JK- what’s the most rational explanation for how Sara Hall runs significantly faster at age 37

bowly wrote:

The same reason that 90% of elite runners drop off in their mid 30s. Do you think most people maintain forever? Sara looks great. Her body looks 27. We all have different genes. And don't forget that she was national champ at 18. Hard to somebody is much more talented than a national champ.

Correction: national schoolgirl champ. How many of them go on to become amongst the very best in the world? Being a schoolgirl champion isn't a predictor of open success - few make it to the top level of the sport.

The reason "90% of elite runners drop off in their mid 30's" is aging - which no one escapes from. So how does an elite athlete not simply slow decline but actually get better - in their late 30's? She apparently has better "genes" at 37 than 27.

truth be told. wrote:

Deena fan wrote:

Deena was light years ahead of Sara in the 5000, 10000 and marathon. Deena was also running extremely well as a master. So let's say the shoes are worth 2-3 minutes. How come Deena, who is immensely more talented than Sara, could not run 2:22-2:23 at age 37?

Because she had a baby.

There are women athletes who have had children and gone on to record some of their best performances, including championship victories.

Yo Sara ian wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

There are world records that have been set in championship races. There is no rule that says they must be slower than any other race.

Yeah, and when was the last time that happened? How many times has it happened?

It has happened in the way that world records have been set in any running event, less often than in rabbited record attempts but still occurring because some championship races are fast and some less so. But for a runner to be capable of running several minutes faster than the victor in many championship marathon races shows that their calibre is amongst the best in the world. And that is the point. Hall is amongst the very best in the world in her event.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Yo Sara ian wrote:

Yeah, and when was the last time that happened? How many times has it happened?

It has happened in the way that world records have been set in any running event, less often than in rabbited record attempts but still occurring because some championship races are fast and some less so. But for a runner to be capable of running several minutes faster than the victor in many championship marathon races shows that their calibre is amongst the best in the world. And that is the point. Hall is amongst the very best in the world in her event.

Not in the Marathon and no it does not really show what you postulate. Dozens of guys run faster than the Olympic Marathon record. Plenty of women have as well.

Deena fan wrote:

Deena was light years ahead of Sara in the 5000, 10000 and marathon. Deena was also running extremely well as a master. So let's say the shoes are worth 2-3 minutes. How come Deena, who is immensely more talented than Sara, could not run 2:22-2:23 at age 37?

How could she run a 2:28 at 42 but only a 2:36 at 37? Do you think she found a much better doping program after 40 or do you think life lined up so that she could actually run a good marathon?

History is filled with a lot of fast 37 year olds. They tend to be the people who spend a decade on the track and just moved up to a marathon. See Kenenisa Bekele whose performance at 37 was far better than Saras. I have no idea if he is clean or not but I sort of doubt he started doping at 37:)

Armstronglivs wrote:

truth be told. wrote:

Because she had a baby.

There are women athletes who have had children and gone on to record some of their best performances, including championship victories.

No, Deena was pregnant with her daughter when she was 37. She wasn’t training and racing seriously around the same age as Sara. What’s the oldest age for a 2:20 marathon or faster by someone who birthed a baby?

Many Moms have gone on to do well post-baby, but the difference between Deena and Sara is Deena stepped away for a while to have a baby at that age.

Your point that talent isn't a predictor of success actually supports the point that better training is very important for improvement. Maybe she was capable of 2:15 ten years ago but wasn't training seriously. Somehow the best runners in their prime at 18 don't usually become the best at 25 according to you. Then it is logical that somebody who ramps up their training could improve later in life also.

The whole decline after 30 thing is flawed also. So many old folks are lost in the past when it comes to performance and training.

Imagine if you felt you you could not actually improve after 30 and had to start declining. That mindset would certainly cause you to become old and decrepit pretty quickly.

adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:

Deena fan wrote:

Deena was light years ahead of Sara in the 5000, 10000 and marathon. Deena was also running extremely well as a master. So let's say the shoes are worth 2-3 minutes. How come Deena, who is immensely more talented than Sara, could not run 2:22-2:23 at age 37?

How could she run a 2:28 at 42 but only a 2:36 at 37? Do you think she found a much better doping program after 40 or do you think life lined up so that she could actually run a good marathon?

History is filled with a lot of fast 37 year olds. They tend to be the people who spend a decade on the track and just moved up to a marathon. See Kenenisa Bekele whose performance at 37 was far better than Saras. I have no idea if he is clean or not but I sort of doubt he started doping at 37:)

But a big difference between Bekele and Sara Hall is that one of them is arguably the greatest distance runner of all time for their gender, and the other is pretty good and won some national titles at 20k and such. Bekele was EXPECTED to run a really fast marathon if he ever put a good race together. You would see threads on message boards about how fast he would be able to run, and the consensus seemed to be that he should be able to set a WR or get close. The reason being, his times for 5k/10k were so good, people reasoned that he could drop off a little in the longer marathon distance and still be shockingly fast. Nobody was saying anything like that about Hall.

vwkjbvwiehfbew wrote:

People keep saying that she is running 110 mile per week. She isn't. She's running 130-140. Sara says this in the interview on the Letsrun podcast. Her performance is a combination of the training and the shoes. The question is how is she able to absorb all the training, stay healthy, recover, etc. running 130-140 miles per week?

My impression is that those 130mpw are for a very short period of time (4 weeks) before she drops back down to the 110 range.That is a pretty normal thing. Seidel for example said she was doing 125mpw during her london build up. But I have never seen any super detailed schedules about how she is training.

We are talking about a level of training that is hard but not unheard of. Espeically for short 2-3 year periods of time. It is definitely a lot more volume than she was doing as a 1500m runner. I wish we had lab numbers (vo2 max, LT, efficiency at 5:20 pace) from the time when she was running 4:08 to now. It would be interesting to see how adding that much more mileage and a change in workouts results in physiological changes.

Of course not but Hall is clearly a pure Marathoner who was doing the wrong events for the previous decade.

This is not an unheard of scenario. You probably would have never heard of Abebe Bikila and Derek Clayton if they stuck to shorter distances. Among others. Benji Durden, Dick Beardsley., Grey Meyer, Ian Thompson, Ron Hill.

Deena fan wrote:

Deena was light years ahead of Sara ....marathon.

Key word is was. Sara is now less than a minute behind.

Yo Sara ian wrote:

Of course not but Hall is clearly a pure Marathoner who was doing the wrong events for the previous decade.

This is not an unheard of scenario. You probably would have never heard of Abebe Bikila and Derek Clayton if they stuck to shorter distances. Among others. Benji Durden, Dick Beardsley., Grey Meyer, Ian Thompson, Ron Hill.

What is a "pure marathoner"? I ask because I feel like there is this mythical marathoner out there who is bad at, say, 10000m, but can run a marathon at the same pace. And I just don't think this really happens. For example, at least 2 of the people you mentioned I know off the top of my head held the 10-mile WR (Hill and Meyer). Meyer also beat Alberto Salazar at XC for the AAU title in 1978.

And anyway, I keep reading about how Sara Hall demonstrated her class at a young age by being a schoolgirl XC champion. She didn't seem like a "pure marathoner" then.

Basically, the issue is that her career trajectory was, after that early highlight of winning Foot Locker, one where she never really had a big breakout. She was good, solid, but not Olympic quality. This continued for about 2 decades! I mean, c'mon. You don't have to say she's a cheat - as I stated earlier, I'm perfectly happy to attribute it to the shoes - but you can't act like, oh yeah, it's perfectly normal for someone who's been running competitively for over 20 years to suddenly become world-class. Who else has done that?

OK, Dismiss Meyer and then compare the best times of Hill, Thompson and Beardsley to their Marathon times.

Even if you don't want to consider Hall World class until recently her actual Marathon progression has just been steady and consistent over the last five years.

Beardsley barely broke three hours to start.

Yo Sara ian wrote:

The whole decline after 30 thing is flawed also. So many old folks are lost in the past when it comes to performance and training.

Imagine if you felt you you could not actually improve after 30 and had to start declining. That mindset would certainly cause you to become old and decrepit pretty quickly.

And the surest way to arrest decline through aging is to train harder - and dope (which allows you to train harder).

Yo Sara ian wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

It has happened in the way that world records have been set in any running event, less often than in rabbited record attempts but still occurring because some championship races are fast and some less so. But for a runner to be capable of running several minutes faster than the victor in many championship marathon races shows that their calibre is amongst the best in the world. And that is the point. Hall is amongst the very best in the world in her event.

Not in the Marathon and no it does not really show what you postulate. Dozens of guys run faster than the Olympic Marathon record. Plenty of women have as well.

So how many women have run faster than 2.20 this year? How many women in their late-30's have got near that time?

Armstronglivs wrote:

Yo Sara ian wrote:

Not in the Marathon and no it does not really show what you postulate. Dozens of guys run faster than the Olympic Marathon record. Plenty of women have as well.

So how many women have run faster than 2.20 this year? How many women in their late-30's have got near that time?

You do know TT type races have been a little in short order this year, or any year? Probably not too many but that means very little.

Was Carlos Lopes a doper? What about Lorraine Moller?

You should go on Hall's twitter and flat out tell her she's a doper. I dare you. Go on.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Hall doesn't use caffeine or alcohol or tobacco. Yet there are some Anti-Americans here who can't appreciate a clean athlete. She is squeaky clean which really seems to bother bad people.

Not what champions do wrote:

[quote]adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:

But a big difference between Bekele and Sara Hall is that one of them is arguably the greatest distance runner of all time for their gender, and the other is pretty good and won some national titles at 20k and such. Bekele was EXPECTED to run a really fast marathon if he ever put a good race together. You would see threads on message boards about how fast he would be able to run, and the consensus seemed to be that he should be able to set a WR or get close. The reason being, his times for 5k/10k were so good, people reasoned that he could drop off a little in the longer marathon distance and still be shockingly fast. Nobody was saying anything like that about Hall.

Him being the greatest distance guy of all times explains why his best time is almost a WR while hers is like 6 mins (i.e. she is over a mile back) off the world record. It doesn't explain how at 37 he is still running at the level he was at 27.

It isn't like Sara ran a 2:15. She ran a 2:20. It is a couple mins faster (plenty of 15:20 people have run 2:24-2:28 in the old days before the shoes) than predicated and that is with in the range of shoes and training to account for. And some of them have even done it at 37.

A lot of people seem to struggle with the idea that 2:20 isn't what it was a half dozen years ago. Maybe everyone is doping better now than they did in the EPO era. Maybe it is the shoes. Maybe it something else.