after setting the World Record and the first man to break 2:15 in the Marathon. Still, Buddy had hope of reaching his dream of an Olympic Medal, but his back injury would not allow him to do so… This was a great disappointment to him as he told me later when I came home from Vietnam.
But I will never forget him and what he taught me. Here’s to Buddy, my good friend, mentor and the most dedicated runner I had ever met…
BUDDY WHO? By DON SIKORSKI Special to the Bulletin. Mohegan Striders.
New Zealand’s Rod Dixon had just won a major road race in Tulsa, Oklahoma when a Race Official offering congratulations approached him. “My name is Buddy Edelen”, he said, to which Dixon’s reply was “Buddy Who?” Dixon meant no disrespect. It was just that Edelen, despite previously holding eight American track records and a marathon world best, wasn’t exactly a household name, even amongst the running community.
Leonard “Buddy” Edelen was born on September 22nd, 1937 in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. He moved to South Dakota, where he excelled as a high school distance runner, running 4:28 for the mile and going undefeated during his senior year in 1955. He went on to run at the University of Minnesota on a partial scholarship and raced with some decent success, but it wasn’t until Edelen’s postcollegiate years, living in Chelmsford, England and being coached but former two-time Olympian Fred Wilt, that he saw the results of his continuous hard work.
Buddy Edelen’s training regime was intense, with twice a day running, a ton of fast interval work, and long, steady weekend runs, all of which would commonly add up to about 135 miles per week. As a school teacher, Buddy would rise early to run 4.5 miles to school, then run home after school and add on grueling track workouts (20 x ¼ mile repeats at 70-71 seconds each with 45 second jog recoveries was a standard workout) or additional mileage often run at 5:00 per mile pace or better.
Buddy enjoyed racing cross-country as part of England’s club system, and owned personal bests of 28:00.8 for 6 miles and 48:28.0 for 10 miles on the track. He also became the first American to break 30:00 for the 10,000 meter run. But despite his heavy interval regime, Buddy soon discovered that his best event would be the marathon. At the 1962 Fukuoka Marathon, Buddy would finish a strong 4th in a time of 2:18:56.8. Nine years after Jim Peters of Great Britain broke the 2:20 mark for the 26.2-mile distance, Buddy Edelen became the first American to do so.
Buddy’s training and lifestyle contradicted what many envision that of the typical distance runner. Edelen would drink coffee before and after his morning run, then follow most of his evening interval workouts with a few pints of Guinness stout at the local tavern. Edelen’s stomach couldn’t handle solid foods immediately following a hard workout, so his dinner followed the stout (plus, Edelen swore by Guinness’ blend of vitamins and iron recommended even for nursing mothers. It also helped him sleep). On Friday, June 14th, 1963, Buddy Edelen followed his lunch (a cheese sandwich, ice cream, and a chocolate bar) with a steak dinner washed down with three pints of stout. He awoke the next morning after 8 ½ hours of sleep to a breakfast of 4 soft-boiled eggs, 4 pieces of toast, a large cup of coffee with milk, and two more chocolate bars.
In weather conditions of 73 degrees, sunny and still, Buddy Edelen ran and won the 50th annual Polytechnic Marathon in Chiswick, England in a time of 2:14:28, good enough for a new British all-comers, American, course, and world record. He had become the first American since Al Raines in 1909 to hold the world record for the marathon distance. It wouldn’t be until Alberto Salazar’s 2:08:13 in the 1981 New York City Marathon that another American would achieve that same honor.
Edelen would go on to win the 1964 Yonkers Marathon in brutally warm conditions, 91 degrees and high humidity for the noontime start. The winner would be awarded a spot on the 1964 Olympic Marathon team. Buddy won the trials race in 2:24:25, a time not especially impressive until you consider that the 2nd place finisher was almost 3 ½ miles behind Buddy, finishing in a time of 2:44:11.
Two local residents were also strong contenders in the Yonkers race; Johnny Kelley, the 1957 Boston Marathon winner who was considered the king at Yonkers by virtue of his eight Yonkers Marathon wins, and Norm Higgins, who Edelen had considered a potential threat to win it all. Kelley managed a 3rd place finish in 2:46:46, while Higgins, who at 15 miles trailed Buddy by a mere 100 years, fell back by 4 minutes at 20 miles and subsequently blacked out and did not finish. Of the 128 starters, only 37 runners finished within the established 4-hour time limit.
But soon the years of pounding out hard intervals and high mileage with little or no rest (despite repeated warnings from Coach Wilt) took a toll on Edelen’s body. His admitted insecurities made him uncomfortable cutting back on training volume to peak for specific races. The motivations that made Buddy Edelen a world class distance runner were now beginning to break him down. He would go on to finish 6th in the 1964 Olympic Marathon in 2:18:12 despite being slowed by a painful sciatica throughout the race and during his last years of competition. Considering his physical injuries leading up to the Games, Edelen’s Olympic performance was a true testament to his mental strength as an athlete.
Buddy’s running career finally came to a close in 1967. By the time his career was finished, Buddy Edelen had won 7 of the 13 marathon races he competed in, most against strong international competition. In an era when most Europeans laughed at the performances of American distance runners, Buddy Edelen used the laughter as his motivator to train harder than anyone, and his performances showed the merits of his hard work.
Upon his “retirement” from competitive racing, Edelen earned his master’s degree and obtained a teaching position at Adams State University in Alamos, Colorado. In 1971, Buddy Edelen was in an automobile accident in Montana, suffering a broken shoulder, a broken pelvis, and a damaged diaphragm. Although not expected to survive, Edelen made a miraculous recovery and was told that he would have to be on crutches through Christmas of that year. Edelen discarded the crutches in September and was back running in October.
He taught for 15 years before moving to Tulsa, where he worked for the state. Buddy Edelen died of cancer in February 1997 at the early age of 59. His athletic biography is illustrated in Frank Murphy’s “A Cold Clear Day”. He was one of the true heroes in American distance running.
Buddy’s New York Times obituary
Leonard Edelen, 59, a Runner
Feb. 23, 1997
Leonard (Buddy) Edelen Jr., the first American marathoner in nearly four decades to set a world record, died of cancer in Tulsa, Okla., on Wednesday. He was 59.
Edelen cut 48 seconds off the world record when he won Britain’s Polytechnic Marathon, covering the 26 miles 385 yards in 2 hours 14 minutes 28 seconds on June 15, 1963. It was the first marathon record by an American since Albert Michelsen ran 2:29:02 in 1925. Afterward, Edelen was called ”America’s great hope” for a gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 1964. But a sciatic nerve condition caused him severe back pains, and he finished sixth. Edelen ran 13 more marathons, winning 7. He stopped competing at age 28.
In the four years leading up to the 1964 Olympics, Edelen made $120 a month teaching in a private school in England and lived in a one-room apartment with no telephone and no refrigerator. When he lacked the $650 needed to go to the United States for the 1964 Olympic trials, youngsters in a Y.M.C.A. in Sioux Falls, S.D. — the city where Edelen spent part of his childhood — raised the money through car washes, dances, basketball games and donations.
”I was about 13 years too early,” he said, reflecting on the money that became available to top marathoners. Edelen’s training habits also stood out in contrast with the austere regimens used by other runners. He drank beer nightly and smoked a cigarette occasionally, although he logged 130 miles a week. ”Think how good I might be if I didn’t have these vices,” he once mused.
As his running career was winding down, Edelen earned a master’s degree in psychology at Adams State College in Alamosa, Colo., and went on to teach psychology at the school. He later worked as a promotions coordinator for Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company in Tulsa and for the state Department of Human Services.
He is survived by his wife, Glenda; a son, Brent; four stepchildren, Yvonne Allen, Cindy Marsh, Teresa Waszut and Claudia Brashears, and 10 grandchildren.