I would just like to see the look on those East African's faces. Ha ha! Now what are you going to do for a living Kiplegidget? Back to harvesting goat turds for you.
I would just like to see the look on those East African's faces. Ha ha! Now what are you going to do for a living Kiplegidget? Back to harvesting goat turds for you.
You need to understand that it does not matter whether the world record is 27 minutes or 23 minutes. We will find a way to compete with the best in the world. We will believe in ourselves and refuse to place arbitrary limits on our potential. This is how we have dominated the sport for the last 50 years and we will not stop. No plague is too strong, no political uprising too violent, and no Pacific Islander pagan god too mighty to prevent us from finishing second to Bekele every year.
That would really be something! Just imagine some remote Pacific Island tribe where they have been undiscovered by modern society forever, yet they have a state of the art 400 meter track, and running the 10K is part of their culture.
If we consider what form of natural selection would apply to Pacific Islanders, it would seem that the discovery of a group with an adaptation for distance running would be unlikely... if you only have the other side of the island to run to, is that going to be important?
If your ancestors have lived at sea level for thousands of years, does that promote selection of individuals with a highly developed cardiovascular system?
However, some pacific islands do produce some exceptional rugby players, there are a number of Samoans in the NFL and pacific island women have done quite well in the throws. e.g. Valerie Vili (shot put) and Beatrice Faumuina (discus). There might be some untapped potential on some pacific island for medals in other sports, but I'm betting that distance running isn't going to be it.
Speaking as an anthropologist who knows the Pacific Islands pretty well, I'd say your comments are theoretically perfectly reasonable but probably don't have much to do with the lack of world-class Pacific Islander runners.
Why? Because the sizes, landscapes, altitudes, and cultures of the Pacific Islands vary enormously.
If you're talking about coral atolls or very small islands, then yes, for sure.
But if you're talking about the larger islands, then the other side of the island will be many miles away, and likely on the other side of some serious hills.
If you've ever been to Hawai'i, you know what I mean. The Big Island, for example, offers some tremendous running challenges. There used to be a 100 km ultra that ran sealevel to 7500' and then back down to 2000.' Yeah, that's a modern road race, but the same landscape was there for the Hawaiians to deal with, and they did.
The main island of New Guinea is very large, and includes hundreds of thousands of people living at altitude.
Still, none of the Pacific Islands, from east to west, have produced any world-class distance runners, to my knowledge. There are many reasons for this, including all the usual ones -- opportunity, facilities, etc. But size and topography aren't among them.
I first took up running using the Univ of Papua New Guinea track, which was a grassy, often muddy, oval that measured something like 400 meters. Maybe. Nobody really knew. It was only an exercise track anyway, for all that it was the track of the flagship university in the country. True, this was thirty years ago and they may have a better track now. The last time I was there, a few years ago, I didn't check on it.
I will mention that although one doesn't see much running, one sees routine displays of fitness that are exceptional in other ways. When I was living in a village on Bougainville, it was routine for even old people (I'm talking 60-70 year old men and women) to walk 20 miles to another village, and 20 miles back again the next day. Almost everybody, including kids, walked walked 5 or 6 miles a day (to and from the gardens) carrying loads. On Malaita (Solomon Islands) I saw the same thing -- little old ladies kicking my ass up steep muddy hills, carrying much heavier loads than I was.
So, good runners -- no. Very fit people -- yes.
Sooner or later somebody will pop up out of the Pacific. Not long ago there was a 5k event in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, with mass participation (the newspaper claimed a field of something like 5000). The winning time was 16:18. If other countries get going with some mass participation events, maybe we'll see some good runners.
But there's zero evidence for a large untapped reservoir.
The potential for that would be more likely in Atlantic Islands (if there was a chance that some were unknown). If you think about it Britain and Ireland are islands and they produce decent athletes.
Gilligan, Skipper and the Professor probably already screwed up the lineage by injecting cracker DNA into the equation.
remote or uncharted wrote:
Gilligan, Skipper and the Professor probably already screwed up the lineage by injecting cracker DNA into the equation.
Ian Dobson IS Gilligan.
Kenya hasn't been dominating the sport for 50 years. That's a factual inaccuracy.
Anyways though, great post. It reads serious until the last sentence.
+1
This concept is kind of cool. It would be hilarious. The fall-out would be HUGE - they would clean up the roads everywhere, just like the Kenyans are doing now.
runtime wrote:
If you're talking about coral atolls or very small islands, then yes, for sure.
But if you're talking about the larger islands, then the other side of the island will be many miles away, and likely on the other side of some serious hills.
Well, we're talking about an undiscovered island. I'd bet that only a very small landmass could remain undiscovered until now. Not too likely that any Hawaii size islands still remain undiscovered.
some coked up brit wrote:
This concept is kind of cool. It would be hilarious. The fall-out would be HUGE - they would clean up the roads everywhere, just like the Kenyans are doing now.
If you were really coked up, your post would be a lot longer. Unless you're just that dumb and your sober posts average four words in length.
runtime wrote:
Speaking as an anthropologist who knows the Pacific Islands pretty well, I'd say your comments are theoretically perfectly reasonable but probably don't have much to do with the lack of world-class Pacific Islander runners.
Why? Because the sizes, landscapes, altitudes, and cultures of the Pacific Islands vary enormously.
If you're talking about coral atolls or very small islands, then yes, for sure.
But if you're talking about the larger islands, then the other side of the island will be many miles away, and likely on the other side of some serious hills.
If you've ever been to Hawai'i, you know what I mean. The Big Island, for example, offers some tremendous running challenges. There used to be a 100 km ultra that ran sealevel to 7500' and then back down to 2000.' Yeah, that's a modern road race, but the same landscape was there for the Hawaiians to deal with, and they did.
The main island of New Guinea is very large, and includes hundreds of thousands of people living at altitude.
Still, none of the Pacific Islands, from east to west, have produced any world-class distance runners, to my knowledge. There are many reasons for this, including all the usual ones -- opportunity, facilities, etc. But size and topography aren't among them.
I first took up running using the Univ of Papua New Guinea track, which was a grassy, often muddy, oval that measured something like 400 meters. Maybe. Nobody really knew. It was only an exercise track anyway, for all that it was the track of the flagship university in the country. True, this was thirty years ago and they may have a better track now. The last time I was there, a few years ago, I didn't check on it.
I will mention that although one doesn't see much running, one sees routine displays of fitness that are exceptional in other ways. When I was living in a village on Bougainville, it was routine for even old people (I'm talking 60-70 year old men and women) to walk 20 miles to another village, and 20 miles back again the next day. Almost everybody, including kids, walked walked 5 or 6 miles a day (to and from the gardens) carrying loads. On Malaita (Solomon Islands) I saw the same thing -- little old ladies kicking my ass up steep muddy hills, carrying much heavier loads than I was.
So, good runners -- no. Very fit people -- yes.
Sooner or later somebody will pop up out of the Pacific. Not long ago there was a 5k event in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, with mass participation (the newspaper claimed a field of something like 5000). The winning time was 16:18. If other countries get going with some mass participation events, maybe we'll see some good runners.
But there's zero evidence for a large untapped reservoir.
That's why the OP said it would be hilarious, you dumbass.
Intergalactic wrote:
some coked up brit wrote:This concept is kind of cool. It would be hilarious. The fall-out would be HUGE - they would clean up the roads everywhere, just like the Kenyans are doing now.
If you were really coked up, your post would be a lot longer. Unless you're just that dumb and your sober posts average four words in length.
In the same way that you having the username "intergalactic" does not necessarily say much about you, my username does not necessarily say much about me. So no, I'm not coked up or dumb. But thanks for the concern.
And on that very small landmass there would be people? Nope. Look, not counting the Polynesian voyagers, people have been combing the Pacific for more than 400 years.
The likelihood that there's a unknown landmass in the Pacific large enough to support a human population is zero, or putting it another way, it's as unlikely as a 23 minute 10k.
So, you quote my whole posting as build-up for your one-liner?
Impressive.
Ever notice the "in reply to?" tag? Take a shot at it. See if you can figure out whose posting I was replying to. It won't be hard. Hint: it wasn't the OP.
I get the impression that the OP wanted to focus the discussion on how it would affect running... not the geographic or anthropological explanation for such a phenomenon.
It would be awesome though. More importantly, do you think that the rest of the world would soon catch up? Would Americans, Kenyans, Ethiopians, Brits, etc all start dropping to low 26, 25, 24 min 10ks? Would seeing that someone else can do it pull everyone forward? That would be insane.
true kenyan runner wrote:
...and no Pacific Islander pagan god too mighty to prevent us from finishing second to Bekele every year.
Now that was funny. The only thing that might be funnier is all the posts in this spread responding seriously to the original post.
I think it would be sad to find such an island. We'd corrupt them with western culture, then take their land. It wouldn't be much unlike the aboriginies in Australia or the Natives in America. In 20 years they'll all be either wiped out or drunks tking our jobs, and race money.
Free Advice wrote:
That would really be something! Just imagine some remote Pacific Island tribe where they have been undiscovered by modern society forever, yet they have a state of the art 400 meter track, and running the 10K is part of their culture.
that would be so cool.