In short Mike McLeod's career has made him a legend in the North East. Over a career spanning nearly 30 years Mike is still the only Briton ever to have gained a Silver Medal in the 10000 metres at the Olympics, finishing second in Los Angeles in 1984. Mike ran for Elswick Harriers of Newcastle upon Tyne from an early age winning many races on a regional, national and international scale including the first Great North Run..and the second one, surely one of Britain's greatest athletes.

Personal Bests

800m 1:50
1 Mile 3:56
3000m 7:47
5000m 13:23
10000m 27:39
5k Road 13:30
Half Marathon 62:38
Marathon 2:21 (90% humidity along with 80degrees in Miami)

Easy runs

Q. Did you ever do them?
A. Yes.

Q. What would be easy pace?
A. About 6min a mile in the mornings, the 1st mile would take about 7 to 7 1/2 minutes then I picked it up to about 6minutes for the rest. All morning runs were steady and only to get the miles in and build up strength. As the hard work progresses the sessions become the most important and morning runs become easy, it's because you are getting fitter so it's important to keep it easy as the weeks go on, the last thing you want is to get injured. The reason being that you're hard work will be done on the track or reps on the road/trails/hill so morning runs must be easy so to get the stiffness and tiredness out of your system

Steady runs

Q. Did you do them?
A. Yes.

Q. What would be steady pace?
A. Steady runs were a bit quicker than morning runs; some times I would dip under 5min per mile. I knew I was getting fitter because it felt easy, so I would back off to about 5.30 milling. Sometimes I would go for the odd run with my brothers but I found that if the pace was too slow I would struggle in the last part of the run, I needed to keep a steady pace

Speed/interval work

Q. How many times a week?
A. 3 times, Tuesday would be track in the summer or hills in the winter, Thursday was hard long reps on the road & Saturday would be short reps on the road or track if there was no race on.

Q. What would be your shortest fastest session i.e 6 x 300m?
A. I Didn't do a lot of very short sessions, I used to run 200s in about 24/25 seconds after a session unless it was a very hard session. One Session of Short reps would be back to back 100 meters, so 15 seconds on 15 seconds recovery. When I started to run this type of session I would build up from 4 minutes to 30 minutes. One session which was hard would be 10seconds hard (which would be my 800meter pace) then 20seconds recovery, I would do 10 minutes of that and then straight into 15seconds hard and 15seconds recovery for 10 minutes (1500 meter pace), then straight into 20seconds hard and 10seconds recovery (3000 meter pace). When I started this session type of session it would be about 4 minutes then built up to 10 minutes as the year progresses.

Q. Did you change surface dependant on time of year?
A.I would do my morning runs on road & grass, the evening runs were on the trails/grass and a bit of road.

Q. Did you run on your own or in groups?
A. Most morning runs would be on my own, and then the night runs with one or more of the lads around at the time. I would try to run with other athletes as much as possible because the run or session became much easier. When you are on the track or doing rep work with a group we would take turns at the front, it made a big difference on long reps, but it is important not to get carried away and pick up the pace and to keep to the session in hand.

Q. Did you have a good group to train with?
A. Yes, the training group was good. Sometimes we would have up to 35 guys on the track at one time; the group would be handicapped so that we did the same type of session. It's important because in a group you would run better, if you went through a bad patch you could drop back into the group & recover. One session we did in a group was: - 2miles hard with 5minute recovery, then 3x1 mile with 4 minutes recovery. This would be on the road and was measured by a wheel to make sure it was correct; it was done at Gosforth Park just down the road from where I live. It was handicapped so first off was Ray Smedlly, he was going to do 10minutes for 2 miles and then all the other lads set off at different times. Eight lads in all would do the session and I go off second from last because Steve Cram would give me 10 seconds head start. When we finished I had pulled away from Steve, I ran under 9 minutes! Then we ran the 3x1 mile in 4:21, only three of us did the mile reps after the 2miles hard...... Dave Slipper, Steve and Myself. This was just one of the sessions we used to do.

Q. What was the hardest session you would do?
A. 16 laps of the track with Coach Alan Story in 18minutes, he would shout out the lap times you. When you past 6 or 7 laps you would drop a second, then another and you would try to get this back but it was really hard because I was on my own and the weather was always bad at Gateshead Stadium. When this was done I would have already done a session on Tuesday & Thursday with no easing down.

Q. Can you give a typical week in full training and race week?
• Monday to Saturday, morning runs were up to 45 minutes steady.
• Monday, Wednesday & Friday evening up to 1 hour 10 minutes.
• Tuesday - Track.
• Thursday - Roads or Hills
• Saturday - Race or hard session
• Sunday 20 mile with the lads for about 2 hours.
• If the race was low key I would train right through with no easing down. If it was a big race last session would be on the Tuesday. Thursday would be striders with one run Friday morning.

Mileage

Q. What sort of mileage are you doing in training phases?
A. Up to 120 a week

Q. What was your longest run of the week?
A. Sunday, 20 miles

Q. Did you run big mileage when racing?
A. Down to about 50 to 60 miles if the race was important.

Q. Is it vital to run 100+ miles per week or better to run less but higher quality?
A. That depends on the athlete, some can run very well with high mileage and some can get the same results on less mileage. It's all about what suits the person, everyone is different.

Cross country

Q. Is it important to run cross country?
A. Cross country was important over the winter as it gave you a good base for the track season. Over the winter you trained hard, it might be the States for road races or the world cross country. All through the winter you would be running against all the lads, everyone used to do cross country and was very competitive, this was good training in the winter time.

Strength work

Q. Did you ever do weights or circuits?
A. I didn't really do much in the way of weights in the early days, 1970 was when I worked in the motor trade so I didn't feel I needed to do them because I was doing a manual job pulling out engines etc,. I did do some light weights in the 80s on a multi gym, I think it helped and think back now and I should have done more.

Diet

Q. Did you have any special diet?
A. No, I would eat most foods and a lot of it! When you train hard you eat more.

Training races

Q. Did you use races as training?
A. Yes I used races as training sessions, if it was 10k I would use the 1st part of the race as steady run and then blast the last part depending on how long the effort was. I found if it's done in a race you got more out of yourself, if you try running that fast by yourself with out a number it made all the difference.

Altitude / warm weather training

Q. Did you ever use altitiude or warm weather training camps?
A. I didn't ever train at altitude; I went warm weather training in 1977 to Portugal (Algarve) with Ian Steward, Bren, and Bernie Ford. I shared a room with Ian and we used to get up at 6.50am and out of the door by 7am, 30 minutes out and 30 minutes back and we would be finishing breakfast when all the other athletes were getting up to go for a run! In the afternoon a group of us would run on the golf course, it was great to run in shorts & t-shirt when back home it was cold & wet. When I got back home both training and racing went much better.

Great North Run

Q. What was it like to win in your home town?
A. It was great to win the 1st Great North Run! When you see 12000 runners on the line and the only thing your thinking is to win, especially on your own doorstep then it's fantastic. Another British (male) could be a long time in the future, it's sad that we can't compete with the Africans but the gap is just getting bigger.

Olympics

Q. How do you look back on the Olympics in 1984; do you feel happy with your medal or bitter especially with the Winner believed by some to be doped (using drugs) during his career?
A. At least I was able to be in the stadium to reicive my medal, I was very happy for the bronze but afterwards you start to think what if I did things different in the race, would the outcome be better than bronze?! I know a lot of athelets will think the same way but you can only dream. I have to rely on doping control to do the job right, it's not my job and I can't affect it.

(Mike McLeod was given the Silver medal after second place, Martti Vainio was caught using steroids)

Q. What was it like being in an Olympic games knowing your battling it out for a medal?
A. When I went into the Olympic Games I thought about what it would be like to stand with a gold medal around my neck but so do all the other lads in your race, so you have to get through the heats first then prepare for the final and hope you do every thing right. In a race like the Olympics a lot goes through your head before the final, you have plans but when that gun goes not every thing goes your way. During the race you have to adapt and hope to can keep to the pace and be around with a chance at the finish. I think every athlete who goes into the final will think they can win but only one can.

Thoughts on British distance running

Q. Why is it not as good as previous generations or other current countries?
A. Because not enough people are coming into the sport from the schools, over the year's athletics has got less and less children coming into the sport. This is because children want to be in football with all that CASH! It's also sad that the children to day do a lot less exercise than we did, they will get some form of transport even for very short trips where as we walked, rode a bike or ran. In my day you could not afford the costs plus we did not have computers they have now, not to mention all the other distractions and the great food of today. I believe that's why so many kids are overweight, they can't see where they are going wrong and it's sad but they won't listen to us because they always think they know best.

Present day

Q. Do you still run now?
A. Not a lot, when you work self employed (full time) its hard to find the time. I will try to get out as much as I can, it's great when you can just run steady in the woods or trails and the next day you don't need to go out if you don't want to, not like when you are training hard! If I couldn't run at all I would be like a bear with a sore head, but at the moment I can chose when I want to and long may it continue..

Mike McLeod

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