Background
Coe was born Percy Newbold Coe in Kingston, Surrey, the eldest child of Violet (née Newbold) and Percy Coe Senior (1893–1974).
Coe was born Percy Newbold Coe in Kingston, Surrey, the eldest child of Violet (née Newbold) and Percy Coe Senior (1893–1974).
Coe had a younger brother, Peter, who died in infancy in 1928, and took on his brother"s first name as a dedication to him. This training was based on the principles propounded by the New Zealand coach Arthur Lydiard, and involved a substantial amount of long-distance running. By contrast, Coe took the view that "long slow training turned you into a long slow runner", and adopted a system of speed-endurance training involving fast repetitions with short recoveries, based on the ideas of the German coach Woldemar Gerschler.
Peter Coe died in 2008, aged 88.
