Marty Liquori earned the silver medal in the 5,000 meters at the 1977 World Cup in an American Record 13:15.1. He has been ranked number one in the world at both 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters and won a total of 14 national titles at distances ranging from the mile to 5,000 meters.
Interview courtesy of Gary Cohen Running
GCR: Whether it is as a runner, broadcaster, businessman or musician you seem driven to excel and to reach for your potential. Is this something you developed when you began running as a youth or was it instilled in you at an earlier age by your upbringing?
ML: What I have is the addictive personality which is both a blessing and a curse. Whatever I do I want to do to the best of my ability. The lessons I learned from running did make it possible for me to have success in other areas. There were many corollaries between running and music which I have concentrated on much more during the past dozen years. When I talk with fellow musicians I find that they don’t approach their craft the same way I do with my discipline. Also, because I was successful as a runner I believed I could also do well as a musician. Unfortunately it leads me to believe I can succeed at anything through consistent effort – even wind surfing. My personality is such that I can’t just do something a few times a year for fun – I have to achieve a certain level of competence. So now I know that I can’t take up golf as I’ll go off the deep and with practicing. I keep threatening to take up painting, but I’m holding back as music has become more than I bargained for. My wife is obsessive and so am I which does help because she realizes the focus it takes to do something well.
GCR: Many runners have credentials that are only achieved by a select few. What does it mean to be one of only five United States high school runners to break four minutes in the mile?
ML: I think it blinds people to the rest of my career. I don’t consider it one of the top five accomplishments in my running career, but the public has a fascination with the four minute mile. There are dozens of African kids who have run that fast by the time they were 18 years old, so it isn’t really that big of a deal worldwide. What I did in high school is just that – what I did in high school. Only a handful of runners have been ranked number one in the world at 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters which I believe is a much more significant accomplishment.
GC: When you ran your 3:59.8 mile as a high school runner you finished in seventh place behind Jim Ryun’s World Record of 3:51.1. What were your thoughts when you found out you had broken four minutes?
ML: I had qualified for the final the night before with a time of 4:08 and in the final I was so far behind after three laps that I didn’t even consider I could break four minutes. But when I heard my time of 3:02 I just took off. I knew I could run a 58 second quarter mile and even if I died during the last 100 yards that I had to go immediately. I knew I had a chance. Afterward I was walking around for what seemed a long time, though it was probably two minutes, when Sam Bell came over and told me I ran 3:59.8. I called my coach, Fred Dwyer, and told him my time, and got congratulations. I did say to him though that someone would be doing it every year as this was four years in a row a high school runner had broken the four minute mile so it wasn’t that big of a deal. But Freddy said, ‘No, I think it’s always going to be something special.’He was right as it didn’t happen again for over thirty years. However, there didn’t seem to be the emphasis in future years that we had in the 1960s. I was in California in 1967 for about a month of training and racing, had already ran 4:01.1 and 4:00.4 and didn’t even attend my high school graduation. Another fact is that the four minute mile was nine seconds off of the World Record when I was running and now is over 15 seconds behind the World Record. So this helped me to get into top races due to my times and my coach’s connections. Top high school runners these days can’t get into those big races.
For the entire interview visit: http://www.garycohenrunning.com/Interviews/Liquori.aspx.