Is Geb Overtraining?

It's also possible that at this point in his career he is just chasing cash. After all, it can't hurt to build up the campaign chest ahead of his eventual bid for the Ethiopian presidency.

Maybe the glory days of his track career are over? And he just wants to enjoy the international road running scene for a few years, have a crack at some WRs, run some fast times etc...

Geb fades in marathon because his pace is too fast for his fitness level.

gav800 wrote:

Maybe the glory days of his track career are over? And he just wants to enjoy the international road running scene for a few years, have a crack at some WRs, run some fast times etc...

Perhaps....and he is doing a good job with some WR runs - fantastic - except he stated to the world that the MARATHON is his big goal now. And I maintain that going for a 15k to 21k WR in the shadow of a very recent Marathon goes against everything that I ever read / studied about Geb's training, up to the retirement from track. Did he lose the "big picture"? 2008 Olympic marathon gold??? 2:04:40??? Is he doing good training for those things?

thechamelion wrote:

I was actually reading of the lore of running the other day, and I read a point Noakes made on how runners only have so many good races in them, and Geb was my first thought....

Noakes was referring to marathons, not just any race, and he speculates that it is a limit 4 or 5 top efforts.

Skuj, you have some very good points. Geb should be concentrating on the marathon if he wants a WR. You can't be faulted for simply looking at the results, which are there for everyone to see. Geb is human like everyone else, and subject to error.

thechamelion wrote:

I was actually reading of the lore of running the other day, and I read a point Noakes made on how runners only have so many good races in them, and Geb was my first thought. The fact that he has been dominating the running scene at one distance or another for almost a decade seems like a long time, I think that Geb has just run too many races hard in his life, and his prime has run out.......

PLUS

thechamelion wrote:

The only problem I have with this is that is he is still setting world records.

EQUALS......

Dude, do the math, and you will see it is what Skuj and I said. Since Geb ran a 2:06, and then set 10m, 15k , 1/2 mar, and 25k WR's in a short period of time, CLEARLY he is not too far out of his prime and NOT an example of what Noakes is saying.

BUT......he is an shorter-term example of what Noakes is saying: one can only run so many great, WR type performances in a short period of time, ESPECIALLY when you are getting older, doing longer races, and pushing the envelope of what is your prime distances (obviously Geb was more of a 1500-1/2 marathon guy, and now he is moving beyond that).

So clearly he is still near his prime, still ready to run amazing performances, but he is just doing too many ultra-hard race efforts and ultra-hard training in a short period of time. I mean, it's amazing he is as healthy and still rearing to go (thought about 1 hour record) considering all he has done recently.

Look, even Geb can do too much.

Look what happened to Salazar: the guy creamed his body to pieces with non-stop hard training and race efforts and eventually became a shell of himself at something like age 24. Geb is superman, so he can withstand almost anything, but clearly his London performance was indicative of SOME FAILING in either his training, racing, or general health leading up to that race. Since clearly he did not train too little, and didn't seem unhealthy, then it must have been too many hard races, over too many distances, and possibly too much intense training. He went into the race beat up, past his peak, and had an off day.

I really hope for his next marathon he makes THAT, and that alone, the sole focus of his season (as opposed to just including it as part of a multi-WR assault season like he did this time). If he does, we will see a 2:04 out of him.

Maybe Geb is still thinking like a track guy. A track guy (an elite one, that is) can run a world record and then go after another one just few days later. He can many races hard over a few months.

That type of methodology doesn't really work as well in road-racing, I think. Longer races take a lot more out of you.

Perhaps Geb is doing his road racing season like a track runner.