| michael furey |
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Why are our (American) best distance runners always injured? Looking at the list of our top runners, the majority seem to be hurt more often than not- Solinski, Ritz, Webb, Teg, and Wheating have missed more seasons than they have run over the past few years. This extends to our best young runners- Fernandez, Jager, and Andrews in particular seem to have a major injury at least once per year. The only guys who appear to be immune are Hall, Lagat, Symmonds, and Rupp. So, why is this? Why do our top runners get hurt all the time? In particular, why does this seem to happen to AMERICAN distance runners to a greater extent than those from other countries (or am I just imagining that)? I realize that to be an elite distance runner, you need to always be pushing hard, but all of these guys seem to be hurting their development by spending more time on the sidelines than competing. |
| runn |
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Maybe because we have fewer great runners? If we had the volume of runners under the A standard that Kenya does we wouldn't notice a few of them gettign injured. Just a thought. |
| Dingler |
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It's not just Americans (Lagat by the way had an achilles injury leading up to the 2008 Olympics which is why he didn't run so well). Gebrselassie, the greatest distance runner of all time has had his fair share of problems, especially with his achilles which he's had to have surgery on. His heir apparent Bekele has gotten a stress fracture, ruptured his calf and had a knee injury in the last two years alone. Shaheen was almost unbeatable at the steeple from 2001 to 2006 until knee and achilles problems derailed his career. Likewise Martin Lel was the best marathoner on the planet (3x London champ only 20 seconds off the world record at the time) before injuries sidelined him for 3 years. Everyone who runs the milage necessary to be a world class distance runner gets injured eventually. Maybe we notice the Americans more because they are in the media more. Or because we have less world class guys than the east Africans we notice more when they are injured. |
| No honor |
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Hasn't Sol and Wheating only had 1 injury? Why make such an assumption based on those two. |
| ikytxc |
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Our high school, collegiate, and professional system has a culture of training where you want to be, not where you are. You see it all the time on here, someone starts a thread about "I want to run x time, what do I do to get there". Then all these experts chime in with what pace he should be running at. So many people have this idea that you can just will yourself to run a certain time in a race or a certain number of miles per week. I hate to sound like some snot nosed kid being critical of people who obviously know better than me, but what I hear from some elites just sounds incredibly idiotic. Jager was talking about how he went from running 50 miles per week his freshman year at Wisco to running immediately running 80 some in Portland. How did he and his coach not see a serious injury coming? Then you have guys like Solinsky who just wallow in their boneheadedness. Trust me, I know a lot of guys like him and he is just eating up the fact that he ran himself into the ground because he is so tough. Ritz, he's just been so focused on becoming the best that he's forgotten that the point is to get better. He's worrying about winning an Olympic gold when he can't even break 2:10. Teg- he actually seems to have a good head on his shoulders but has just had some bad luck. Wheating- went from being a mess around college runner to the next big thing quick, probably ran too much too hard too soon, typical. I read an interview before where Ritz said something like if you're not running to win then there's no reason to even compete. The misplacement of that attitude, I believe, is the heart of the problem. The run to win attitude is good and necessary to have. But expecting to win because you WANT it more is idiotic Disney Prefontaine bullshit. |
| michael furey |
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Wheating and Sol were mentioned because they have struggled with injuries ever since they really broke into the big time- Wheating since running 3:30, and Sol since running 26:59 have missed more time than they've spent running... I also think that it very well could be simply that we follow these runners a bit closer as the other poster alluded to (that we wouldn't notice if one of the top Africans got hurt), and I also realize the role of luck in being the ABSOLUTE best in the world (El Guerrouj, Morceli, Tergat etc may have been as good as they were simply because they were lucky enough not ever to have major setbacks and because they had enough talent to be great). Obviously Geb and Bekele have had some setbacks, but not like Teg (who imo is really the poster child for hte oft-injured American runner) who has pretty much missed at least 2 months of training every year since he started college. |
| Gonna have to agree |
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First two responses on this thread were correct. |
| JackOfAss |
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This +1 |