I have followed this tread with interest from time to time. Lots of good info and lots to learn.
In an earlier post you referenced to the European Championships in 78 and the fact that 9th place in the 10 000 recorded 27.41. I happen to be the runner who got that 9th place. My comments are connected to what I believe you would find in the training of most distance runners in Europe at the time.
Our training was fairly simple and often based on the ideas introduced by Lydiard in the late 50s-early 60s. This means that we ran a lot - 100-120 and for some 150 and more miles pr week if healthy and in the basic training period. Most of this was not hard running but some of us used one or two quality days in a week where they would do hard running. I would for example often run 1 hr with 50 min very hard running included.
Lydiards ideas were generally adopted in some form and not followed directly as set down by Lydiard. Some did hillbounding or sprunglauf others did not. I did not and I think this is something I suffered from by not having enough legstrength to develop my speed on the track.
Those that raced during the winter ran x-county mostly and x-country meant running 10-12 km and for the British up to 15 km in a race.
Our summer competition programs were scheduled to reach the top form in one meet. The 10 000 m in the Eurpoean championships I think all runners ahead of me also including me ran our best race for the year that day.
Why are in a different situation in Europe now. One obvious difference is the influence all the good Africans runners have had. There are few good European runners but some European runners who do run well though. In my country Marius Bakken is a case in point. Even though Marius has not had a big impact internationally yet, I still find his results very impressive. Why are there not more European runners of Marius’ quality or better?
Using my own country as an example I believe that there are two main reasons for the poor results the last ten years:
Some time between 1978 and say 1990 people started to believe that they did not have to run as much as we did to run well. This lead to reduced quantity of work.
At the same time some areas got indoor facilities for training. This made people experiment with one or sometimes two days of faster work a wee. They wanted “to keep in touch with the stride used for track racing”. To do this they made sure they were fresh so they cut down on the work the day before and often had to run easy to get their legs in order the day after this faster work. In total they ended up taking away quite a bit of good aerobic running from the programs. Ironically in my country we have seen a fall in quality at the 1500m also not just for the longer races. In sum the 1 day of faster work, because energy was used on something different than aerobic running, also lead to reduced quality of aerobic work.
So we both have reduced quantity and reduced quality of aerobic running. This is to me a sure formula for bad results in 1500m and longer races.
Now I also see a tendency to make things very difficult. Sometimes I hear people talk training and I do not even understand what they mean or even worse I wonder if they do. Part of this is change of language over the years - we never spoke of thresholds. This change in language probably came about because more physiological knowledge was taken into use to understand why specific training was bringing good results. The change of terminology therefor basically something reflecting better understanding. This is an area of which I am the first to admit my knowledge could have been better, so do not get to upset when I reflect on it but it is my belief that this knew knowledge has giving solid support to what I generally will call the “Lydiard ideas” and by that also including the adoptions we did in my period as a runner.
By making things difficult I mean that instead of going out and get the good running done people use far to much energy on worrying about being on the right intensity. Talk of a need for 100% control in terms of being at one speed, one heart rate or one lactat reading seem to make people confused as to what they are trying to achieve in the workout. They end up believing that since they have the right reading on some measuring device they are training well without considering if they are training enough or if what they are trying to achieve the right thing.
This is somewhat opposite of the situation in my time. We knew what we tried to achieve and why (although not in physiological terms for me). We also knew generally how to achieve it but many (most) of us did not use any technology to control it. Our apparatus of control were basically our brains and how we reacted on the message the brain got from the body, combined with the help of coaches for some us.
Last I will just comment on the Norwegian situation discussed in two mails in the last days. Johan Kaggested, Ingrid Kristiansens coach, is again involved workuing for the athletics association in Norway. He does not coach directly but he try to “coach the coaches”. Two main aspect of Johan’s work is trying to involve more people and to get athletes to train enough. It is to early to say if this is going to be a success but hopefully by time things will turn to the better.