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 Where Your Dreams Become Reality |
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You are reporting the following post to the moderators for review and possible removal from the forum Poster: Team Analysis Subject: RE: David Rudisha is given 4 years to get the US Olympic Trials 'A' Standard for every running event. Could he do it? Body:
Hey, thanks a lot for posting. And thanks for disagreeing with something without ripping on me. A lot of people on this forum could learn from that. I just wanted to touch on this to clarify my opinion. I do think there are things you can to train for the short sprints. I know that the short sprinters are training their asses off just as much as the distance runners, and for good reason -- I am sure that great sprinting achievements, like most great achievements, are not achieved without an amazing amount of hard work. However, as far as developing talent in something you have not been training for, the long distances are much easier to improve in. For instance, consider two identical twins with no serious running background who can run a 4:00 marathon and a 20 second 100m. One twin trains very hard for the marathon, and ends up running 3:00. The other trains very hard for the 100m. What does he end up running? Probably something like 18 seconds. Certainly not 15. But his brother lopped of 25% of his time, and he cannot. (Note that the 100m time is probably weaker than the marathon time, especially for non-runners. But if you make the 100m time 17 or 18 seconds, the discrepancy only increases). As another point, Rudisha is exclusively an 800m runner, which is 8 times 100m (and 4 times 200m). It is less than one fiftieth of a marathon. Yet almost everyone thinks that the marathon time would be quite possible, while the 100m time would not be. I think if Rudisha ran a marathon tomorrow, he would not get anywhere near 2:19. I think he would DNF or be over 2:40. Yet with a year or two of solid training, I think he would have the potential to be well under it. The same improvement just doesn't happen in sprinting. Rudisha's speed already is very good -- I mean, he's the 800m world record holder. So why do people think he couldn't improve the 'little' bit he has left when he has never trained for the sprints? Because you just don't get as much improvement in those events. This doesn't diminish the effort sprinters put into their running -- they have to work really hard for each one hundredth -- but there is just less you can do to improve in these events. Hit the submit button below if you want us to review the post. If you feel this is urgent or want a reply, email us at letsrun@letsrun.com about the post and please include a link to the thread the post is on and what page number/post on that page it is
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