Emil Zatopek - The Father of Modern Distance Running    

 

 

A Trash Collector

Today’s story begins in Czechoslovakia.  A man is walking along the street beside a garbage truck, collecting the trash.  He is not a young man.  We watch him walk to the first can of garbage.  Just then, the door of the house beside him opens and a man comes running out.  He bows to the trash collector and picks up the garbage can himself and empties it into the truck.  All along the street, this curious event is repeated.  It seems that no one will allow the trash collector to pick up the garbage.  And everyone bows to him.  Why?  This is our mystery. 

 

We can easily guess that this man is not by profession a trash collector.  This is something he had been forced to do.  When foreign tanks had moved into his country, he had spoken out against the invasion; the new regime made him a trash collector as a form of “reeducation.”  But who was this man and why did the people of his country still honor him?  That is what our story is about.

 

His name was Emil Zatopek.  When he was 18, his company sponsored a running race through the streets.  As an employee, Zatopek was automatically entered.  He tried to get out of it, saying, “I’m no good at running.”  But he was forced to run.  He finished second.  The experience did not change his opinion about running.  But the company was encouraged to enter him in more races.  After one of them, a newspaper reported on the race saying, “A good performance by Zatopek.”  He saved the newspaper article and read it many times.

 

Speed & Endurance

Zatopek decided to become a runner.  But he decided to go about it in an extraordinarily innovative way.  This was his genius.  Prior to Zatopek,  runners trained by running slowly for long distances, building up their endurance.  And of course, sometimes they would sprint to improve their speed.  Zatopek had a different idea.  He said, “You must be fast enough.  You must have endurance.  So you run fast for speed and repeat it many times for endurance.”

 

Other athletes thought he was insane.  They said, “you cannot become a good distance runner by training like a sprinter.”  But Zatopek replied, “if I sprint 100 meters once, then I am training like a sprinter.  But if I do it thirty times, then that is something very different.”

With no one willing to train with him, Zatopek trained alone.  He trained this way for five years.  By the time of the 1948 Olympic Games in London, he had built up his training to the point where a typical workout consisted of 60 fast runs of 400 meters each with only 200 meters of jogging in between.  The approach he had taken embodied what the Bible says in First Corinthians 9:24-27:

 

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?  Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.  They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.  Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air.  No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”

 

The Worst Looking Runner

At the London Olympics, many observers in the stadium thought that Zatopek was the worst looking runner they had ever seen.  When he ran, his head wobbled from side to side.  His shoulders rose and fell as if he were in agony, and the grimace on his face seemed to indicate the same.  But by the end of each race, the entire stadium was chanting his name: Zatopek, Zatopek, Zatopek!  For Zatopek won the 10,000 meters by more than half a lap, and then took second in the 5,000 meters.

 

Zatopek explained his running this way, “If one can stick to the training throughout the many long years, then will power is no longer a problem.  It’s raining?  That doesn’t matter.  I am tired?  That’s beside the point.  It’s simply that I just have to.”

 

Three Golds in one Olympics

At the next Olympic Games, 1952 in Helsinki, Zatopek won the 10,000 meters by almost 100 meters.  Then he won the 5,000 meters.  Then he entered the marathon, a race he had never run before.  Unlike the other competitors he was not going into the race well-rested.  Between heats and finals, he had already covered 20,000 meters of very hard running in the last few days.  But for Zatopek, he was used to doing that much hard running every single day.  In the marathon, he won again, this time two-and-a-half minutes ahead of the second place finisher. After Zatopek crossed the finish line, four runners from Jamaica – who had just themselves won their gold medal in the relay – lifted Zatopek to their shoulders and carried him on a lap of honor around the stadium.  It was a spontaneous tribute to a man who had won three gold medals in one Olympic games.

 

It was of course Zatopek’s training that had won him those gold medals.  Zatopek taught the world how to really run.  For this, he is universally acknowledged as the father of modern distance running.

 

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?  Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.  They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.  Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air.  No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” (First Corinthians 9:24-27)