Draft:Roy Benson

Roy T. Benson, MPE, CFI, is an exercise scientist, distance- running coach, author and entrepreneur. He earned a BA degree in Geography at Dartmouth in 1967 and a MPE from University of Florida in 1983. He ran competitively for more than 60 years, and he has coached professionally for 59 years for military, club, university, high school teams and private clients. He coached at U of Florida from 1969-79 serving as a grad assistant, And Head Track and XC coach (’70-75)and Head XC and Track coach (‘76-79.) On leave of absence from Dec ‘71thru Sept ’72, he was in the US Peace Corps as a National Advisory Coach to the Philippine Olympic Track program for the Munich Olympics. While at UF, he assisted Head Coach Jimmy Carnes with the development and administration of the Florida Track Club. The FTC sent 4 members (Frank Shorter, Jack Bachelor, Jeff Galloway and Ron Jordan) to the ’72 Munich Olympics where shorter won the Gold Medal in the marathon.

From 1993 to 2008, Benson was a Community Coach at Marist School in Atlanta, GA. The boys’ and girls’ cross country teams won a total of 16 state championships. His cross country and track runners won 21 individual state titles. Brendan Mahony was the national mile champion in 1998 ? lowering the school record to 4:04.76. In 1973 Benson opened up a summer camp for distance runners that grew into the Smoky Mt Running camp in Asheville, North Carolina. Over 40+ years he expanded the business to include the Green Mt camp in NE Vermont, eventually incorporating the business as Running Ltd. Benson operated these Nike-sponsored summer camps for both adult and high school runners until sold the camps to USSportscamps when he retired in 2014.

Benson has been a consultant about heart rate training for both Polar and Nike and has written three books for runners on the subject. For over 25 years he was a special contributor to Running Times magazine and was a contributing editor for Running Journal magazine. His booklet “Precision Running,” published by Polar Electro, has been translated into seven languages. Sales of “Coach Benson’s Secret Workouts” book sales have reached more than 7,000. The 1st Edition of “Heart Rate Training,” with co-author Declan Connolly, PhD, was published by Human Kinetics in 2011. It sold over 20,000 copies worldwide. The 2 nd edition was published in December of 2019. The book has been translated into Czech, Italian, French, and Chinese. Benson was the chair of the RRCA Coaching Committee that developed the program that has enabled hundreds of RRCA members to become certified coaches of adult road runners.

Benson lives on Amelia Island, Florida where is a volunteer cross country coach at Fernandina Beach HS and the Amelia Island Runners Club.