NEW OLYMPIC TRIALS STANDARD STARTING TO KILL USA

Awesome posts by Keith Stone and dd.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; we will never beat the Africans as long as they come from somewhere miserable and we have other, better options in terms of personal financial security.

Lekuta wrote:

So, the count continues: USA only had four (4) Olympic Marathon Trials qualifiers, and all were big-boy professionals

Meb Keflezighi

Dathan Ritzenhein

Jorge Torres

Tim Nelson

I know many of you don't care that the sport is becoming professionalized, but today's lack of depth in supposedly the biggest and most important domestic marathon showcased that the typical 2:19-2:25 guy is leaving the sport.

Congrats on tightening the standards and killing off the future.

Yeah because most 2:19-2:25 guys end up running 2:06.

Apparently you do have the time yet just don't know.

So you're saying people ran fast in '83 just to impress family, friends, and coworkers? Sorry, but that's an idiotic belief.

Which weren't choices in '83, according to your batshit logic.

There's nothing to explain if you believe it's important enough.

One word: wussification. The sport's been hi-jacked by outside interests, even Steve Jones recognizes that, and ours has become a culture of diminished personal expectations and accountability.

There may be altered dynamics at work, sure, but at the end of the day it is about you and how much you want it. If you want it enough then nothing (except maybe genetics) is an insurmountable barrier. It's not like running marathons fast was so cool and universally embraced at some point and now isn't.

I'm no 2:25 marathoner, but I can relate to some of the financial/changing times arguments. Maybe not a direct analogy, but the wife and I are holding off on starting a family until we can get our debt and finances under control. We're tight with money, great with saving and paying down debt, but even with two relatively well paid jobs we have $100K in student loans to retire which makes us cash-poor for at least another 4-5yrs. It's a large commitment, and something our parents and relatives seem to have no concept of. I'm simply pointing to a generational change that has made ordinary tasks more difficult today than they were 30yrs ago. Attending college, starting a family, buying a home - all of these actions require considerably more resources than in the recent past. I would argue that dedicated marathon training for the average runner is under similar pressures and constraint. It at least is one contributing factor to the decline in US marathoning depth.

Keith Stone wrote:

I'm sure their bosses will understand how important running is and not place them at the top of the lay-off list. They can explain to their girlfriends how they can't go out clubbing tonight because they have to get in 8 before work, or they explain to their wives how they're too tired after the long run to clean out the garage, and of course explain to everyone why you don't have kids yet.

That part was just the same 25 years ago. The question is, what was different?

Back then the big marathons were new. Everyone wanted to have a go. Many people discovered a talent for running, and most top distance runners decided to have a crack at the marathon. It helped that both our nations (I'm a Brit) had some winners to inspire us.

It was exactly the same statistical pattern with the early London marathons. I did London in 2:33 as a student, and came 385th.

Boston is not a legitimate comparison because the course is mostly downhill. And sometimes there's a tailwind that pushes the runners all the way through the course.

This being said, regardless the qualifying standard, the top 100 men from the qualifying period should be invited to the trials.

Running doesn't take much time at all, even 140 miles a week. I don't think you have to work part-time to reach your potential.

Here's how it can work.

Goal: You want to do your best at running.

1. Take a regular 40 hour a week job.

2. Wake up in the morning before work and run for an hour.

3. Go to work.

4. After work, go for a run - maybe 75 minutes or whatever.

That's it.

Why make it harder than that?

Anything that causes you to deviate from this simple training plan is either poor time management or lack of prioritizing. If you have kids, 60 hour work weeks, etc, then I guess you don't really want to run your best.

So my contention isn't that it's harder to do your best, but would rather pursue other things and use the distractions of the day as excuses.

Surprise! wrote:

...lack of prioritizing. If you have kids, 60 hour work weeks, etc, then I guess you don't really want to run your best.

First, anyone who understands what the word means would realize that this is not a "lack of prioritizing," but rather it is prioritizing things differently from how you would. So lets hold off on the snide "get your priorities straight" attitude- I was well aware that I would likely sacrifice my best marathon (and all sorts of other distances) by choosing to focus on career and family, and I'm quite happy with how it turned out. I still run, albeit more slowly, and I love my career and family. The point I was trying to make is that it is harder now for someone to devote a couple of years to truly make running their primary focus; I didnt say it was impossible, just that there are more factors against it then there used to be. If you care to disagree, fine, but it's more complicated then "you don't really want to run your best."

I wasn't being snide, and I'm certainly not faulting anyone for focusing on career and family.

My point was there are not more factors than there used to be. It is not any harder than it used to be. There may be more distractions to ignore, but it isn't harder.

Wake up, run, work, run. What has changed to make that harder?

Like a lot of sports the stars seem to make too much money.

There needs to be more money left over for the guys running sub 2:25. Even if it is just running gear, comp entries, travel expenses and lodging to events.

Not every elite runner starts out with a 2:10. Developing runners may take 10 years to take 10 mins off the marathon time.

You need to have large numbers of runners. The 2:20 guys push the 2:15 guys, the 2:15 guys push the 2:12 guys, etc..

2:19 for a standard is not bad. That could easily be a field of over 150 runners.

Surprise! wrote:

I wasn't being snide, and I'm certainly not faulting anyone for focusing on career and family.

My point was there are not more factors than there used to be. It is not any harder than it used to be. There may be more distractions to ignore, but it isn't harder.

Wake up, run, work, run. What has changed to make that harder?

The work itself isn't harder, and I didn't say that the people at the top aren't doing it. But the 2nd/3rd tier folks definitely have a harder time today. Odds are higher you're going to come out of college with some significant debt, and the jobs available to help pay that down are harder to get and harder to keep. This is particularly true for people at the beginning of their careers.

There is also a huge change in expectations of wealth. In the 80's there was hardly any parking at high schools and half the students in college didn't have cars. Now practically all of them do. Those things require jobs to pay for them, and living like a monk is a quick ticket to being a social outcast.

I also don't buy the "wussification" argument put forth by Mr Nipples. Fact is not everyone is going to be a 2:06 (and even 2:20) marathon by just walking to the door twice a day and running 8 miles. It's patently unfair to say someone's a wuss because it didn't pay off for them.

It's also reasonable to assume that anyone taking on the task understands that there's no guarantee that a bunch of training will result in that fast time. You'll get faster, but are you really going to be one of the best? That get's back to the whole personal excellence question. Are you going to lay it on the line when the end result is you're the 85th best guy at something? (or even the 20th best?) If you put in half the time and you're 200th best how much personal satisfaction have you really given up?

I think the guys and gals that do lay in on the line deserve more respect than they get. That's another change I see in the last 27 years. In the 80's there was the whole "loneliness of the long distance runner" mystique. Wide World of Sports broadcast road races. Today if you don't perform you're a wuss, if you do you're on drugs. That kind of "eat our young" attitude most definitely makes it harder today than 27 years ago.

A few weeks ago Sergio Reyes won the US marathon champs. The prevailing attitude on the board was it didn't count because Ritz and Hall weren't there. That's a fine howdy-do. We treat a guy that works as hard (and improves as much) as Sergio like has been or never was and then call him a wuss for not training hard enough to run 2:06. Then we bitch because there's not more guys like him.

Conto wrote:

Spot on. I just posted on another thread that I coach several mid-upper 2:20 marathoners. They all run between 75 and 100 mpw and quite honestly, it was a stretch to ask for that kind of commitment for the 16 weeks that they did it for.

Are they all talented enough to run sub 2:20:00? Yeah. I have no doubt. Would it take years of toiling at 100-120 mpw? Yeah. Is it worth it to them? No.

Coach give us your name and e-mail. We would like to join your team.

KS wrote,

"Today if you don't perform you're a wuss, if you do you're on drugs. That kind of "eat our young" attitude most definitely makes it harder today than 27 years ago."

Only if you hang out on the letsrun.com message board. It's certainly possible to be a serious runner and not spend time on letsrun.com :)

racetraining wrote:

Like a lot of sports the stars seem to make too much money.

There was a lot of money in this sport in 1983 for the stars? I think there are a lot of sub 2:15 guys from the early-mid 1980\'s who would disagree with you.

For our <2:25 guys in 2010, comp entries, travel, lodging are available. That\'s the exact standard the marathon I works for uses. And we\'ll comp entries for guys slower than that. Running gear, if you put some effort into marketing yourself guys at that level can easily find assistance or a deal. Heck, I know some 2:30 range runners and comparable level triathletes who get shoes/clothing.

Surprise! wrote:

Only if you hang out on the letsrun.com message board. It's certainly possible to be a serious runner and not spend time on letsrun.com :)

True, if you have enough free time after working and running to post on letsrun you probably are a wuss. ;-)

Keith Stone wrote:

True, if you have enough free time after working and running to post on letsrun you probably are a wuss. ;-)

Exactly - or you already accomplished what you wanted in running.

Just my take while trying not to give up enough info to be identifiable.

I'm fairly recently out of college and I work a lot. Depends on the week, but some weeks I hit 70 hours. It sucks, except that I like what I do.

I still manage to run between 70 and 90 mpw. Would I like to be doing more? Yeah, probably. But I'm getting in workouts and improving. And it is really a choice I had to make. I don't have much of a social life. I had a girlfriend. Now I don't. I rarely go out on the weekends. It sucks, but at least for now I've made my choice.

That said, before this I was working a normal 40hr/ week job. I could train as hard as I damn well pleased and still maintain a healthy social life and have whatever little side projects I was cooking up. Still, there were sacrifices and I am/was young and have a lot less financially to worry about than many.

I know a number of 2:20 or sub 2:20 guys in the area, and they really do make huge sacrifices, and moreover, have made significant sacrifices for a long time. They all have full time jobs. They all have girlfriends. They get surprisingly little recognition, and local college runners for the most part have no clue who they are, which I think is a shame, because even that small amount of recognition really helps.

Someone mentioned Sergio Reyes, and while I agree that he doesn't get nearly the credit he deserves, he gets more than others. Plus that ~27 grand he won at the US Champs probably didn't hurt. I think that racing series is phenomenal for US distance running for the sub 2:20 type sub elites.

And when you think about it: the road racing scene is great for sub-elite post-collegiates. There aren't that many sports you can keep going after college without the ability to be a pro and yet still get some level of financial support, even if it's just the occasional 200 bones from a road race or racing kit from a local club team. It's not only about the money; it's also about the feeling that what you're doing is moving something out there in the world, that it might not be really affecting many, but it isn't going into a void, either.

I also really agree with the person who said the 2:20s push the 2:15s push the 2:12s push the 2:10s, etc. It would take up a ton of space to make all the arguments I think would be necessary to formalize that in words, but I really believe that's true, and that the guys who only have the potential to maybe just crack 2:20 still need something to motivate them to try if we want to have a really healthy top-end American marathon scene.

-A youngish guy who really wants to see the depth come back to the US marathon scene

Surprise! wrote:

Goal: You want to do your best at running.

1. Take a regular 40 hour a week job.

2. Wake up in the morning before work and run for an hour.

3. Go to work.

4. After work, go for a run - maybe 75 minutes or whatever.

The Africans, even the B and C level Africans in America running mid-level marathons, are sleeping and propping the legs up while you're at work. Running IS their job.