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No Bugles No Drums
No Bugles No Drums
- GenresNonfictionSports
240 pages
First published January 1, 1966
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June 15, 2022
Modern sports biographies are filled with such evocative imagery that you can feel the sweat dripping off the pages. No Bugles, No Drums, is a book of a different era. It's still raw and unfiltered but completely absent of the florid modern prose style you would recognise from more recent titles. While some may find the book a bit dull for that reason, I found it quite refreshing.
The unassuming title is incredibly apt. Snell, like most Kiwis from the mid 1900's is an incredibly humble and understated champion. Arguably the tall poppy syndrome and the humility that us Kiwis wrestle with daily stems back to this era when our small nation of then 2 million people produced some truly exceptional athletes that took the world by storm.
Snell has a matter-of-fact and highly methodical delivery which he doesn't vary for anything. This means whether he's winning gold medals, meeting the queen, or munching on some apricots in the back of a car on the way to some rural track club in the wop wops, he keeps the same measured cadence. Some people like an over-dramatised sense of occasion, not Kiwis.
There's a lot of things to learn here, especially for a runner. Though Snell's degrees and doctorate in exercise physiology were to come later, it's quite clear that they were based in a deep understanding of athletic performance and the equal roles the body and mind play in it. Snell identifies the mastery over both physical fitness and the mind as crucial to his success as an athlete. Though he doesn't intellectually delve into it, a lot of knowledge can be garnered from his deep propriocetion and analysis of his mental state during training and races.
In the build up to the Empire Games in Perth Snell recognised that he wasn't handling his distance runs "particularly well". He goes on to say he was reaching the point where
Anyone who has played sport at a competitive level would recognise this feeling, the way a tiny cold can derail everything.
Snell also identified the difference between the mile and half-mile.
It's interesting because this links so much into the Lydiard system he used, setting that gigantic aerobic base and then shifting to a month and a half of hill work, before finishing with the track based speed work leading into the competition.
The fall out with Arthur Lydiard got blown out of proportion largely due to the press. Arthur believed what the press was saying but Snell didn't do a huge amount to dissuade him of those beliefs. Snell felt that at this stage in his career he knew his body and needs better than anyone else, which is probably true. It's interesting though because Snell recognises how important the mental aspect of running is but doesn't really analyse how crucial Arthur was to building not just his physical body but also his mental fortitude. Although he does say that he wasn't so keen on Arthur's pre-race predictions and it also seemed he didn't like taking orders anymore. Maybe Lydiard's assistance was both a sort of crutch that Snell found weakened him and also an undermining component on his own control of his training, racing, and life. It seems that even when Snell had moved from apprentice to master he still had a place for a mentor or a sounding board and that Lydiard still played this role for Snell during competitions. The maturity the two of them show despite "falling out" is a stark contrast to the modern athlete.
Snell also identifies the fickle nature of the public in their support of athletes something that arguably is more rife today than ever before. Just watch the way Australians jump on and off the Nick Kyrgios bandwagon every Australian Open if you want a current example.
His discussion of the build-up to the Tokyo Olympics is revealing.
He could never run more than three consecutive weeks of 100 miles but in the aerobic build-up phase for Tokyo over 10 weeks he did a total of 1012 miles - the greatest amount of distance running he's ever done. He also made sure to do the 22-mile hilly and challenging Waiatarua run every Sunday regardless of the distance covered that week. The Waiatarua was essentially holy communion for any of the runners that went through the Arthur Lydiard school. Snell approached the Tokyo distance build-up carefully, studiously avoiding any speed running.
He didn't run faster than a six-minute mile but could feel his speed naturally increasing as he got fitter and stronger. He started the aerobic build up running an hour and 45 minutes for 15 miles and after six weeks was running 15 miles in 1:30 and 18 in 1:52. He cut his Waiatarua time from 2:25 to 2:15. He also rarely ran two hard sessions together. 6 minute miles one night and then 7 minute miles the next to make sure he was building up and not draining out.
Snell bought a nylon jacket to wear in wet weather and also kept the cold out by rubbing olive oil on his legs. Took more than usual care to avoid a cold and then developing a subsequent 'flu' because that took two weeks out of training. After distance running he moved to a 6 week training session on the hills, which finished 9 weeks before Tokyo. Throughout this, Snell was planning only to run the 1500, it wasn't until he got to Tokyo and ran some great 800m trials that he decided to run the double.
Some sage advice for Olympic Athletes
Snell was a brilliant race tactician and it's hard to see because he's so flippant about decisions he made in microseconds during Olympic finals but his brilliance in race tactics should not be underestimated. The way he measured the race pace, positioned himself, consciously controlled everything, up to his finishing drive, is meticulous. It speaks not only of deep experience but also of an absolute genius touch to apply the information he's gained through hard fought battles and decades of work to crucial moments like the final 200m of an Olympic 1500m. Yet once he makes the move, shifts up to top gear, it's where he's truly free.
He says of his finishing drive.
Snell was clearly a fierce competitor who found losing absolutely hateful but unlike other champions it was not his competitive streak that defined him, it was his deep-seated confidence. Michael Jordan is renowned for being driven by an absolutely relentless desire to beat people, Snell's desire for victory seems to come more from a place of proving to himself he was the best and to living up to the expectations of the fans. There was only one athlete he had a sort of Grudge against, an American runner who consistently dodged Snell but was eventually destroyed on a visit to the states. Snell talks reverently of Herb Elliott, Tony Blue and several other runners, he also has a few rivalries with fellow Kiwi runners, but there is no angst or revenge in wanting to beat them. He was really only ever competing against himself. It's this self focused confidence which I think was absolutely devastating for his competition. Interestingly, it wasn't until Tokyo that Snell first recognised the effect his confidence had on other athletes. He mentions a practice he did a few days out from the 1500m final and seeing the way his competitors who were also training at the time just shrunk a few inches after his strong practice runs. Snell never played mental games though, he was a man of action. It seems that his kick in the final 300m was a spectre that lurked in the mind of all his competition. They knew that with 300m to go they either needed a 20 metre head start or they had to have worn him out with incredibly fast early laps because Snell's victory was otherwise assured. It's Snell's confidence in his ability to win, tied so closely to his deep knowledge of his body and his capabilities, that made him the ultimate running machine.
The final important observation I found Snell consistently made was the difference between outright speed, and fitness based speed. He always says he wasn't the fastest outright sprinter in his races but at the end of the race he could count on his superior fitness to bring him home. This is something I've always noticed in the sports I've played, in the dying minutes of a game, the fittest athletes gain a yard of pace on everyone else. You may not be the fastest outright sprinter but in an endurance game, you can become the fastest through aerobic attrition.
If you want to see this in action, watch Snell pull away from the field in the final 300m of the Tokyo 1500m Olympic final. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK0woLEtQQA&t=2m17s. Now that is supreme fitness. Also remember that Snell's 800m time in Tokyo would still have won him the gold medal 46 years later.
This book is a treasure trove of revealing observations about Snell's career and middle-distance running in general, there is a bit of digging to find the treasure but it's well worth it. It's also fascinating to read a biography from the cusp of professionalism in sport. Snell retired when he was 26, amazing when you consider that it would be the peak earning time for a modern athlete. But it's something you don't get to see very much anymore, an athlete going out on top. It seems they really were better days.
The unassuming title is incredibly apt. Snell, like most Kiwis from the mid 1900's is an incredibly humble and understated champion. Arguably the tall poppy syndrome and the humility that us Kiwis wrestle with daily stems back to this era when our small nation of then 2 million people produced some truly exceptional athletes that took the world by storm.
Snell has a matter-of-fact and highly methodical delivery which he doesn't vary for anything. This means whether he's winning gold medals, meeting the queen, or munching on some apricots in the back of a car on the way to some rural track club in the wop wops, he keeps the same measured cadence. Some people like an over-dramatised sense of occasion, not Kiwis.
There's a lot of things to learn here, especially for a runner. Though Snell's degrees and doctorate in exercise physiology were to come later, it's quite clear that they were based in a deep understanding of athletic performance and the equal roles the body and mind play in it. Snell identifies the mastery over both physical fitness and the mind as crucial to his success as an athlete. Though he doesn't intellectually delve into it, a lot of knowledge can be garnered from his deep propriocetion and analysis of his mental state during training and races.
In the build up to the Empire Games in Perth Snell recognised that he wasn't handling his distance runs "particularly well". He goes on to say he was reaching the point where
"my body would be entering a natural depression in training performance. I was on the brink of the inevitable abyss. This is both mental and physical. Mentally, it's very hard to continue the pressure of training, and if you ignore these warning signs it's very easy to go down with 'flu' or some similar upset which forces you to have the lay-off you need."
Anyone who has played sport at a competitive level would recognise this feeling, the way a tiny cold can derail everything.
Snell also identified the difference between the mile and half-mile.
"I could get myself ready for one really good race over the half-mile, but the mile is different. It's a true test of fitness. You can force out a fast half-mile but a mile really sorts the men from the boys."
It's interesting because this links so much into the Lydiard system he used, setting that gigantic aerobic base and then shifting to a month and a half of hill work, before finishing with the track based speed work leading into the competition.
The fall out with Arthur Lydiard got blown out of proportion largely due to the press. Arthur believed what the press was saying but Snell didn't do a huge amount to dissuade him of those beliefs. Snell felt that at this stage in his career he knew his body and needs better than anyone else, which is probably true. It's interesting though because Snell recognises how important the mental aspect of running is but doesn't really analyse how crucial Arthur was to building not just his physical body but also his mental fortitude. Although he does say that he wasn't so keen on Arthur's pre-race predictions and it also seemed he didn't like taking orders anymore. Maybe Lydiard's assistance was both a sort of crutch that Snell found weakened him and also an undermining component on his own control of his training, racing, and life. It seems that even when Snell had moved from apprentice to master he still had a place for a mentor or a sounding board and that Lydiard still played this role for Snell during competitions. The maturity the two of them show despite "falling out" is a stark contrast to the modern athlete.
Snell also identifies the fickle nature of the public in their support of athletes something that arguably is more rife today than ever before. Just watch the way Australians jump on and off the Nick Kyrgios bandwagon every Australian Open if you want a current example.
"This attitude is not unusual. The public is very quick to forget or to condemn a sportsman who lets it down in its expectations. As soon as you stop winning, you're forgotten or wiped off. In me, this reaction inspired a terrific determination to prove public opinion wrong and show that, while John might be a good Olympic prospect, I was still around and dangerous."
His discussion of the build-up to the Tokyo Olympics is revealing.
He could never run more than three consecutive weeks of 100 miles but in the aerobic build-up phase for Tokyo over 10 weeks he did a total of 1012 miles - the greatest amount of distance running he's ever done. He also made sure to do the 22-mile hilly and challenging Waiatarua run every Sunday regardless of the distance covered that week. The Waiatarua was essentially holy communion for any of the runners that went through the Arthur Lydiard school. Snell approached the Tokyo distance build-up carefully, studiously avoiding any speed running.
"I was well aware from experience of the pitfalls such as leg injuries that excessive speed could produce."
He didn't run faster than a six-minute mile but could feel his speed naturally increasing as he got fitter and stronger. He started the aerobic build up running an hour and 45 minutes for 15 miles and after six weeks was running 15 miles in 1:30 and 18 in 1:52. He cut his Waiatarua time from 2:25 to 2:15. He also rarely ran two hard sessions together. 6 minute miles one night and then 7 minute miles the next to make sure he was building up and not draining out.
Snell bought a nylon jacket to wear in wet weather and also kept the cold out by rubbing olive oil on his legs. Took more than usual care to avoid a cold and then developing a subsequent 'flu' because that took two weeks out of training. After distance running he moved to a 6 week training session on the hills, which finished 9 weeks before Tokyo. Throughout this, Snell was planning only to run the 1500, it wasn't until he got to Tokyo and ran some great 800m trials that he decided to run the double.
Some sage advice for Olympic Athletes
"New Zealanders generally don't like a big pre-Games build-up based on their own opinions of themselves and their opponents. There are so many unpredictable factors which can influence the result of a contest and it's not easy or fun to have to find excuses after the event."
Snell was a brilliant race tactician and it's hard to see because he's so flippant about decisions he made in microseconds during Olympic finals but his brilliance in race tactics should not be underestimated. The way he measured the race pace, positioned himself, consciously controlled everything, up to his finishing drive, is meticulous. It speaks not only of deep experience but also of an absolute genius touch to apply the information he's gained through hard fought battles and decades of work to crucial moments like the final 200m of an Olympic 1500m. Yet once he makes the move, shifts up to top gear, it's where he's truly free.
He says of his finishing drive.
"You stop consciously controlling what you are doing and pour everything into driving out the utmost speed."
Snell was clearly a fierce competitor who found losing absolutely hateful but unlike other champions it was not his competitive streak that defined him, it was his deep-seated confidence. Michael Jordan is renowned for being driven by an absolutely relentless desire to beat people, Snell's desire for victory seems to come more from a place of proving to himself he was the best and to living up to the expectations of the fans. There was only one athlete he had a sort of Grudge against, an American runner who consistently dodged Snell but was eventually destroyed on a visit to the states. Snell talks reverently of Herb Elliott, Tony Blue and several other runners, he also has a few rivalries with fellow Kiwi runners, but there is no angst or revenge in wanting to beat them. He was really only ever competing against himself. It's this self focused confidence which I think was absolutely devastating for his competition. Interestingly, it wasn't until Tokyo that Snell first recognised the effect his confidence had on other athletes. He mentions a practice he did a few days out from the 1500m final and seeing the way his competitors who were also training at the time just shrunk a few inches after his strong practice runs. Snell never played mental games though, he was a man of action. It seems that his kick in the final 300m was a spectre that lurked in the mind of all his competition. They knew that with 300m to go they either needed a 20 metre head start or they had to have worn him out with incredibly fast early laps because Snell's victory was otherwise assured. It's Snell's confidence in his ability to win, tied so closely to his deep knowledge of his body and his capabilities, that made him the ultimate running machine.
The final important observation I found Snell consistently made was the difference between outright speed, and fitness based speed. He always says he wasn't the fastest outright sprinter in his races but at the end of the race he could count on his superior fitness to bring him home. This is something I've always noticed in the sports I've played, in the dying minutes of a game, the fittest athletes gain a yard of pace on everyone else. You may not be the fastest outright sprinter but in an endurance game, you can become the fastest through aerobic attrition.
If you want to see this in action, watch Snell pull away from the field in the final 300m of the Tokyo 1500m Olympic final. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK0woLEtQQA&t=2m17s. Now that is supreme fitness. Also remember that Snell's 800m time in Tokyo would still have won him the gold medal 46 years later.
This book is a treasure trove of revealing observations about Snell's career and middle-distance running in general, there is a bit of digging to find the treasure but it's well worth it. It's also fascinating to read a biography from the cusp of professionalism in sport. Snell retired when he was 26, amazing when you consider that it would be the peak earning time for a modern athlete. But it's something you don't get to see very much anymore, an athlete going out on top. It seems they really were better days.
September 8, 2013
I enjoyed reading about the people and places of Snell's world in the early 60s but beyond that there wasn't much too the book. It read a diary "...went here and raced the 800, my first lap was..." Snell did offer some insights into what he was feeling before races but it wasn't that deep. The best parts were the descriptions before each of the Olympics.
August 31, 2019
I gave this a 3 out of 5 because the author comes off as a dry, single-minded athlete in a pursuit of being the best middle-distance runner in the world while his personal life was hardly revealed. As an athlete, though, this was a worthwhile read and some of the experiences he mentioned during the 1960 and 1964 Olympic Games along with the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Perth was surreal because his athletic career was short (1960-1965). Back then, the athletes in New Zealand were regular guys who had the genetics to be good distance runners along the work ethic to run hundred-mile weeks, but didn't have the perks sports stars in the NFL or NBA have today. As someone who desired to be the best he can be in distance running without the aide of athletic scholarships, I find the experiences he shared in his short athletic career to be inspiring. The book was also an insight of the psychology of a world-class middle-distance runner by being focused in his sport. This single-minded pursuit went over in his professional life and in his personal life (Snell would get annoyed with someone who was distracting him in whatever he was doing that required focus). For those who love the history of distance-running and the history of what New Zealand was like at the time, I would give this a recommended read. If not there are other books you can read that are worthwhile.
October 14, 2021
I got run with him
At the Modesto relays , I was lucky to be in a race with him. I often look back at my time as a half miler as the development of my life. The story of Peter Snell's life has fascinating similarities to how I look at motivation as the key to how people live their lives. I hope I have enough words but I'm not worried about the grammar.
At the Modesto relays , I was lucky to be in a race with him. I often look back at my time as a half miler as the development of my life. The story of Peter Snell's life has fascinating similarities to how I look at motivation as the key to how people live their lives. I hope I have enough words but I'm not worried about the grammar.
August 18, 2022
The books isn't opening how I'm supposed to read it
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 4, 2024
Glad to have read it. A fascinating career told by a kiwi icon of distance running.
February 19, 2020
Decided to read this after his passing in December. Some of the other reviews here mention the “diary” nature of Snell’s races, and that’s true to a point. However I found it quite interesting, and that he had some classic understated Kiwi humour in there which made the telling quite enjoyable. The historic moments around each Olympics were highlights, as well as the way he described how easy he could find another gear in races. Refreshingly honest. Some interesting sociocultural history as an aside, also.
Vale, Sir Peter.
Vale, Sir Peter.
July 30, 2019
2019-07-30:
Re-reading after 20+ years, this time in English. N. N. Taleb once said that after a certain age, you begin re-reading books, as if visiting old friends - looks like I finally reached that milestone in life. The experience is bittersweet.
2019-07-08:
I don't remember how objectively good the book was (~24 years ago), but to this day I feel the subjective impression it left on me as a teenage wannabe runner. It is here that I first learned of the legendary Arthur Lydiard, his 100-mile training weeks, the mythical Percy Cerutty and his attacks on the sand dunes.... ahh, good times...
(the copy that I read is a Russian translation, published by Физкультура и Спорт in 1972)
Re-reading after 20+ years, this time in English. N. N. Taleb once said that after a certain age, you begin re-reading books, as if visiting old friends - looks like I finally reached that milestone in life. The experience is bittersweet.
2019-07-08:
I don't remember how objectively good the book was (~24 years ago), but to this day I feel the subjective impression it left on me as a teenage wannabe runner. It is here that I first learned of the legendary Arthur Lydiard, his 100-mile training weeks, the mythical Percy Cerutty and his attacks on the sand dunes.... ahh, good times...
(the copy that I read is a Russian translation, published by Физкультура и Спорт in 1972)
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November 22, 2015Listed in Once I was a Runner
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