2018

David Martin presents his book "Training Distance Runners" with the dedication "Runners“ been a lasting pleasure David, Sincerly Peter Coe" and "With many thanks for much hard work and thought Sebastian Coe" and the autograph of Dave to the Marathon on 14 May 2009. Photo: Gerd Steins

Dr. David Martin (USA) – Obituary to a friend.

Allgemein/General

By GRR 0

From an athletic standpoint, for Dr. med. David Martin the Olympic Games in Athens 2004 were for the most successful games of his career as a supervisor of the US long distance runners. He helped marathon runners Deena Kastor and Meb Keflezighi prepare for the heat in Athens. Deena Kastor won bronze and Meb Keflezighi won silver. I met with Dave in Athens, and I’ve seldom seen him so happy.

Dr. David Martin (right) and Horst Milde at the Olympic Stadium in Athens in 2004 (Photo: Sabine Milde)

Dr. David Martin was honored by the US Track & Field Association (USATF) in 2006 for his services to long-distance running.

Dr. David Martin, whose years of research greatly advanced knowledge in running, died on February 28, 2018 in Atlanta. He succumbed to Parkinson’s, after years of coping with it.

I got to know Dave Martin as a member of the AIMS Board, which he was part of for many years and for which he ran monthly statistics of the 10 km, half marathon and marathon races. His computer at the university in Atlanta was overflowing with columns of numbers from runners and runners from all over the world.

Dr. Dave Martin has made many outstanding contributions to running as a scientist, promoter of the (AVON) Women’s Run and world-leading historian of the marathon, but it was his research into running extreme heat marathons that earned him two Olympic medals (see Athens 2004).

But it was not just US long-distance runners and runners whom he helped to better withstand the heat at big competitions. For the games in Atlanta in 1996, he flew in the German sprinters Silke Lichtenhagen and Uta Rohländer to experiment with them and advise them on how best to adapt to the heat so they could achieve normal performances.

In the 1950s, he toured Europe, including Eastern Europe, and also visited West and East Germany. You could talk to him a bit in German, and even then he was funny and humorous. There was no interesting topic that he omitted.

Dave was a respected professor and scholar of physiology at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He specialized in lung, cardiovascular and motor physiology and applied this knowledge to his running studies. He has also excelled as a statistician, historian, archivist, writer, race and television announcer, coach, team leader and visionary – with a unique talent in the application of a wide range of top knowledge, providing practical benefits to many runners.

Celebrities among themselves (l.to r.): Allan Steinfeld, Fred Lebow and David Martin (Image: David Martin)

He has written five great books that can be described as pioneering in their field: The High Jump Book (1982), The Marathon Footrace (with Roger Gynn, 1979), Training for Distance Runners and Better Training for Distance Runners (with Peter Coe, 1991, 1997) and The Olympic Marathon (with Gynn, 2000).

In The Olympic Marathon, he describes every Olympic marathon and its course in great detail, so that the reader feels like he was there for each of these historic runs. He is also the author of countless articles in training magazines and trade journals.

In 1978, he was one of the pioneers to launched the first women’s marathon, which took place in Atlanta. He was a consultant in a variety of areas of this Avon running series until 1984. Katherine Switzer was then a director at Avon and helped to launch the 1st AVON Berliner Women’s on May 31, 1984 (on the German Father’s Day!) in Berlin.

Dr. David Martin (left) and Horst Milde. Handover of the AVON Women’s Run documents in Bangalore. Photo: Al Boka / AIMS

It is also said that his research on women’s running, especially on the Avon series, convinced the IAAF and the IOC to allow the Women’s Marathon in 1983 at the World Cup and the 1984 Olympics.

“Dave Martin worked as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, where he later earned a master’s degree in education and a doctorate in physiology. He was appointed to Georgia State University and founded the famous “Laboratory for Elite Athlete” in a converted parking garage in downtown Atlanta.

Dr. David Martin (l.), Andy Galloway (NZL), the first AIMS Secretary General, and Horst Milde

Much of the research was conducted there that supported a worldwide increase in standards in distance running. With three Distinguished Professor Awards, Martin became a Regents Professor, Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, and in 2006 received the USATF Giegengack Award for his “Outstanding Contribution to the Success of USA Track & Field.” For many years, he served as the English-speaking television commentator for Asian marathon races. He was the U.S. team leader at the World Cross-Country Championships five times. With 29 completed marathons, a PR of 2:57:37, and many podium finishes in shorter races he knew running from the inside.” (Taken from Roger Robinson)

He visited us several times in Berlin and since I often spoke to him about the Sports Museum during many long AIMS board meetings, it was only logical that we also visited the Sport Museum Berlin together.

During a session break at an AIMS board meeting in Bangalore, India, I was surprised with an official ceremony in which David Martin spread documents, pictures, posters, medals and souvenirs from the first AVON women’s marathons across two giant tables—donations to the Sports Museum in Berlin. There were so many items that I had to pay for extra baggage for my ticket back to Berlin.

No one would have guessed at that time that that was just an inkling of Dr. Dave Martin’s later huge donation to the Berlin Sports Museum.

The AIMS board with Dave Martin (2nd from left) and Allan Steinfeld (far right front row)

Dr. David Martin discovered the Sports Museum Berlin through our many discussions at the AIMS Board Meetings. It has been recognized by AIMS since 1994 as the “Marathon Museum of Running” as their running museum, and is now officially called “Marathoneum.” It is focused on researching and exhibiting beginnings of the marathon and the development of running worldwide in all its forms.

David Martin (m), Fred Lebow (2.f.l.), Chris Brasher, Andy Galloway (2.f.r.)and Arpad Kocsis (r) in 1993 – in Lisboa – Photo: Arpad Kocsis

On his first visit in July 2008, Dave brought along two large suitcases of running memorabilia as a gift for the Berlin Sports Museum. After detailed inspection and intensive discussions, he was convinced that the Berlin Sport Museum was the right place for all his collected books, textiles and souvenirs from many worldwide running events.

In two major shipments in 2011 and 2012, he sent about 1.5 tons of library materials and museum objects – paid for by AIMS – to Berlin. Much gratitude goes to the many volunteers at the famous Atlanta Track Club, who packed the 80 boxes in painstaking detail, each carton with its own computer-printed table of contents. Whether they were truly happy that the “life’s work” of their famous club mate went to Germany is another question.

This became the “Dr. David-Martin-Collection,” which includes the important English magazines and magazines (altogether 88 titles!) about athletics, the marathon and sports medicine and is fully available for research.

The Dr. David-Martin-Collection is a unique collection in scope and composition, honoring Dave Martin’s tremendous lifelong contribution to running in a marvelous way that is unique in the museum and library world.

The staff of the Berlin Sports Museum, members of the Forum for Sports History, and Gerd Steins, who visited him in Atlanta in 2011, are very grateful to have gotten to know David Martin and express their deepest sympathy to his sister Kay on the death of her brother.

David Martin and his sister Kay Stray – Horst Milde

Dave Martin’s lifetime achievements as a coach, scientist, statistician, employee of many sports institutions, and as the author of the two best books on marathon history have earned him a special place the Berlin “Marathoneum” as a leading expert in exercise physiology.

His lifetime achievements as an athlete, scientist, and human have been honored in the US media and the professional world. With such a positive charisma that rubbed off on all around him, he was always fun to be with. His illness, which he suffered for the last ten years, did not stop him from becoming interested in athletics such as the World Cup or the Olympics. However, he was unable to attend the last two Olympics, where he was a regular guest, but he did follow them on TV.

The athletics world has become poorer by one great personality.

Horst Milde