Been recently getting back to the great Finnish runners of the 70s and early 80s. Yle Extra (a TV channel shut down a week ago) sent weekly these races the last the two months or so. Now I think Väätäinen had the best sprint ever (Helsinki -71), Vainio’s running looked better than anyone (Praha -78) and Viren was the master of tactics (e.g. Montreal -76).
I also found an interesting recent interview of Vainio. He calls for high mileage, tempo runs against the time, and states on heart rate monitors:
Niiden varjolla harjoittelu muka on tehokkaampaa. Kyllä kello on paljon tärkeämpi apuväline. Ei kilpailussakaan ratkaise syke vaan aika. En olisi varmaan itse koskaan juossut niin kovia aikoja, jos olisin harjoitellut sykemittarin kanssa.
(“Some say training would be more effective with them. I think stop watch is much more important. In race, your time is decisive, not the hear rate. I wouldn’t perhaps ever ran as good as I did if I’d had a heart rate monitor to train with.”)
I can subscribe to that.