Why do elites always look so fresh after their races?

I run 70-90 miles a week and all of my pr's were incredibly painful experiences. Usually vomiting afterward. Racing is just very painful if you are killing yourself. Maybe because I run 31:30 for 10k but cannot break 4:10 in the 1500. I have incredibly poor speed even though I do plenty of hard intervals. I simply have no talent and running is always difficult, but very rewarding. I can't fathom having the talent to run at top speed and not be in agony doing it.

maybe you missed the video of bekele's 12:49 indoor 5k WR -- where he fell to his knees and puked.

or when meseret up-chucked after running 14:36 this weekend.

very, very few people know what it's like to run like that. the high that comes on afterwards can hold off the exhaustion until the hotel room that evening.

Well, well!

31:30 takes talent, especially if you can only run 4:10 for 1500. Sounds like you need a rethink. Perhaps you should be running longer races, getting into the gym and getting stronger or changing your training for more high tempo based work?

But please dont accept things as they are. You have talent. You need to find out what will make it develop. (and age is not an excuse)

Experiment a bit by changing some of the training variables - carefully and recorded - and see what happens to you.

Good luck

Glen

hard training, mental attitude, adrenalin rush, elation. When one gets it right there ain't no stopping. Plus of course since the mid 80's good drugs.

My best race ever felt effortless. I was working as hard as I could--but there was no pain. I was very afterwards. It happens, and there are too many physiological factors involved to single out any particular cause for lack of fatigue.

Probably because they aren't completely wiped out. Explains why they can finish so fast.

Plus, they don't pace themselves so that they wipe out, but rather so they can finish at race pace and faster.

As somebody already mentioned, some of the back of the pack guys who don't pace themselves correctly and finish slower than anticipated race pace, are more likely to look wiped out.

my best/fastest races always felt easier than the bad ones, where everything hurt. (mental)

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Over my college career my coach made me work on holding my form as I got tired in races. The pain didn't lessen, I just had to focus on preventing extraneous movement. The more you grimace and shake your head and things like that towards the end of a race, the more you slow down. One quality of a good racer is maintaining the look of effortlessness when the pain comes on. It keeps you using energy more efficiently and helps you stay positive.

Also, most people's bodies shut down gradually unless something goes wrong. If you collapse after a race, odds are you ran the last part of it really slowly, because a body doesn't just go fast, fast, fast, collapse. If you want to go your fastest your effort can't be too hard until the race is almost over, because no matter how tough you are you will slow down if you go into oxygen debt early on. Good racers know how to pace. For 10k on up, even or slightly negative splits is crucial in my opinion.

And my 10k PR didn't really hurt much until I shifted gears the last 600 or so, my legs just basically got tired. However my 5k PR hurt like the dickens and was much faster at the start than the end.

OBN wrote:

Probably because they aren't completely wiped out. Explains why they can finish so fast.

Plus, they don't pace themselves so that they wipe out, but rather so they can finish at race pace and faster.

As somebody already mentioned, some of the back of the pack guys who don't pace themselves correctly and finish slower than anticipated race pace, are more likely to look wiped out.

Mmm hmm. Just like Paula. And Goucher. Those are two runners who go balls out every time, and you can see it plain as day. That is what a real, gut-busting effort looks like. To break a world record, running negative splits (and a good deal of it solo), and finishing up looking like you just ran a tempo run has always struck me as being just a bit suspicious. Apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way. Such is life in endurance sports these days...

you forget Seb Coe's 3:47.33 -- he turned and shouted to the crowd (like in LA 84)

Glen wrote:

Well, well!

31:30 takes talent, especially if you can only run 4:10 for 1500. Sounds like you need a rethink. Perhaps you should be running longer races, getting into the gym and getting stronger or changing your training for more high tempo based work?

But please dont accept things as they are. You have talent. You need to find out what will make it develop. (and age is not an excuse)

Experiment a bit by changing some of the training variables - carefully and recorded - and see what happens to you.

Good luck

Glen

Well, thanks for the encouragement. I'm in my mid-'30's now and haven't stopped training since high school. I have tried lots of different forms of training, but I can't seem to get past a certain level. I often feel like I have no talent since I have often trained 90 miles a week, walking the tightrope of injury, and cannot break 15:00 for 5000m no matter how hard I try. Meanwhile, the guys I train with do 60 miles a week and puss out anytime things get tough, but can run 14:30 or so for 5000m. I think I just have very poor anaerobic ability, and probably am most suited for the marathon. But, man, I have been trying to break 15:00 for 20 years now. I can't believe I can't do it while so many others who train less can. It seems like everybody I know can change gears in a heartbeat, while I go into full oxygen debt if I dip below threshold, and my speed isn't even competitve with kids I know that can't even break 17:00 in a 5k.

I DO love running though and am very thankful for the ability to run and be a runner.

If you can handle 90MPW ever and you dont get faster then marathon is clearly where you should go. It is almost certainly too late now - in common sense terms - to try get faster, but your years of background should give you a serious head start for the marathon. Rather than worrying about something that is unlikely to happen, I would get on with it and get a few long races under your belt to see what you can do. You might even try mountain running becasue the speed here on average is much less.

Glen

Glen wrote:

If you can handle 90MPW ever and you dont get faster then marathon is clearly where you should go. It is almost certainly too late now - in common sense terms - to try get faster, but your years of background should give you a serious head start for the marathon. Rather than worrying about something that is unlikely to happen, I would get on with it and get a few long races under your belt to see what you can do. You might even try mountain running becasue the speed here on average is much less.

Glen

I think you're right. But I am very involved with the track community, so it will be hard to go it alone into the LD world. I can handle training alone. It's just I'll no longer be in the same "running world" as all the people I associate with. But, you know, 20 years is a long time for a super slow-twitch boy to be hanging with all those gifted speedsters! I'll have to look into mountain running, because I DO kick butt on the trails over all the faster guys I run with, especially single track. It's like their 4:10 mile legs are suddenly equal to my 4:10 1500 legs when we are out there pushing it!