More proof that the marathon is a competition of who can be more bored while training.
Takes like this are so bad.
It blows my mind that the default conclusion isn't immediately, "Wow the Japanese are genetically suited for the marathon."
There are plenty of Kenyans doing Japanese training in Japan. They destroy the Japanese on the track. It's not the training - it's genetics.
Every year, between 5 times and 10 times as many more high school-age boys break 15 in the 5k in Japan than do in America. So it would seem wrong to suggest that the Japanese are somehow genetically inferior to Americans or other groups at running 5ks. What we do know is that the Japanese start doing monster mileage at age 14 or so. By all accounts, 150k-200k/week is pretty standard across high school training groups in Japan.
Japan produces incredible depth across age groups from 5k to ultramarathon distances. The Japanese produce about as many sub-63 half marathon runners as do all Western nations combined. But only a handful of Japanese runners have ever broken 60.
Also, are the genetic components of being a good half marathon runner that different from being a good 5k runner? Are we shocked that Kiplimo and Almgren are good at both? Mantz is better at the half than Nico would be right now, but isn’t that pretty easily explainable by mileage?
The Japanese women's record in the 5000 is 14:29. The British women's record in the 5000 is 14:28.
But it is certainly true that the Japanese men's 5000 m record (13:08) is extremely weak relative to their best half marathon and marathon times.
I suspect there are a variety of factors at play. Perhaps it is combination of their high-mileage approach, Ekiden focus, and lower genetic intra-group variation relative to countries like the US. Maybe the 50/90/99th-percentile Japanese runner is better at 5k but the 99.99th-percentile is not.
This post was edited 7 minutes after it was posted.
There seems to be a pretty balanced disagreement here. Is 3:50 good for a 2:06 marathoner?
No.
A 2:06 marathon is worth 1219 points in the WA tables. The equivalent 1500 time is 3:32. Even granting that a marathoner is unlikely to run a 1500 time that's equivalent, that's a massive gap. A 2:06 marathon is also worth at Daniels VDOT of 81, which equates to 3:29.
Most marathoners have mile PRs that are around 25% faster than their marathon pace (~1 minute per mile), though there are some outliers (among the sub 2:05 crowd), where it's inching closer to 20%. Kipchoge probably has the narrowest gap between mile PR (3:50) and his marathon PR pace (4:34), leaving out athletes who have never recorded a legit competitive mile/1500.
If you're saying that 3:50 is good for a pro marathoner, then you're saying that most pro marathoners didn't have the talent to be a pretty average collegiate miler. That's crazy. Even Shorter ran 3:42 back in 1969.
More proof that the marathon is a competition of who can be more bored while training.
Takes like this are so bad.
It blows my mind that the default conclusion isn't immediately, "Wow the Japanese are genetically suited for the marathon."
There are plenty of Kenyans doing Japanese training in Japan. They destroy the Japanese on the track. It's not the training - it's genetics.
Adversion to genetics to explain running results is junk science. Europeans, with the exception of a few outliers, were blown off the track in the distances for generations by African runners. No more. Did the genetics change in the past ten years?
The Japanese high mileage training approach pretty much skipped speedwork entirely. The 5k and shorter times have plummeted since Salazar took a Japanese runner to quicker track times. Just the past few years, there have been remarkable mid-d performances from Japanese athletes. Ko Ochiai at just under 18 ran 1:44.80 in 2024 and three others ran 1:46s in the past six years. The Japanese U20 record was 1:47.13 until 2012. Keita Satoh ran 3:37.18 at 17 years old in 2021 for the 1500m U20 record. From 1977 to 1999, the record was just 3:41.6h. In 1999 there was a 3:38.49, and that lasted until 2021. In the 3k, Ryuji Miura at 19 ran 7:48 in 2021. The 1977 record of 7:58.6 stood for forty years until 2017. In the 5k, Satoh ran 13:22 at 18, which is better than the American high school record, and eight different athletes have run 13:31 or better in the past five years (the 2005 record of 13:31.x stood until 2020). So, the Japanese marks until this summer were superior to the American marks at 800, 3k, and 5k (much better quality depth here), for 18 and under, but there has been major improvement in Japan in all these records in recent years.
It blows my mind that the default conclusion isn't immediately, "Wow the Japanese are genetically suited for the marathon."
There are plenty of Kenyans doing Japanese training in Japan. They destroy the Japanese on the track. It's not the training - it's genetics.
Even better instead of it being a competition between who can be more bored, it's a competition between which zygotes produced you. What an exciting event 🤮