Peter Coe: A Hell of a Coach

Peter Coe, father of two-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time world-record holder Seb Coe, passed away on Saturday, August 9, just hours after his son had boarded a plane to fly to the Olympic Games in Beijing

Like Oregon's Bill Bowerman, Peter Coe was a one-of-a-kind coach who applied his sharp intellect to the practical problem of training a human being to run faster than any human being had run before. In Coe's case, he focused his efforts on his own son, who became the best in the world.

As the London Times remarked: "Peter Coe changed the emphasis on the training for the middle-distance events. He advocated more intense, faster running, with short intervals of recovery, rather than so many slow, long runs. He believed that 'slow running makes slow runners'."

Along the way, the elder Coe received his share of criticism for his methods, but neither he nor his son ever seemed much troubled by the criticism. Well, that's not quite true -- Seb Coe famously lashed out against the British press after they doubted his fitness to run the 1500m in the 1984 Olympics (where he won a second gold medal).

While it is a daunting manual that delves deep into physiological processes, I still think Peter Coe's and David Martins' "Better Training for Distance Runners" is one of the best, most thought-provoking books on training for the middle distances.

Peter Coe was never interested in becoming a "guru". He believed that in order to train an athlete correctly, one had to study the athlete closely. He didn't aspire to take on that task for masses of athletes, so he directed most of his efforts towards his one athlete. He once remarked that he had been privileged to work with "a hell of an an athlete." But then, he said, "he had a hell of a coach."

For father and son, the success they achieved together spoke for itself.

Obituaries:

The London Times
The Telegraph