Bob Williams Pace Calculator

Bob Williams is a coaching colleague and a very good friend. I
worked with Bob five years ago when we both working on the Oregon Project. Bob
ran the steeplechase at Oregon for Bill Bowerman. He is a disciple of Bowerman
and understands the Bowerman method better than anyone I know. Over the years
the Bob has developed some great runners, his latest product is Elijah Greer who
ran in the 1:47’s  in high school
and is now a freshman at Oregon. Bob developed his adaptation of the pace
calculator. I will let Bob tell the story:

The first pace calculator was The Oregon Pace Rule,
developed by Jack Berg, Ph.D., Bill Bowerman’s Track Assistant back in the
early Sixties. Jack was a four star athlete from Roseburg, Oregon, and came to
school to compete.  Jack had
vaulted for Bill in the mid to late 50’s and I believe he was the Northern
Division Champion at 13 feet 6”. Jack was a Chemistry professor at the
University and very bright. He designed the Oregon Pace Rule from his own
desire to help Bill figure out track paces quickly. As a distance runner for
Bill I was an early recipient of The Oregon Pace Rule.

 

 I bought a few
of the pace calculators from Jack in the early 70’s while I was in Eugene going
to graduate school. By about 1982 the pace calculators had worn so badly that I
needed to get a new one from Jack. Unfortunately Jack had passed away a few
years earlier from cancer and I was unable to locate his widow to buy them.

 

So in 1983 I started to research the process for developing
a new pace calculator. New tracks were being built in meters so it seemed
reasonable to have the new pace calculator to meet the needs of those school
coaches with metric tracks. I added all of the road distances from 10
Kilometers to the Marathon so recreational and serious runners could figure out
mile splits and it could double as a track coach’s tool, too.

 

This process took close to eight months before I got my
first prototype. The pace calculator has been through three changes since 1984
with the additions of the 150 and 500 meters as requested by coaches, change in
plastic cover to paperboard like the original Oregon Pace Rule for
environmental and cost reasons.

 



This is a valuable and very practical coaching. I bought the
early “yards” version in the 70’s. To purchase the Bob Williams Pace Calculator
go to www.coachbobwilliams.com