‘prefects whack[ed] the boys’, that he began to distinguish himself in sport. It was the height of the war in the Pacific, and his father was away from Melbourne handling logistics for the air force. John was part of a group called the Philistines, boys who, as he described it, weren’t regarded as ‘intellectual powerhouses’ but who knew their way around the playing fields. Like the others, Landy preferred Australian Rules football, and he excelled by being quick on his feet and a fierce competitor. In the off-season Landy proved pretty good at athletics events, too. In his final year at Geelong he won the school cross-country, 440-yard, 880-yard, and one-mile track titles – a clean sweep. He then claimed the All Public Schools mile championship in a time of 4:43.8. That was impressive, but two years earlier at the same championship Don Macmillan had posted a time better by seventeen seconds, so not much attention was paid to Landy’s future as a miler outside the small circle of devoted Australian running fans. Still, a handful of people were watching Landy’s efforts on the track.
When he enrolled at Melbourne University to take his degree in agricultural science, Landy continued to dabble in running, but he considered his prospects limited. He had a good head for numbers, was aware of the times of Australian and international stars, and given his progress to date he thought his best time in the mile would be 4:20. In whatever sport he pursued, he wanted to be the best, and running laps around the track didn’t appear to repay the effort involved, particularly as he began to lose more races than he won. During his second year in college, one spent 120 miles north-east of the city to learn the more practical side of agricultural science (mending fences, driving tractors, tending to sheep and cattle), Landy won the Hanlon ‘best and fairest’ footballer trophy, a distinguished prize. While there, he didn’t win any foot races. More than ever, playing half centre halfback looked to be the right choice for his undergraduate sporting activities. He liked being part of a team as well. Like many Australian athletes before him who had great potential, he was losing interest in running as a result of a lack of encouragement and insightful training.
But in late 1950, everything changed. Like many Geelong students, Landy had joined the school’s athletic club after graduation in order to participate in meets. The club captain, marathoner Gordon Hall, had advised him to alternate days of cross-country and sprint running. He took that advice. After a race at Olympic Park, however, Hall approached him and said, ‘You’re not fit.’ He suggested Landy speak to his own coach, Percy Cerutty, who was a fixture at Olympic Park; to find him, all one had to do was listen for his piercing voice. The two went to see Cerutty, and Hall introduced Landy, who, though not exceptionally tall, towered over the bantamweight 116lb coach.
Cerutty stroked his chin and finally said, ‘Never heard of you.’
The coach liked to press an athlete’s buttons in order to gauge his reaction and strength of will. Usually he invaded a young man’s space in the process, setting him further on edge. Landy fell for the bait, commenting that he was truly a footballer and only played at running. That attitude was anathema to Cerutty, who demanded 100 per cent commitment from his athletes. Before the conversation had barely begun, Cerutty was walking away. Nonetheless, he told Landy that if he was interested in learning how to run, seriously interested, then he should come by the house in South Yarra for another talk. They didn’t set a date.
Cerutty knew what he was doing; an athlete needed to choose to be taught. Only when Landy went to him could Cerutty show him what he would gain by listening to him. He had already recruited two of Australia’s brightest young stars and helped them to achieve astounding results.
The first was Les Perry, the ‘Mighty Atom’, as some called him, because of his short stature and indefatigable energy. Perry had first caught the Cerutty show at an annual professional foot race known as the Stawell Gift. On the infield, Cerutty was waving his arms about while explaining to a crowd how he had just run seventeen miles to the nearest mountain range and back. ‘Endurance? You’ve only got to get out there and do it. Face up to it: man was meant to run.’ A year later, upset at his progress in running, Perry answered an advertisement Cerutty had posted in the local Melbourne paper. He went to the house in South Yarra, and over the course of the afternoon Cerutty lifted weights and ran around the house ranting about prehistoric man and the survival of the fittest. But his ideas on fitness made sense. Perry enlisted his help, then urged his friend Don Macmillan to see him as well.
When Macmillan, one of the most naturally gifted milers to appear on the Australian scene for years, showed up at Cerutty’s door on a Sunday morning, he was in a terrible state. He was failing his exams, having trouble finding time to train, and worried about his direction in life. Cerutty sat him down to talk about books, to discuss the Bible, and to argue philosophy. Then he gave Macmillan an ultimatum: ‘If you want to come work with me, be part of my gang, I’ll tell you straight out, I’m not interested in failures. You have to pass all your exams. That bit’s up to you, but if you want, I’ll tell you how to do it.’ He gave Macmillan an hour-by-hour schedule, directing him when to get up, drink his tea, run, study, take a shower, eat, run again, read the paper, and go to bed. Within a few months, Macmillan had passed his exams and won the Australian mile title in record time. At that same championship Les Perry came in first in the three-mile race.
When John Landy decided to make his way to South Yarra, Cerutty’s reputation was well established. As he led Landy up the stairs to his study overlooking Melbourne’s botanical gardens, the coach paused and, with a befuddled look, asked, ‘What did you say your name was? Landy? Gordon Hall told me you won the Combined Public Schools mile last year, and I always study the results … What was the time you ran?’
‘About 4:44 …’
‘I have never heard the name,’ Cerutty said, looking him straight in the eye. He sensed that Landy would resist taking direction. ‘It seems to me, young man, it is time you put the name of Landy on the world map.’
In a study measuring seven feet by seven feet and crowded with books, cherry red velvet couches, dumbbells, a decanter of port, a typewriter, and a hodgepodge of papers and magazines, Landy sat in silence as Cerutty dispelled the notion that Landy would burn out or, worse, harm himself if he trained too much. The ‘human organism’ was built to handle stress, he said; the body actually welcomed it. Through continuous effort, superior fitness was guaranteed. Look at the rigorous training of Emil Zatopek or the Finnish runners Arne Andersson and Gundar Haegg, he told Landy. Look at Percy Cerutty.
Landy was fired by his ideas. Nobody had ever spoken to him in this way. He told Cerutty that he would train with him. When Landy left, Cerutty simply noted on a card the young man’s date of birth and the mile time of 4:43.8 he had run in the 1948 Victorian Public Schools Championship. He filed it away in his athletics card catalogue, unaware that it was John Landy who would launch him into the international arena as a coach.
It took three weeks of hard training and a few lessons on running style for Landy to realise results. On 20 January 1951, he dropped his mile time by six seconds. Cerutty then gave Landy a training outline and sent him out on his own, never enquiring as to whether or not the young runner was following his guidance. And Landy did not feel the need to offer the information himself. The proof was in his performances. Two months later, after upper body strengthening with dumbbells and hundreds of miles of conditioning work, his time was down another ten seconds. On 22 May he ran a 4:16 mile, an extraordinary improvement. It was the first time Landy thought he might have a shot at the Olympics, though the qualifying time was 4:10. This ‘Conditioner of Men’, as the brass plate outside Cerutty’s house read, had discovered his greatest athlete yet. Landy had natural coordination, very strong leg muscles, and most importantly, he could sustain punishing levels of training. In this last respect, coach and athlete were much alike.
Almost from the day he was born in 1895, Percy Cerutty was a sickly child. His father was an alcoholic and his mother barely kept her son from malnourishment. Cerutty was plagued by pneumonia; his lungs barely functioned. Much of his youth was spent reading. He was continually nursed to health by his mother and sisters. At 15, when he took a job as a telegraph messenger boy, he had to ride his bicycle many miles into the suburbs, and he found that he enjoyed this. At 18 he won his first foot race. By the age of 21 he was experiencing brutal headaches that blurred his vision and made him vomit, yet he still raced, posting his best