Why the sudden success in the West in distances after decades of failure? Confidence. Tergat was partially right. The other element is the East African rampant doping, as now proven.
Why the sudden success in the West in distances after decades of failure? Confidence. Tergat was partially right. The other element is the East African rampant doping, as now proven.
I took a deep dive into this topic in 2005. When I interviewed numerous elite runners from Kenya and the US I found both belief systems [religion and indigenous psychology] and knowledge systems [sport psychology and rationality/science].
Point #1: What Tergat (and Weldon) are saying is that you cannot do it if you don’t believe that you can. “I’ve tried to break world records. When I’m training for that, I’m already thinking in my mind, that I’m planning for the world record. Everyday I wake up I think ‘world record’. So by the time I’m going for the world record it doesn’t matter who is lining up against me. I don’t see them. I don’t count them. I already see myself as the winner, not competing against them. That’s makes it very difficult for the others.”
I think the second stage of the belief system is more rational. Just because you believe you can does not mean that you can. Komen and Tergat were motivated to train for world records because of belief. However, for every Komen and Tergat, there are many dozens of Kenyan runners that could not.
Jacob is an interesting case study on this topic. He believes he is capable of breaking many more world records. In sport psychology there is a concept called the inverted U, where athletes should have the right balance of motivation and rationality. Being over-motivated can be as bad as lack of motivation and lead to problems.
As Komen was training to break the two mile world record, he would run 3:50 miles at altitude in the forest. Belief can only go so far. Komen said his belief and success was linked to how well he did in training.
Point #2: If you cannot do it in training you most likely cannot do it at the track meet or on the roads.
MAYBE Not having the NCAA collegiate system helps them
BUT
I have had the opportunity to train with a lot of great runners, American record holders, olympians, do workouts with them as I'm sure a lot of people on this board have. They were almost all across the board training so hard that they were on the edge of injury the whole time. Flirting with that edge. How can they train harder than that?
Its how much they weigh period. Look at their legs. Look at the legs of a high school kid who you think "can compete with the Kenyans some day." See a difference. I remember the top ten 5k lists the year Bob Kennedy ran his pr and he was the heaviest one. He was pound for pound the best distance runner in the world but he wasnt the best distance runner in the world. The guy who weighed 119 pounds was. Less weight=faster running plus less injuries.
Running has a lot of factors but there are two principal ones. If one group of people is absolutely dominating than they must be dominating in one of these two realms because they trump everything.
1: How much oxygen you can deliver to the muscles
-Plenty of americans with 80+ Vo2 max
2: How much you weigh and where that weight is.
-Kenyans are light weight and more importantly light weight in the legs,
Everyone knows the difference running in racing flats makes. Imagine taking five pounds off of your legs. Now you're a kenyan.
There's all this bs and conjecture on this thread and then marathon mind posted the answer. They have lighter calves, studies have shown this. Everyone ignored him.
Jakob doesn’t have skinny legs and he’s run 7:17, 7:54 (faster than any East African ever) and has won the last 3 global 5000s. Explain that.
