Steve Jones was born August 4, 1955 and raised in Ebbw Vale, Wales. He began running cross-country as a 15-year old in 1970 and later became in aircraft technician in the Royal Air Force. Beginning as a steeplechaser for the RAF team, Jones progressed to the 5,000 meter and then the 10,000 meter track events. He experienced significant early success as a competitive runner, eventually winning the Welsh Cross Country Championships nine times. At the 1984 Chicago Marathon, his first time to complete the distance, Jones bested race favorites Rob de Castella and Carlos Lopes to win with a 2:08:05 world record. He returned to Chicago the next year and won again, this time in 2:07:13, his career best marathon time. It remains to this day the fastest marathon time by any British runner. In that race he crossed the half marathon point in 61:43, still believed to be the fastest half marathon split of all time. In 1985 he won the London Marathon in 2:08:16. In 1988 Jones won the New York City Marathon in 2:08:20. His last major marathon win came in 1992 with a 2:10:06 in Toronto. Jones currently serves as coach to Tempo Sports and the Boulder Distance Project, which include elite Colorado runners Fernando Cabada, Shayne Culpepper, Edwardo Torres, and Jorge Torres. He and his wife Annette live in Boulder.
How did the running and racing scene in the United Kingdom differ from the U.S.?
In the 1980s it was very much a club scene in the UK where you raced against the same people every week. As a small country, you didn’t have to fly anywhere. If a race was a 150 miles away you drove to the race early in the morning, ran the race, and then drove home. Race organizers knew they were going to get professional runners to come because they were only two hours away at most. It was very low key, amateur, and old school in terms of appearance fees and prize money. The club scene dominated world running, track and field, and cross country then and you were never going to get away from it.
Coming to the U.S. gave me the opportunity to break away from that. When I started racing in America in 1984 the events were really very professionally organized. You were invited to events and they flew you in. You won money or were compensated for expenses. It was a tougher circuit in terms of the depth and quality of the racers. Regardless of whether you had a world record or a club record you were invited by race organizers who treated you special, like with kid gloves. They respected who you were and what you were trying to do.
Why did you come to Boulder to live?
I made Boulder my home in 1990. I was coming to America to race a number of different times a year and realized that I was spending so little time at home with my young family. I realized that the best thing to do was to pack up and move out here. I decided on Boulder because I had come here to train for the Chicago, New York and Boston marathons. I liked the altitude and the running community. There were good ingredients and good vibes in Boulder.
What was your preparation like leading up to what you believe was your most successful race?
I used to have a fairly unique sort of preparation, which goes back to my philosophy of training and running. I always tried to put myself in a position where I could run any distance anywhere at any time of the year. Peaking is such a hit-and-miss affair. My coach and I always believed that if I got in top physical condition I could race and win anywhere between 1,500 meters and the marathon. I probably ran my best 1,500 when I was training for the 10,000 and I ran my best 10,000 when I was training for the marathon.
I think one of my most pleasing races was winning the 1992 Toronto Marathon. I was at the back end of my running career….I had raced well in a number of races and knew I was very fit. After a consistent 6 months of 100 mile plus weeks of pretty hard workouts, long runs, and track workouts I went to Toronto and won in 2:10:06. I believe that was the most consistent and best preparation I ever had for the marathon.
What was the highlight of your running career? Why?
There were so many highlights. Earlier in my career when I had run only my third international 5,000 meters, people had told me, “Jonesy, when you run a marathon you’re going to run something special.” I remember seeing my coach finish a marathon in 1978 in Edmonton [Canada]. He collapsed on the floor, was throwing up and they were trying to get him on a stretcher. I looked at him and told my roommate, “I’m never going to do a marathon.”
But I believe the 1984 Chicago Marathon was the highlight. It was the first time I finished a marathon, won the race and broke the world record. I didn’t even know what the world record was going into the race. The late Chris Brasher, co-founder of the London Marathon, was on the press truck and he was shouting to me the last couple of miles that if I ran 5 minute miles I could break the record. I thought he meant the course record. Because I wasn’t an experienced marathoner, even the timing clock on the press truck didn’t mean anything to me. I remember going through 10 miles and looking at the clock and it said 48 minutes. I turned to Rob de Castella and said, “Is that right?” He said, “Well, is it too slow?” I responded, “No, no…I just wanted to know if it was right.”
The race was a culmination of a lot of hard work and disappointments in a running career that started in the 1970s….I thought it was a pretty good achievement and very special. It was the event that changed my life. My life is unrecognizable compared to what it was before that day.
If you could re-live your running career, what (if anything) would you do differently?
I would have come to America sooner to experience what it was like in the early years of a professional sport and to compete against the Bill Rodgers and Frank Shorters of the world. I mention Bill and Frank because they were the figureheads in the sport, even today. I would have liked to have competed against the likes of them when they were in their late 20s and I was in my late 20s.
I read somewhere that one regret you had was that you didn’t run with a watch.
Actually, that wasn’t a regret. I loved racing without a watch. The story about the watch is that I didn’t run with one at Chicago in 1985 and I missed the world record by one second….Why would I need a watch? I didn’t need one to tell me I was slowing down or needed to speed up. The way I ran was to just run as hard as I could. The watch wasn’t going to tell me not to do that or to do more of it. Everything I did when I ran was instinctive. Could I have broken that record? Who knows?
Who would you consider to be your greatest running heroes?
Most of my heroes would have been from the UK and Europe. I remember as an 18-year-old buying running magazines and seeing names like Tony Simmons, Brendan Foster and others. I would circle their names just because I had been in a race with them or they were Welsh. I also read a lot about Gordon Perry, Emil Zatopek, and the runners of earlier eras. [Of my contemporaries] the people I respected the most were Nick Rose, Tony Simmons, Dave Black, and Ernie Ford…all British guys. We used to race against each other regularly. In terms of my heroes in the States, Jon Sinclair was pretty fearless and a true international runner. Greg Meyer was pretty tough as well. I had a lot of respect for them, we all did. We were all similar in that we had a blue collar kind of philosophy in terms of training and working hard.
What has your running regimen been in recent years?
I try and run every day…and I say that with tongue in cheek because I usually don’t end up running every day. I had about 10 years, from 1998 to the beginning of last year, where I would train for three months and try to get pretty fit and running well again. Then I would wake up one morning and say, “I’m not going to run today.” Then I wouldn’t run for another three months. Then something would just grab me. Like I would be coaching and [my athletes] would be warming up or down and I would say, “Maybe I’ll run today,” and then I would run for another six weeks or two months. I’ve been very erratic, up and down. I haven’t competed for over 10 years now. I don’t have any ambitions to pin on a number anymore. I run now more for my health than anything.
What do you believe is the most important training advice to share with competitive long distance runners (5k to marathon)?
I would do more quality than quantity….Quality is the factor, not how many miles. So I say stick to your quality work — speed, speed, speed. I had a guy call me up once and he told me he had been coached by all these fine coaches. He says, “I need to know how many miles I need to run so I can run faster than ever.” I told him, “You’re probably running more miles now than you have to.” It’s not about running 140 miles a week, it’s about pushing the envelope to get to the next level.
I was speaking at a race clinic once and someone asked me to write them a six month program so they could run a good marathon and qualify for the Olympic Marathon trials. I told them, “There is no six month program. My program was 14 years from when I started to when I broke a world record.” That was my program…it was about longevity and perseverance. It’s something that everyone should learn. There’s a big picture and everyone must tune into it. I’d rather see the people I coach still running at 45 then washed up at 30 because they were injured too much or they got tired of it.
After winning the 1984 Chicago Marathon in world record time someone asked you what your race plan was. Your response was, “I just run as hard as I can for 20 miles, and then race.” Could you explain that statement?
I did say that, but what I meant was that the others in the race, Rob de Castella, Joe Nzau, Greg Meyer, and Carlos Lopes, were really experienced marathoners. My longest run up to that point had been about 18 miles. They were the ones I was going to be around in the later stages of the race if I was going to have any chance to win myself. All of my running had been done instinctively, my racing especially. If I wanted to win the race I had to stay around those guys. My philosophy was that the marathon was a 20 mile long run and then a hard 10K. I kept that in my mind all along. I was just going sit and sit and not do anything until 20 miles. I did that. de Castella did a bit of a move at 16 miles and I just covered it. He looked across at me and I think that’s when he realized I was there for real. Up until then I think he thought I was a journeyman. If anyone else made a move I just slowly covered it. The only guy there that could catch me for 10k was Carlos Lopes, who I knew had just run a marathon a month before and he might be a bit tired. It worked, that was my tactic from the day I decided to go there. So it really wasn’t “run as hard as I can for 20 miles,” it was just run for 20 miles and then wait. That was my philosophy for the next couple of races, including the London Marathon, which came down to the last 2 miles. The next year in Chicago people were still going on about Rob de Castella. So I told myself, “If he’s going to win, then he’s just going to have to beat me.” I just went from the gun…and he didn’t.
Others have said that you possess a unique mental outlook that may have been key to your great success as a runner. What kind of mental outlook do you suggest serious runners adopt before an important race?
I know what they are talking about. I’ve always been good about pulling the best out of myself in races, even when things hadn’t been going that well for me. It’s something you can’t coach. I mentioned earlier that my racing philosophy was instinctive, such as patience, and …it came from in there [points to midsection gut], not from there [points to head] or there [points to heart]. So it wasn’t that I was a better runner because I was faster or stronger, I just had something in me that never quit. [Although] you can’t coach that…I can explain it to people so that others can experiment with it. They too can get up and go for it….The training part is easy. It’s about putting your shoes on at the start line and being able to attack people who you know have trained longer, harder, and have faster times than you, but you still take them on.
What was it like being inducted into the Colorado Running Hall of Fame in 2008?
It was honestly a humbling experience….It’s not until these kinds of events come up when you realize that how well you’re thought of or the contribution you’ve made to the sport and that people appreciate your accomplishments. I would have never thought about being recognized like that. [I also realize] it’s not all about me – it’s about everybody else. There’s a team around you all the time, whether it’s your family, your coach, your friends, or whoever. Here you have an opportunity to stand up and thank those people. To me it was not about just me being inducted, it was also about inducting your team who helped you get there.
Bruce Kirschner has been active in the Colorado running community for many years. He was a founder of the Federal Cup 5K road race in 1984 and the Coal Creek Cross Country Challenge in 1999. Bruce currently serves on the board of the Colorado Masters Running Association.