Percy Cerutty: Legends of Athletics
“I never had doubt about him, no. But I used to ignore some of the things that he said to me. There would be times where he would say something that was insightful for me, and it seemed to me to be genius. Then there’d be other times where he would say something, which I would think was ridiculous." - Mile legend Herb Elliott
By Mark Tucker, Runner's Tribe
When I first started to take running seriously, I read a book (borrowed from my school library), which would have a profound effect on my running and life during my formative years. The book: ‘How to become a Champion’ by Percy Cerutty, was truly inspirational and uplifting – if I trained hard, was stronger than others (physically and mentally) and believed in myself, success in running, and life, would be mine! If levels of motivation equalled your results, I might have been a World champion by the age of 20. Alas, I found out it wasn’t quite so simple – you also need to balance your motivation/inspiration with rest and smart training, as over-training can be a greater error than under-training.
Anyway, I devoured that book and any other book written by Percy that I could get my hands on – his forthright style and eccentricities had me inspired and laughing in equal measure: “It is only the weak who look up to the strong: the strong are usually too busy, pushing down the weakly, to look up to anyone!”
Continue reading at: www.runnerstribe.com
