objectiveobserver wrote:
Seen through neutral glasses from the other side of the Atlantic I would say:
1. Both Luis and Drew ran pretty fast in the 3000m especially at this time of the season.
Using World Athletics´ ranking points Luis´ 7:42.?? equals around 13:13.50 and Drew´s 3:45 equals around 13:17 in the 5000m. (Drew´s PB high 7:39 equals around 13:09! in the 5000m).
Cooper Teare´s 7:44.?? and Cole Hocker´s 7.45.?? equals around 13:17 and 13.19 respectively in the 5000m.
So these 3000m times bode well for the 5000m in early December.
Not many countries have so many talented youngsters! And there is also Grant Fisher and probably more talented young runners under way.
2. Drew Hunter:
a. I think it is wrong to blame him that he was beaten by Luis since they both ran fast times. Especially considering that Drew rabbitted Luis from around 1600m to around 2600m.
b. BUT.............. I agree with the people who states that Drew is not progressing as expected considering his high school achievements. I don´t know about Tinman´s trainings methods but from my perspective it looks like Drew is not developing his aerobic capacity sufficiently. The main focus for all middle and long distance runners should be to put layer on layer on their aerobic foundation. A base training period with no aerobic improvement is a lost period.
I fear that Drew has a wrong mix between hard days and the softer days for recovery where he doesn´t get enough time for the latter. This kind of OVERTRAINING could also be causing his many injuries.
c. I don´t think that Drew´s current poor finishing ability is caused by lack of speed. I agree with other posters that it is lack of endurance/ aerobic capacity. He has simply run out of gas when he comes to the finish.
d. Drew should also know that very long runs at moderate pace at least once a week help to develop the athlete´s speed. This has been known from the late 1950´s when Arthur Lydiard and "his boys" every sunday ran a 22 mile mountain run which not only contributed to developing a superior endurance but also improved "the boys"´s basic speed. The most famous of "the boys", the late Sir Peter Snell, later as an accomplished scientist in exercise physiology explained how this was working:
When a runner had run for about an hour in at least moderate pace the normal slow twitch fibres were depleted and then some rarely used fast twitch fibres were activated and developed and thus improving the runner´s speed.
3. Nico Young:
I think his performance was quite worrying. As far as I could see in the race video Nico ran only around 8:10 which is far from his PB.
Some people here say that he has to accustom to a new (harder?) trainings regimen but that is in my opinion a completely wrong point of view.
It is the other way around:
The trainings regimen should be adjusted to Nico´s age, physical development and level of fitness. If an athlete is going backwards after adopting a new training structure this training structure is wrong.
I fear that Nico is training too hard anaerobically judging from some "impressive" workouts which have been described in other threads. Untimely hard anaerobic workouts are in my opinion the certain way to destroy an athlete, especially a young athlete who is still not fully matured physically.
Also Nico should focus mainly on a long term well balanced built up of the aerobic capacity. In his age he should only do light anaerobic training. Hard aerobic runs on the other hand never break you down as long as you make sure you are fully recovered before you take the next hard session. And the athlete himself should evaluate if he is fully recovedered. It should not be the trainer (or even worse: the training program).
one race doesn't tell the whole story with nico, lets see this friday where he's at and we can make a better judgement. maybe his 3k was just and off day. Nico is in good hands with smith. no reason to believe that he's burnt out. Smith sounded confident talking about nico about a month ago. time will tell.