|
|
|
garycohenrunning.com
be healthy • get more fit • race faster
| |
|
 
"All in a Day’s Run" is for competitive runners,
fitness enthusiasts and anyone who needs a "spark" to get healthier by increasing exercise and eating more nutritionally.
Click here for more info or to order
This is what the running elite has to say about "All in a Day's Run":
"Gary's experiences and thoughts are very entertaining, all levels of
runners can relate to them."
Brian Sell — 2008 U.S. Olympic Marathoner
"Each of Gary's essays is a short read with great information on training,
racing and nutrition."
Dave McGillivray — Boston Marathon Race Director
|
 |
|
| Laszlo Tabori was the third man to run a sub-4:00 minute mile in winning at the British Games on May 28, 1955. He equaled the World Record 1,500 meters of 3:40.8 in 1955. The 1956 Hungarian Olympian raced 5,000 meters in 14:09.8 (6th) and 1,500 meters in 3:42.4 (4th). In 1953 and 1954 his team set three 4 x 1,500 meter relay World Records. Track and Field News ranked him World #1 in 1955 in the mile and 1,500 meters. Laszlo defected to the U.S. after the 1956 Olympics due to the Hungarian Revolution. He would have been a 1960 Olympics medal contender, but could not run for Hungary, and wasn't yet a U.S. citizen. In 1960 Tabori ran the anchor mile leg on the World Record setting distance medley relay. He paced teammate, Jim Beatty, to the first indoor sub-4:00 mile in 1962 and retired from running later that year. Laszlo formed the San Fernando Valley Track Club and began coaching in 1973. He coached Jacqueline Hansen, who won the Boston Marathon and ran two World Record marathons; and Miki Gorman, a two-time winner of both the Boston and NYC marathons. Tabori was distance coach for nine years at USC. He ran Laszlo Tabori Sports for 14 years. His personal best times include: 1,500m – 3:40.8; Mile – 3:59.0; 2,000 meters – 5:03.0; 3,000 meters – 8:00.8 and 5,000 meters – 13:52.6. Tabori received the NYRR 1978 Coach Award for outstanding contributions to women’s distance running; the Runners World 1979 Paavo Nurmi Award for Coach of the Year; was inducted into the Hungarian Hall of Fame in 1995 and received the IOC 2002 Fair Play Award for lifetime achievement and outstanding contribution to the sport. A National Track Stadium in Hungary was named after him in 2015. Laszlo and his first wife, Kata, who died from cancer in 2004, had two daughters and three grand-daughters. He resides in Oak Park, California with his second wife, Laurie, and his dachshund, ‘Bad Guy.’ Laszlo was very gracious to spend one and a half hours on the telephone in December, 2015. |
|
| GCR: | It’s been nearly 60 years since you competed in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. What did it mean to you then to be an Olympian and has it meant to you in the ensuing decades to be once and forever an Olympian? |
| LT | I don’t know exactly how to explain, but definitely it feels good. I’m still here and I’m walking on my own feet. After sixty years I have lots and lots of friends from all over and I’m sure you heard that when you talked with Jim Beatty and Bob Schul. |
|
| GCR: | A year earlier on May 28, 1955 you became the third man, after Roger Bannister and John Landy, to run a mile in under four minutes. How did you and up representing Hungary in the Invitational Mile at the British Games? |
| LT | It was very much unexpected. I was training with Coach Igloi and sometimes I was paired up in a race with Iharos and sometimes with Rozsavolgyi. But this time they invited Rozsavolgyi to run in a race in Moscow and the meet directors in London said they wanted Tabori. They changed the names of runners from Hungary to supposedly make them sound more Hungarian so mine was changed from Talabircsuk to Tabori. |
|
| GCR: | Were you familiar with your competitors and what was your race plan or strategy? |
| LT | I was there before the race and Igloi had me run my two or three laps to get ready. Igloi said to go over to the start line and told me about the guy, Chris Chataway, with the red hair, and that I should stay close to him. I was twenty-three years old. Somebody was saying something, but I didn’t know any English except for ‘hi’ and ‘bye.’ It was a muddy day on the cinder track. Prior to the race Igloi picked up my spikes and I said,’What are you doing Uncle Nazi?’ That is what we called him. He came back a minute later and said, ‘Here, put them on.’ Later I found out he put some type of oil on the bottom of the shoes. They were leather shoes, hand-made in Hungary. That way the cinders didn’t stick to the bottom. |
|
| GCR: | Since only two men had broken four minutes in the mile at that time, but that day three of you did as you led Chataway and Hewson under the mark, can you take us through the race as Hewson led the way and you and Chataway followed? |
| LT | When the race started I just followed until the last 250 meters and then I started to kick. Chris Chataway came with me. We were together at 1,500 meters. When we entered into the home stretch I gained a couple yards on them, Chris Chataway and Brian Hewson. After the finish Igloi was over there and he runs over to me and gives me a big hug and a kiss on my face and says, ‘Tala, Congratulations!’ He was very happy.’ |
|
| GCR: | Since all three of you went under four minutes it must have been very happy for everybody. |
| LT | Oh, yeah! The stadium had fifty thousand people screaming, ‘Chataway, Chataway,’ then ‘Hewson, Hewson.’ Then they said, ‘Bravo, Tabori.’ I’ve been told since then what people were saying because I didn’t understand English back then. I became good friends with Chris Chataway, Brian Hewson and also Derek Ibbotson as we competed many times. |
|
| GCR: | Later that year you tied your countryman, Sandor Iharos, World Record of 3:40.8 for 1,500 meters. What did it mean to know you and Sandor had run faster than any other human in history? |
| LT | Igloi set up Iharos to run the 1,500 meters in Helsinki and I was running the 5,000 meters. In the last 200 yards Iharos took off and defeated Rozsavolgyi by not too much. Then we went to Oslo and Igloi was telling me I was going to run the 1,500 meters against Audun Boyson from Norway and Gunnar Nielsen from Denmark. I told him I couldn’t do it. He walked away so I wouldn’t have anything more to say. So I ran and came to the last lap. I opened up and was thinking that to beat me they would have to work hard. With about 180 yards to go we passed Boyson and then Nielsen and I were pushing back and forth. I saw the picture and I was ahead but they gave us the same time as back then they were timing by hand. So we both ran 3:40.8. After the race we heard them calling Igloi and we were joking that they were going to have him stand on top of the podium in the first place position. Somebody translated to me that they were saying it was Igloi’s birthday. It was September 6th. I ran a World Record 1,500 meters on his birthday and that is the story of how I became a World Record holder with this body. |
|
| GCR: | Coach Mihaly Igloi was developing a group of distance runners that was the best in the world. How much of this was his methods and how much was the psychology of the group where you all believed in each other and pulled each other to new heights that were beyond your perceived limits? |
| LT | All of us had different types of personalities. Igloi was the first man on the track in the morning at seven o’clock and in the afternoon he was always there first. Later on when I was living with him in the United States after we defected from the 1956 Olympic Games, at that time we had nice discussions about running and training because we lived together for about five years. We had talks and he explained to me what he was doing in coaching so that I understood. Then when I was coaching I did the same and told the athletes I was coaching that they needed to follow my procedures. |
|
| GCR: | When you and your fellow Hungarian athletes were racing so well and you had the top three ranked 1,500 meter runners in the world in 1955, how popular and renowned were the Hungarian distance runners in the public eye? |
| LT | Oh yeah. My parents lived about 200 kilometers from Budapest in a small town. My dad was a railroad man working at the station. My mother was just a real lady. I have to say that we were very popular and known to the people. |
|
| GCR: | The Soviet military’s crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution also had a crushing effect on the great Hungarian runners with training missed, safety and life-threatening times and mental distractions. How hard was it to be at your best at the 1956 Olympics with all that was happening in your country? |
| LT | Number one is that all of us were about 150 kilometers away from Budapest at an Olympic camp when the revolution broke out. Everybody went home. Rozsavolgyi and I were coming home from training one day and a bunch of kids saw us and we looked a bit different than others because we were dressed to run. They got us and held guns against Rozsavolgyi and me. We were yelling,’ you’re stupid – it’s Rozsavolgyi and Tabori. Put your guns down!’ For about five minutes we were saying bad words to each other and then came an older guy who knew the group and he said, ‘Stupid – it’s Rozsavolgyi and Tabori, you know who they are.’ So we survived, but we could not train for two weeks. So, the Hungarian Olympic officials decided to put us on a bus and to send us to Czechoslovakia to some college. We went for two weeks, but we couldn’t train because it wasn’t set up for athletics. We lost time then, another week, when we flew to Melbourne, Australia for the Olympics as that took five days back then. Put it together and we lost about five weeks of training. I was talking to Igloi in Melbourne and said to him that we were there and might as well try to do our best even though we didn’t know how much we lost and what kind of shape we were in. Accidentally I made it into the final. In my heat I saw a Russian guy in front of me, maybe three or four meters ahead, and I thought, ‘No, no, no – you can’t do that to me.’ I don’t know where I got the strength, but I made about a twenty-five or thirty yard sprint and I made it to the finals. That much I remember. |
|
| GCR: | You were expected to medal in the 1,500 meters, but finished in fourth place after placing sixth at 5,000 meters three days earlier. Since you had such a lack of training, do you think that running the 5,000 meters possibly took too much out of you going into the 1,500 meters or did you just do as good as you could? |
| LT | I can’t clarify that whole thing, but psychologically we were not there. Many people on the Olympic team were not going back home. Just before my 1,500 meter final I got a letter from my sister. I don’t know how she sneaked it out. She called me not Laszlo, but ‘Cila,’ pronounced ‘Celuge.’ She wrote, ‘Cila, it is very bad here at home. Do what you think is right.’ That was right before I went to compete in the 1,500 meter final. It was time to race and here was I thinking, ‘do I go home or do I stay?’ |
|
| GCR: | In the 1,500 meters Ron Delaney pulled away to win by nearly a second, but there were seven competitors bunched behind within a second of each other. Could you describe how the race shaped up and key moments on the last lap that were the differences between finishing in medal position and out of the medals? |
| LT | I just stuck behind the guys and I followed them. With a hundred twenty yards to go coming off of the last lap turn into the home stretch, Landy was behind me and coming forward. He stepped in front of me and I had to grab his shoulder and push him away. So I lost my momentum and then I started back again. If you watch the tape you will see the first group of six or seven runners with about 120 yards to go and you will see us pushing around each other. At about 120 yards to go I would have been third. That’s what happened. |
|
| GCR: | After the Olympics you made the tough decision to not return to Hungary and defected to the United States. How hard of a decision was this and was it somewhat easier when you found out that your coach was also going to the United States? |
| LT | I talked to him earlier and said, ‘Uncle Nazi, would you tell me what I should do?’ I was only 24 years old. At that time I spoke German and I spoke the Slavic language, but I never had spoken English. He looked at me, gave me a funny look and turned around and walked away from me. It was the night before the departing of the Hungarian team and the American team from Melbourne. The next day I went to the airport and saw the American team there and the Hungarian team. As I was walking in I saw Igloi walking back and forth in the waiting room with the Americans. I was so surprised that I took a deep breath and walked over to him. I said, ‘Uncle Nazi, what are you doing in here?’ And he said, ‘Tala, come here. I’m going to America too. Since both of us are going to the same place, let’s stick together.’ So I told him that I would do exactly as he asked me to do. I gave myself to him one hundred percent. I told him that I would do the running and he would coach me. So we went to America. |
|
| GCR: | How was it in the United States trying to train and race while Igloi was coaching and just having enough money for living expenses? |
| LT | There were times when people who were asking me to run in races wanted to give Igloi some money and he said, ‘No, we are not professional runners – we are amateurs.’ I said, ‘Uncle Nazi, I don’t have money and you don’t have money. We barely have enough to survive.’ But he would not take it as he said we were amateurs. He was very stubborn at that point. After five years he couldn’t get a good coaching job and enough money, so he went to Greece and he became the Greek national coach. |
|
| GCR: | Coach Igloi’s training methods were successful with athletes in Hungary and also with runners in the United States. Why was he able to build large groups of World Class distance runners in both countries when other coaches had not been close to as successful? |
| LT | He devoted his life. He wanted to be somebody. He ran in the Olympic Games in 1936 in the 1,500 meters. He was a good teammate, but not a great runner. He wanted to be a coach so he went all over Europe to follow the top runners and to learn training methods. There was a Polish guy who was good in the late 1930s and runners from Finland that he followed. There was a German coach, Woldemar Gerschler, who started interval training. Then Igloi developed his own system and he tried to learn how to both save energy and to run fast. That’s how he came up with the short intervals he used. If you cannot run with a certain runner in training then he would have you do something different. He would have you try it this way and that way. He explained to us when to rest. I remember after about six months he said to me, ‘You know Tala, you run like a prancing horse, kicking your foot forward.’ I looked at him because he had hurt my feelings and so I asked, ‘Would you please show me what is the right way to do it?’ So he ran in front of me four or five times and explained to me the proper leg motion. I took a long time to learn it, but guess I did it pretty decent because I broke the four minute mile and ran the 1,500 meter World Record. |
|
| GCR: | How tough was it to not be able to compete in the 1960 Rome Olympics since you couldn’t race for Hungary and were not an American citizen and you were winning so many of your races in Europe? |
| LT | I was sitting at the 200 meters mark at the Rome Olympics and watching the 1,500 meters because I spent a lot of time at the Olympics. I wanted to get my American citizenship, but it took five years to become a citizen. It was pretty hard because I had run thirteen races at different distances and had won twelve of them. Others runners were coming to me that summer before the Olympics and saying, ‘Laszlo, would you help me to get the Olympic standard?’ I was in good shape. At that time I spoke in English because I had been here a few years and picked up some English. I spoke Hungarian, Slavic and some German so I had other people to talk to. That was a tough time for me competing in 1960 in Europe but not going to the Olympics. |
|
| GCR: | We talked a bit about your friend, Jim Beatty. How thrilling was it for you and Jim Grelle to help pace Jim Beatty to the first sub-four minute mile indoors in 1962? |
| LT | Igloi was setting it up. Personally I was having a hard time running my best by then. Igloi told me, ‘Tala, you will do the first quarter mile in 58 seconds.’ It was set up and Igloi told the meet organizer, ‘My boys will run a World Record.’ Jim Beatty could run the turns well because he was shorter than any of the top runners. He learned how to run the turns. Igloi and I tried to find the best way to run turns and finally we saw the motorbikes and how they have their position when go around a turn. So we did it that way with the front shoulder on the left going forward and your right shoulder behind you a bit. You twist from the hips and can keep your speed up on the turns. We mastered it pretty well and Jim was the best one because he had short legs. He was about five feet, six inches. He wasn’t a tall guy, but he was quick. He was fast for 400 meters. So it worked out for him good. It was a team effort. |
|
| GCR: | Speaking of team racing, back in Hungary you were part of the team that set the World Record four by 1,500 meter relay in the early 1950s on three occasions. How exciting was it to do that and what leg did you run on that relay? |
| LT | I was the second leg. Our fourth guy, Mikes, was about a 3:48 guy for 1,500 meters and he was the oldest. He was five years older than anybody else. Rozsavolgyi was second oldest, then Iharos was third and I was fourth. I was the youngest one. The World Record I remember the most was the day that was the Hungarian Army Day in Hungary. The General was there and had sent a message to Coach Igloi asking what was the best chance for a record. Igloi sent a message back that the easiest and surest was for the boys to run a World Record time was four times fifteen hundred meters. Before the meet they made up the trophy and put on it ‘World Record’ and ‘Hungarian Army Day’ and they left a place to put in the time later. Igloi said, ‘Okay Tala, you will run the second leg to make up for Mikes’ time.’ So I ran two seconds faster than I should have. Then Rozsavolgyi ran good too and was within the time. Then Iharos finished and with a lap to go was about four seconds faster than we needed, so we were all at different corners of the track yelling, ‘Don’t go too fast. Save something for tomorrow.’ That’s because when you run many World Records you are better off than when you run one record. After we left the track we went to the general’s office and lined up. For the toast to the Hungarian Army they had us drink liquor. We lined up and they had us introduce ourselves. The General said, ‘Look, Tabori is the shortest one, but he is like black pepper.’ You know how if you put a black pepper corn in your mouth and bite down how it is very strong. The general walked in front of me and walked behind me and said, ‘Hum, hum, the black pepper is small, but is very strong. It looks like you are the same way.’ It’s because I was the shortest one. I’ll never forget that. |
|
| GCR: | With all of the races that you did over more than a decade, do a few of them stand out based on who you beat, how you raced tactically, running a fast time or breaking a record? |
| LT | If I put them in position, that 3:59 mile in London was number one. There was so much publicity that you wouldn’t believe it. The second biggest race was in Oslo when I beat Nielsen after Boyson had given up. They had wanted to run a World Record. I stepped between them and I took the World Record. There were a few races here in the United States when we were running the distance medley relays. I ran the mile under four minutes and Jim Beatty ran 2:55 for the 1,200 meters. The Olympic Games definitely was exciting especially when I was running the 5,000 meters. After five or six laps I ran in front of Vladimir Kuts and I tried to slow him down. He came on my right as I was in the inside lane. He was talking to me in not very nice words. He didn’t know I understood the Slavic language which is like the Russian and Ukrainian language. He said bad words to me. They are the same way in those languages. |
|
| GCR: | You retired after that 1962 season. After all the years of great racing and fast times, was there just no culmination available since you couldn’t return to and compete in the Olympics? |
| LT | I had to look for a job where I could make money so that I could exist. I had a technical background in Engineering. I worked for about ten years with Everest and Channing, a wheelchair company which does not exist anymore. I lived in Culver City and it was pretty close to them. When I was looking for a job, the man there was a Czechoslovakian and I spoke the language. I did design and paperwork. Then I got involved coaching Gary Goettelmann, who became the first runner I coached. It was kind of accidental. Gary had to find a track, so he knew the coach at San Fernando Valley College and one day we were running there. Coach Ker told me that if I would train his cross country team then I could use his track so I agreed to do that. For the next couple weeks we met and talked to him and there were several junior college runners like Mark Culvert and Mike Wagenbach. I told them that I they wanted to be good runners to listen to what I said to do. We have good relationships even now. I have about eight guys or ten guys from San Fernando Valley College who became coaches. Mike Wagenbach’s team won a championship a couple of years ago at the same place where he was a champion. |
|
| GCR: | You have coached for many years and coached Jacqueline Hansen, who won the Boston Marathon and set two world records in the marathon, and Miki Gorman, a two-time winner of both the Boston Marathon and the New York City Marathon. Why do you think the coaching methods you learned from Igloi transferred so well to top female marathon runners? |
| LT | It’s because the girls wanted to do well and train hard. It looks like I just found the right material. Debbie Heald was another one who was good in the 1,500 meters. At one time I also had the best four times 600 meter relay for girls at the San Fernando Valley Track Club. We had Dave Babiracki, Mike Wagenbach, Mark Culvert and Jim Estes. All these guys were individuals who won junior college championships and were on our team. Jacqui came and then Miki came. Maybe I was just lucky or maybe too stubborn. I was always on the track with them. |
|
| GCR: | How rewarding is it to coach others to reach new heights and their potential versus when you were working hard to challenge yourself? |
| LT | It was especially nice to work with them. This year my wife put together a celebration for the sixtieth anniversary of my breaking the four minute mile and there were about a hundred and fifty people there. It was one Sunday afternoon close to the date of May 28th. Every ten years after thirty, forty, fifty and now sixty years we have an anniversary day. Lots of people come – my ex-runners and friends and newspaper people. |
|
| GCR: | We’ve talked about your successful running career, but how did you get started running as a youth? |
| LT | The first time I ran away from the Germans and the second time I ran away from the Russians. The front line was going back and forth and the Germans took my dad away for about six months to work with them because he was a railroad man. I was with my mother and my two sisters. We were burning wood to keep warm in the winter time. For food I went to the railroad station where the Germans had their food, I would take a sack and I ran until I got in between houses. I was pretty skinny. Then I would load up my bag with the dry food and take it home. My mother would look at me and say, ‘Oh my stars, they will shoot you and they will kill you.’ I told my mother, ‘First they will have to catch me.’ (laughing) That’s how we survived the war because food was very rare. I couldn’t afford a bicycle, so the only way I could go somewhere was by running. After the war my dad came back and at the railroad station there was luggage and packages from the United States that had to go to surrounding villages. There was a fifteen to twenty kilometer radius of the railroad station and we had to go and identify the people who were to get the packages. My dad was supposed to walk to their houses to tell them of the packages. But he said to me, ‘Come here, troublemaker.’ It was the springtime and I just had on a t-shirt and running shoes or sometimes was barefoot. He said, ‘Here’s the book. Go here, there and there and notify these people that there is a package for them.’ Some villages were five kilometers and some were ten kilometers and some were more. There was a price set that if you walked from the railroad station to notify them you would make that much Hungarian money. So I would run and notify them and get the money and bring it back. I would tell my dad that half was mine and we split the money so I could go and buy a cake for myself or a pastry (laughing). That’s the way I started to run. |
|
| GCR: | Let’s talk a bit about some of your training partners and teammates first in Hungary and then in the United States. First, how gifted and great a runner was your fellow Hungarian, Sandor Iharos, who broke all World Records from 1,500 meters to 10,000 meters in 1955 and 1956? And how do you think he would have performed if the Russian invasion of your country had not happened and he had been able to compete in the 1956 Olympics? |
| LT | His personal life was tough. He was a great runner who would have made it tough for Vladimir Kuts in the Olympics. You know he passed away more than ten years ago, Rozsavolgyi three years ago and Igloi over fifteen years ago and he was almost ninety years old. I don’t know about Mikes as he went back to Germany, but he was born in 1926. |
|
| GCR: | Istvan Rozsavolgyi was still able to race strong and set personal bests leading up to the 1960 Rome Olympics where he finished third and claimed the Bronze Medal in the 1,500 meters. What was it about him that allowed him to succeed up to age thirty in Rome and without Coach Igloi there to guide him? |
| LT | No question he could have needed Igloi to keep coaching him. It was very difficult. I ran well here in the United States because Igloi was here. |
|
| GCR: | How much did it help you to train with members of the Los Angeles Track Club including Jim Beatty, Jim Grelle, Bob Schul, Max Truex and Bobby Seamon and what can you say about some of their talents and dedication? |
| LT | Basically I just about ran with everybody. We met Jim Beatty in North Carolina and then we left and came to California in 1957. Jim came in 1959. Then Bob Seamon came from UCLA and Jim Grelle came from Oregon to run with us. Jim Beatty and Jim Grelle didn’t get along very well. Igloi was coaching five sub-four minute milers. It was a good group. Some people said I was now a Hungarian-American (laughing). |
|
| GCR: | Let’s discuss some training concepts and specifically Coach Igloi’s approach. Many coaches and runners seem to think interval training is about speed and is focused on anaerobic effects. They also tend to do the same distances, number of repeat and focus on times. Can you shed some light on how Coach Igloi was a master of manipulating the length of the intervals, the intensity, and the rest periods so that the interval workout accomplishes different goals and objectives? |
| LT | They called him babysitter in the newspaper. Igloi’s secret was that he went to the track and watched his athletes run. The coach who came close to Igloi was Joe Douglas. He came to us in 1958 and, when Igloi left for Greece, Joe took over the track club and was coaching. That was when I quit running. Joe is pretty successful because he said Igloi explained how to do the workouts, Joe did the workouts and Igloi corrected him. |
|
| GCR: | Most of us who were trained for distance running in the United States did interval training with specific goal times in the workouts. When I spoke with both Jim Beatty and Bob Schul they talked about how Coach Igloi used effort levels. Could you describe how Coach Igloi’s system used running by feel and progression with different levels of effort such as easy, fresh, good, fast good, hard and very hard so that the emphasis was more on on running by feel than running versus the stopwatch? |
| LT | I had the race watch which was a stop watch I won at a race in Europe that I have now given to my grandson. But, sometimes Igloi would ask me to take over the stop watch so he could time somebody else. He used the efforts and the stop watch in combination to see how we were doing. |
|
| GCR: | An area of Coach Igloi’s thought process which gets little or zero attention is using short swings and long swings and basically changing running style from a shorter stride with quick turnover to a longer stride with reduced turnover at various points in a workout or race. Can you discuss how important this was in your training and how these ‘gear changes’ worked to help you and your teammates to race faster and with better tactics? |
| LT | That is why Igloi was first on the track and the last to leave - because if he didn’t like your movement, then he would change your stride. He would have you run with your normal stride, then higher up on the back or making a shorter stride to turn over your legs. His whole thing was to achieve in a runner a quicker rhythm in their running so you could run longer distance with faster average speed. That was the secret of Igloi and is why I tried to copy him as much as I could or as much as I know. The ideas came from him and it was still difficult to understand the psychology behind it. When I worked with the middle distance and long distance runners with Ron Ellis in southern California I did what I could. When Ron Ellis got an award as coach of the year he said, ‘ladies and gentlemen I want to tell you something. My assistant, Laszlo Tabori, coaches the middle and long distances, and I learned consistency from him.’ I was laughing with my wife at that. I was coaching Duane Solomon for a time and he got fourth in the Olympics. He was a beautiful runner and very fast. |
|
| GCR: | Coach Igloi's also had a more heavy emphasis on the use of short intervals partly due to the idea that it minimizes lactate build up at similar speeds and that longer intervals were thought to take too much out of athletes. Did this seem to hold true for you as an athlete and in the future as a coach? |
| LT | Yes it did work well because your muscles did not get that tired. If you learn to run fast you have to learn to go from one place to the other the fastest way that you can. You learn that in repeats and you learn that stride so that you can use that stride. That’s what you could see in the old pictures when we were competing when we came to the last lap or the last 200 or 300 meters our whole system changed completely and we became quick runners. |
|
| GCR: | How much did you focus on pre-race strategy and then a post-race evaluation to review tactics and areas in which to focus on improvement? |
| LT | Not much because we learned that procedures are not the same as training when you change your distance or speed. To give you one example, when I was working with Duane he was a bit lazy but had good speed. At the end of the workout I said, ‘Okay Duane, I want you to run eight times 250 meters. I was standing right at 100 meters to go where you entered the home stretch. I directed him how to run – pick up the speed, change the stride. I would yell, ‘Extend the stride! Now, that’s good!’ I watched him and yelled to help him. When he was in school he was a good kicker but he lost some of it. |
|
| GCR: | In 1979, Runner’s World magazine bestowed upon you the prestigious Paavo Nurmi Award for Coach of the Year and you were also inducted into the Hungarian Hall of Fame. How rewarding are these honors and others you have received? |
| LT | That’s beautiful. I’m at home while I’m talking to you and in my room I have different plaques like ‘Coach of the Year’ and ‘Hall of Fame,’ things like that. Last June one of the universities in an industrial city in Hungary named their track after me, the Laszlo Tabori Track. |
|
| GCR: | Since you came to the United States in 1956 have you had many occasions to visit Hungary and to see your parents or visit with your former teammates? |
| LT | My mother lived a few years only after I came to the United States and my dad passed away also so I didn’t see them when I came back to Hungary. I saw my former teammates until the last time as they have now all left me. |
|
| GCR: | How your current health, and what is your fitness regimen? |
| LT | I’m not that strong because of all of that time last summer in the hospital. I don’t remember at all what happened to me. My wife told me that a couple of doctors gave up on me and told her one day I wouldn’t make it to the next morning. Now I just do some walking. I was five feet nine in my prime, but now I’m five feet seven – I’ve shrunk. |
|
| GCR: | When you are asked to sum up in a minute or two the major lessons you have learned during your life from the discipline of running, being a part of the running community, adjusting to adversity and changes, and any other nuggets of wisdom learned in over eight decades, what you would like to share with my readers? |
| LT | I teach what I do – when you want to do something you put your life to it, and try to make it so you don’t waste your time. You try your best. You want to do your best. There isn’t much talking involved in it – just go and do your best. That’s what I think. I try to encourage that if you start something, don’t do a half-assed job – do it and put your effort to it and try to be the best that you can be. |
|
| | Inside Stuff |
| Nicknames | 'Tala.' It was short for Talabircsuk, which was my original last name. ‘Laci,’ pronounced ‘Lotzi,’and Cila, pronounced ‘Celuge’ |
| Favorite movies | ‘The Sound of Music’ and European movies from fifty years ago. I also liked war pictures when I was younger |
| Favorite music | Hungarian music |
| Favorite reading | I read the newspaper every day |
| First car | In Hungary we had no cars or no bicycles as we couldn’t afford them. My first car in the U.S. was just some old jalopy that I found. It was from a company that does not exist any more |
| Current car | You know what? I still have my second car. It’s a 1966 VW bug 1300. It will be sixty years old in January of 2016. It’s still in good shape and I can drive it |
| First Jobs | Notifying people of their luggage arriving at the train station was my first job. Also, when I was a young boy and people were selling food, I would ask to test how good it was |
| Family | My first wife, Kata, died eleven years ago from ovarian cancer. I have second wife, Laurie, who teaches me how to spell English (laughing) as she taught English in school for thirty years. My two daughters were both married, though the younger one is divorced now. One has two girls and the other has one girl. I have a granddaughter who is sixteen years old – she tried to sprint and then she did the long jump and jumped seventeen feet, two and a half inches – she is five feet nine inches tall |
| Pets | I like to have a little dog. Right now, sitting in my room is my little dachshund. I named him ‘Bad Guy.’ Back in the 1700s and 1800s in Hungary in the low lands there were horsemen that they called the bad guys or the troublemakers. They were shooting people and were bad. So I named my dog ‘Bad Guy’ after them |
| Favorite breakfast | I like some cereal with bananas. I also like eggs with onions in them that are cooked half way until they are partly raw and then scrambled with the onions in them |
| Favorite meal | I eat everything and don’t have favorites. My wife has learned how to make the Hungarian stuffed cabbage which I like |
| Favorite beverages | I usually drink beer, but not since I got sick. I have some liquor, some cognac after good food – I take a shot of cognac (hearty laughter) |
| First running memory | Running away from the Germans. I was just a fourteen year old boy. If I was sixteen they would have put a uniform on me. One time they picked me up on the street and it was in wintertime when it was very cold in Hungary around Christmastime in December or January. They were picking up branches and wanted me to help. I watched the German get out a cigarette and when he lighted up his match I took off and I ran away. I didn’t want to pick up branches. Running saved me from lots of things, it even saved my life |
| Running heroes | He wasn’t just my hero, but my good friend and I have his book – Emil Zatopek. I was born a Hungarian close to the Czech borderline. Emil and I became good friends. Early in my running, he wrote in his book, ‘Laci, I hope you can become a good runner.’ I had the good fortune to run against him later in my running career and one time he beat me and one time I beat him. He beat me in Warsaw and then in Budapest we had a dual meet with the Czechs and I beat him. We stayed very good friends. When there was the 1984 Olympic Games, their office called me and said, ‘Laszlo, your buddy is here, Emil Zatopek.’ So I got in my car and drove and talked to Emil |
| Greatest running moment | I have to go back to the mile run. It was my second time doing a mile race. The first was a 4:05 and the second was the 3:59. There were fifty thousand people for the British Games in the stadium, White City Stadium, that’s what they told me, but the stadium doesn’t exist anymore. I also had some very good races in Oslo and some in Australia in 1955, the year before the Olympic Games |
| Worst running moment | There was a race they forced me to do in Goteburg. I had a good race before it and I needed to recover because my legs were very tired. I said I couldn’t run the race, but the Hungarians told me I had to run. I started and I finished but that was all |
| Childhood dreams | When I was in technical School, we were listening to the 1948 Olympic Games on the radio and I remember hearing Emil Zatopek was running. I wanted to be a runner. I thought it would be nice to be an Olympian and I had it in my mind since then. I was lucky that I could achieve it |
| Funny memory one | When I was in the Hungarian army and went to vacation this time of year during the holidays I went to visit my parents and I loved to run in the boondocks. When I was at home I would run through wine country. When I was coming home from one run my mother was standing by the gate and I said, ‘What are you doing standing here? It’s cold for you.’ People were coming and pointing at me and saying, ‘What’s wrong with your boy?’ This is because I was out running in the boondocks. I was smiling and gave her a big hug. They thought I was koo-koo because I was running |
| Funny memory two | One time Jim Beatty and I were having a discussion and I said, ‘Jim, what did you study in college.’ He told me, ‘English.’ The name people called me was ‘Laci,’ pronounced ‘Lotzi,’ and I told him to always say it that way. But I have to laugh as he never said it that way |
| Favorite places to travel | I like lots of places. I like going up to Lake Tahoe when there is snow or to go to the lake and take a boat ride on the lake. For living I like southern California. For running it was good all year because you don’t freeze yourself and have to put on a heavy winter coat. It’s warm like where you live in Florida, except in Florida down in Miami it is very humid and that’s no good for the distance running as there is too much moisture in the air. I didn’t like it in 1957 because I was competing in Boston, Chicago and Milwaukee when I was living for a time in Miami. So I like it here |
| Nice Closing Comment | Are you coming to California in the near future? If you are and I’m alive, you can come to visit me. I think we would have a nice personal talk. Have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and stay young forever |
|
|
|
|
|
|