Miler and Mentor

What a pleasure to read about Dave Bailey being feted in London as the first Canadian to break the four-minute mile [‘Running News,’ Sept./Oct., 2016].

Bailey had another talent not mentioned in the Paul Gains piece, that of running coach. When at the University of Saskatchewan in the early 1980s he took to coaching a group of young middle-distance runners. I was lucky to be one of them.

As we were unaffiliated with any club, Bailey gave freely of his time and expertise, even joining us on our warm-up runs. His exceptional training methods led to my lowering my 800m time by five seconds. One of us, Louis Christ, would eventually run for Canada.

In his home my coach had a photo of a race featuring a trio of milers rounding a bend together. The three were Kipchoge Keino, Jim Ryun and Dave Bailey. What inspiration for a young runner! Byron Jenkins Saskatoon