"I never ran more than 25miles a week."

Guppy wrote:

. He did, however, take 5 days completely off before his 3:59.7, which is pretty crazy to me. .

that makes you flat as a pancake

something to do with oxygen carrying capicity of the blood i think

longjack wrote:

chataway on the other hand running a 13:50 5k - on what kind of track with what kind of pacing?

He followed Kuts all the way, therefore very good pacing, on a well groomed cinder track.

It's about skill (genetics) and opportunity (environment).

But let's be honest, those who grew up in the World War era were tougher. They had to be. There were no participant ribbons. Mediocrity meant death much of the time. Different era if human, we've devolved ever since.

J.R. wrote:

longjack wrote:

chataway on the other hand running a 13:50 5k - on what kind of track with what kind of pacing?

He followed Kuts all the way, therefore very good pacing, on a well groomed cinder track.

The Schnide wrote:

It's about skill (genetics) and opportunity (environment).

But let's be honest, those who grew up in the World War era were tougher. They had to be. There were no participant ribbons. Mediocrity meant death much of the time. Different era if human, we've devolved ever since.

Yes, and that's why there is a man in Oregon who ran 27 seconds faster than Chataway for 5000, then did it a second time without stopping. Clearly we have devolved.

These guys demonstrate that people react to training stimuli idiosyncratically. Some need more mileage than others. Also, Bannister ran well at Iffley Road because he took off 5 days before. We inhabit a culture in which many don't go hard enough or easy enough. This is largely because people count mileage and record it in training logs, and then hire coaches who pretend false precision in designing programs and rely on pseudo -science, such as the ungrounded notions of LT and tempo. Chataway, Bannister, Nurmi, Zatopek and then Viren, Shorter and Rodgers ran more intuitively and without disabling dependence on coaching. Bannister's best race was in Vancouver, where he beat somebody. The Oxford affair was rabbited, which diminishes it.

Consider This wrote:

[quote]pv runner wrote:

Bernard Lagat ran 3:26 and 12:53 off 50 MPW; why should it be hard to believe two guys ran ~3:40 and 13:51 off half that?

Did their A samples test positive, and did they need braces for their teeth?

SMJO wrote:

You really think Mottram ran that time on cinders? That track was resurfaced eons ago.

If they resurfaced it in rekortan or something like that, I doubt that they made it slower (duh), so I think it's fair to say that Bannister could have picked up at least the 8 seconds that Big Balls picked up after Iffly. So, on the track in Rome that El Guerrouj set the present world record (with Ngeny right on his tail), I think Bannister could have run at least 3:50 on his training with Stempfl.

The time Mottram ran there is completely irrelevant. It wasn't the same track apart from being located in the same stadium.

fred wrote:

Consider This wrote:

[quote]pv runner wrote:

Bernard Lagat ran 3:26 and 12:53 off 50 MPW; why should it be hard to believe two guys ran ~3:40 and 13:51 off half that?

Did their A samples test positive, and did they need braces for their teeth?

Not that I know of. Neither of those things would affect running ability though, so I don't see where that would matter.

welshie wrote:

J.R. wrote:

He followed Kuts all the way, therefore very good pacing, on a well groomed cinder track.

http://racingpast.ca/john_contents.php?id=145

The video. A smooch from Bannister as a reward.

Very efficient looking runner. Maybe a little extra arm action, but other than that, very smooth.

As a whole humanity is "devolving" physically due to medical science and a shift of sedentary lifestyles, employment based on services, etc.

Yes as the worlds population grows you will have genetic anomalies. But society is not as fit as a whole nor as tough mentally.

runner who professes wrote:

These guys demonstrate that people react to training stimuli idiosyncratically. Some need more mileage than others. Also, Bannister ran well at Iffley Road because he took off 5 days before. We inhabit a culture in which many don't go hard enough or easy enough. This is largely because people count mileage and record it in training logs, and then hire coaches who pretend false precision in designing programs and rely on pseudo -science, such as the ungrounded notions of LT and tempo. Chataway, Bannister, Nurmi, Zatopek and then Viren, Shorter and Rodgers ran more intuitively and without disabling dependence on coaching. Bannister's best race was in Vancouver, where he beat somebody. The Oxford affair was rabbited, which diminishes it.

I you read the article above you can see that Kuts had a coach. Viren was coached by Rolf Haikkola.

If Bannister was capable of running 3:50 then Landy would have been 3:49 and Elliot 3:42.

Except Elliot trained as hard as anyone today.

And Landy trained harder than anyone back then. Landry might have run 3:53 at best.

Fat Boy wrote:

Probably about 5 seconds per mile slower than he did.

Garbage do todays runners do 100 miles + per week and doubles for the sake of it

Whatever miles he wss doing, it was much less than half the training of todays runners. Kuts was training as a professional athlete and Chataway

For those who say he wouldn't cut it today dream on. Put todays runners on that training and see how they do. For those mentioning low mileage guys like Lagat forget it. For one he was something stonger than cigars but more importantly has been a pro athlete for years and was probably doing a lot more when younger

Chataway did 4 on minimal training so had the speed and would have given some of the pampered pro's today a run for their money over 5km

coach d wrote:

So, on the track in Rome that El Guerrouj set the present world record (with Ngeny right on his tail), I think Bannister could have run at least 3:50 on his training with Stempfl.

This does not sound right as you then have to say that guys like Snell, Herb Eliott, Michel Jazy, and Jim Ryun could have ran at least around 3:40 as they ran their mile records on cinder tracks - the same type that Bannister ran on.

The Animal Within wrote:

As a whole humanity is "devolving" physically due to medical science and a shift of sedentary lifestyles, employment based on services, etc.

Yes as the worlds population grows you will have genetic anomalies. But society is not as fit as a whole nor as tough mentally.

Do you have any evidence for that?