HOW DID MO FARAH GET SO GOOD?

Come on mayne wrote:

Looks like he ran a 27:44 road 10k and then a 27:28 10,000m 6 days apart in 2010. So low 27 fitness seems reasonable for that year with two races back to back like that. Popping a 26:46 doesn't seem like a stretch with another year of training.

Uh, not Yahtzee. Mo had 27:28 fitness because that is what he ran at the European Cup, trying to PR. You cannot try to subtract time because of the 27:44 on the road a few days earlier.

The jump from 27:28 to 26:46 in one year, at 28 years old, is the biggest stretch ever. It is such a stretch that you're trying to justify low 27 fitness in 2010 to make it seem less impossible. Use real data, not pretend.

i bet cram knows and gave him the 'wink'

any fool that doesn't know what's going on here like...

i'm calling peds on this 3-28 nonsense

no way is this clean

Just say NOPe.

The Stain wrote:

And why do you note that he ran 13:09 at only age 23, as if that is impressively young to be so fast?

Exactly. Chris Derrick ran 13:09 this year and he's only 22. Chris is solid, but I'd be equally suspicious if he becomes a world beater in 5-6 years.

Furthermore, all the defenders who say that Farah's improvement is not really that striking given his early times, I challenge them to give a single example of another athlete who has improved in a similar way.

Name another athlete who went through his mid-20's running a consistent yearly best of 13:09, 13:08, 13:07, 13:08 and THEN became the world's best (or anything remotely like that).

Name another athlete who dominated their event for ANY period who didn't dominate pretty much right out of the gate. All the legends of distance running - Geb, Tergat, Bekele, El Gherrouj, Coe, Ovett, Juantorena, Morceli, etc - we don't remember their years of toiling away in relative mediocrity on the international circuit, because they DIDN'T HAVE ANY! They maybe had a first season where people remarked "this guy's going to be good", and then after that, they dominated. There is no precedent of people who had 6 or 8 years of being pretty good, and then becoming the best.

CORRECTION - earlier I stated that Gerry Lindgren ran 13:41 or something like that as a HS senior on a crappy indoor track. I was mixed up. He ran 8:40 for 2 miles on the crappy indoor track, and 13:44 for 5k outdoors as a senior.

A 10 sec improvement over 1500 is not unique.

Coe went from having a 3:42 pb to a 3:32 world record. And that Zurich run was solo for the last 800, so should have been nearer 3:30.

He didn't run any 1500s between 76 and 79, but if he had and got good pace, then surely that progression would have looked different. He run mainly 800, Mo runs mainly 5000m.

Aouita went from 13:39 to 13:05 in his pb progression.

people do need to put just a little thought into this

mo has got this good at 1500 because he has worked hard on his strength & found great speed for a 5k/10k guy - only chebbii i woud say had better ( & before anyone blurts out geb/kennster, remember they were 5'4 runts - those little legs whirring away on last laps looked impressive but they aren't going to beat any decent 1500 guy in a 400 - 5'4 is still 5'4 & that is going to severely limit your 400 speed )

mo was so puny when he joined sal that the 1st thing sal asked him to do was some push-ups

mo collapsed after 5 !!!

sal said his biggest job was to get him to hit the weights & pile some strength into those bones

that is the be-all & end-all of the story

i have absolutely no doubt mo wouda progressed to well below 27 if he'd stuck with another coach

( he also said he wasn't a fully dedicated guy until joining sal ) & i think he couda gone 26'30/26'40 as career end

( same as a dozen+ other current/recent africans you coud name given "perfect" pace & ambitious pace - no rubbish 13'25 aim at 1/2 way, but something like 13'15 or 13'20 - go see 3rd string rotich run 26'43 in '11 off rubbish pre-race aim/actual of 13'25 - he was 26'30/26'35 that day if kennster had had the balls to ask for 13'15+ & not 13'25 )

however, with that 26'30/26'40 his speed wouda stayed at same pretty pathetic level of maybe 52 or 53s like most africans ( remember 5 push-ups -> no strength, no speed ) & his line of fit wouda been likely

52.0 - 53.0 / 26'30 - 26'40 ->

3'32.9 - 3'35.7

7'24.5 - 7'29.2

12'43.8 - 12'50.4

i defy anyone to say that 1500 range is outrageous for him as a career pb if he'd stuck to his

"all mileage/no strength" training

the hard strength work under sal has meant that basically, he probably hasn't got any significantly quicker than the 26'30 or 26'40 he'd likely have ended up with anyways just thru dedicated training instead of haphazard ( like the above mentioned dozen+ africans ), BUT his speed is no longer the 52 or 53 he wouda had, but

~ 50-flat !

50.0 / 26'30 - 26'40 ->

3'28.5 - 3'29.1

7'18.9- 7'20.8

12'38.4 - 12'42.4

all mo has done is find speed - nothing monstrous to do with gargantuan endurance

the same speed i have been asking canova to find for years for his africans - get them a weights coach & get them into that weights room - that'll do it !!!

maybe canova & the other african coaches will finally learn from mo

speed kills !

^^^ You're a joke. I can't believe people will buy into the sh**t you say... Push ups. That's your answer....Push ups.

The Stain wrote:

There is no precedent of people who had 6 or 8 years of being pretty good, and then becoming the best.

There's certainly plenty of precedent of people being dopers, so it would seem that his getting good late doesn't necessarily make him a doper.

Red Arrow wrote:

A 10 sec improvement over 1500 is not unique.

Coe went from having a 3:42 pb to a 3:32 world record. And that Zurich run was solo for the last 800, so should have been nearer 3:30.

He didn't run any 1500s between 76 and 79, but if he had and got good pace, then surely that progression would have looked different. He run mainly 800, Mo runs mainly 5000m.

Aouita went from 13:39 to 13:05 in his pb progression.

Totally different from Farah, your two examples, don't you see this? Coe was 23 when he set his 1500m WR and - as you have said - has not concentreted on the 1500m before. He definitely could have run much faster than 3:40 in 1978. Aouita was 24 when he improved to 13:04 (not 13:05). He also has not concentrated a lot on the event before, at least not in 83, his breakthrough year.

Farah is 30. And he has run 1500m for several years. Until around 25 he could not run (at least not much) faster than 3:38. And at 30 3:28 high. Wow!

shouda added the "evidence" for mo likely having been a 52/53 guy if he'd stuck to usual african ( kenyan ) traininghttp://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4203011&page=2

You may be perplexed. What shows greater dedication: giving up everything in the UK to train though three remote Rift Valley 6-8 week-camps a year for four years, or living in the land of opportunity with the NOP where an alter-G allows you to run on air? And even when Mo was in the UK, till 2010 when UK Aths bought their own house, he was living in the UK KIM house.

African training--the type that has pushed and shaped distance running as we know it--turned Mo Farah into a 12:57/27:22 guy. Yep, the same training camp that gave us Daniel Komen.

And this is the real rub. The guy who spent years learning from the Africans is going to teach them lesson on racing? No more the humble student more than a few steps behind the world's best, but within a few short months he was the Usain Bolt of distance running? Kudos to Pace for managing them both!

Gebremeskel lost a shoe and beat Mo Farah to start 2011 but it was Mo who ended up with the Cinderella season/story. There is more than enough data in this thread alone detailing the unreal arc that is Mo Farah's running career.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Apply that to Nike. Good day.

People, you are missing the obvious point here. These other extremely talented East Africans would probably be nearing the records too if they were with NOP.

Of course Mo's into the gray area with Al Sal, but it's almost certain that everything they do is legal. They are too smart to *uck up that badly.

That's part of the genius, that they have all of these costly and progressive advances but remain EXTREMELY exclusive. Ever notice that no EAs train with Al Sal? Don't you think they'd want to with Mo's success? The coach won't let them, because the brand he has built with Mo and Rupp is far more lucrative for them all than if one of the non-marketable, non-English speaking EAs was his star.

Observationalist wrote:

And this is the real rub. The guy who spent years learning from the Africans is going to teach them lesson on racing? No more the humble student more than a few steps behind the world's best, but within a few short months he was the Usain Bolt of distance running? Kudos to Pace for managing them both!

Gebremeskel lost a shoe and beat Mo Farah to start 2011 but it was Mo who ended up with the Cinderella season/story. There is more than enough data in this thread alone detailing the unreal arc that is Mo Farah's running career.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Apply that to Nike. Good day.

So running a hard 10k six days before another 10k has no effect on the ladder race? If that were true there would be 10k's run every week on the diamond league circuit. It's easy to see the talent was there with back to back 10k's in the mid 27s in 2010.

And you're still pushing the doping angle with no evidence other than what you deem questionable improvement. Salazar works total body strength which is evident that no other Africans train. Whose to say this type of specific weight training, coupled with a big focus on speedwork isn't the reason why Mo went from top 10 in the world to number 1? You? Come on. More mileage, focusing on sprint speed, and building total body strength has made him the best in the world. The East Africans all run huge miles and the only reason they are looking to improve their sprint speed now is because of what Salazar and Farah have been doing to them at the end of races.

The Stain wrote:

Furthermore, all the defenders who say that Farah's improvement is not really that striking given his early times, I challenge them to give a single example of another athlete who has improved in a similar way.

Name another athlete who went through his mid-20's running a consistent yearly best of 13:09, 13:08, 13:07, 13:08 and THEN became the world's best (or anything remotely like that).

Carlos Lopes.

It's easy. Just do some 80sec sprints after the same workouts that most other athletes do. That is the secret. Do that and you will win GOLD. There are a few other things he does, but no need to get into that.

"The East Africans all run huge miles and the only reason they are looking to improve their sprint speed now is because of what Salazar and Farah have been doing to them at the end of races."

And the whole reason why al sal started to emphasize "Sprint speed" to mo and galen was to have them run like Bekele, whom by the way was doing it first. ABSOLUTE FACT.

Finally a few people on the right track here, what a lot of people don't realise is that Mo spent a lost of his early twenties, late teens being a 1500 runner.... and the best he could muster, despite training professionally with Mottrams group, Radcliffes group, and in Kenya, the best he could manage was 3.38... that is why he turned to the 5km cause he was too slow.....

Now he is the best distance runner the world had ever seen.

Yep, that makes sense......

Interesting to note that the British Junior record for 5000m is 13-27.04 by Steve Binns ...