RE: 'The Road to Beijing': 3 hour marathoner wants to make British Olympic Marathon team in 2008

Have you run 2.15?

I think most people posting here know the relative merits of a 2.15. Yes it's the 'softest' OG QT largely because the IOC/IAAF clearly want more marathon entrants than they do 5k/10k/3kSC entrants. Anyone know the 'record' for GB runners breaking 2.15 in a single year? Far fewer than the 2.20 barrier so many broke in the '80s.

The likelihood of 2.14.59 making the GB OG trio debated earlier on and clearly there are well in excess of 3 currently active GB-eligible guys with every chance of meeting this within the qualifying period.

ALFie wrote:

What's really starting to worry me about this thread is that everyone seems to be making 2:15 out to be a really good time and therefore only achievable by athletes with abundant natural talent and years of hard work.

Of all olympic track and field qualifying standards it's probably been surpassed by more british athletes all time than any other and by plenty of athletes who would describe themselves in the 'not the most talented but made the most of that talent' bracket.

Granted 2:15 is not a particularly daunting mark, and yes it can be achieved without one-in-a-million talent. BUT it takes a tremendous amount of extremely hard work carried out over a very long period of time. No matter how hard he works over the next year, he cannot expect to make a transformation that should realistically take the better part of a decade. And that's assuming he stays healthy for that period of time.

this is absurd... if you don't think 2:15 is a really good time you need your head examinedpeople with a ton of talent in and around 2:15ritzenhein - 2:14 somethinggabe jennings - 2:19peter gilmore - i think it took him a number of trys before breaking 2:15ryan shay - 2:14i'm not saying these guys are the most talented ever but come on, relative to the general population they are outliersi'm calling troll...i have no qualms about making the statement - 2:15 is a really good time and is only achievable by athletes with abundant natural talent and years of hard work

ALFie wrote:

What's really starting to worry me about this thread is that everyone seems to be making 2:15 out to be a really good time and therefore only achievable by athletes with abundant natural talent and years of hard work.

One thing that does intrigue me is what he will do if he achieves his goal, or comes close, as unlikely as it is? Will he keep churning out the miles or will he turn his attentions to bobsleigh or pole vault or some other event he sees as 'soft', after all, every good film needs a sequel.

2.15 might be the standard set by the Olympic Games, but it is certain that UK will set a standard of 2.12 or faster, so 2.15 is totally irrelevant.

I think in part it comes from the sub 2:10 times of our past runners. If people can look at say Nerurkar and the times he ran, they say " well, surely these athletes are just as talented if not more so?" and once you assume that then the best athletes are assumed to have the talent to run sub 2:10, so less talented athletes are assumed to have the talent to run 2:15-2:20.

It just seems that people are going from one extreme to another, from 2:15 being an amazingly difficult time only achievable by people with immense talent to a time that is easily achievable by people with average talent who work hard.

I think that's because it's just on the outer border of the balance where talent and hard-work balance. Extremely talented runners can run that time even training hard if something doesn't go quite right (i.e. Ritz and Kimbia lads), whilst on the other hand less talented athletes who manage to get everything right are able to run that time. (By this I don't mean the average person on the street "talent", I mean the talent of the "average" good standard runner).

Talent blah blah blah. It doesn't matter how good you are, qualifying for the Olympic Games Marathon is a huge task that requires years of training.

Dan Robinson acheieved this in just five years of serious running a very rapid ascent, but he was already very fit when he first started racing.

What sort of background did Dan Robinson come from? You say 5 years what sort of training did he do in that time?

letssee wrote:

Talent blah blah blah. It doesn't matter how good you are, qualifying for the Olympic Games Marathon is a huge task that requires years of training.

Dan Robinson acheieved this in just five years of serious running a very rapid ascent, but he was already very fit when he first started racing.

There are others who post here who can answer that question better than me. I have only met Dan once when I congratulated him a few minutes after he qualified for the Olympic Games in 2004.

He did run several good Half Marathons before 2004, he took to that distance very well from the start

Obviously.

I'm rather than using the average populace "average" though, using that of good athletes.

You're not telling me that Kenenisa Bekele needs to do as much training as say, Pete Riley if he wants to go to the olympics? (no offence to Pete he's a top class athlete, but I'm sure even he will accept there's a difference between him and Kenenisa Bekele!

There are clear differences in talent levels amongst athletes to my mind and from that it directly implies that different levels of training are needed to run 2:15.

Are you trying to say that there is no such thing as natural talent and that everyone can run 2:15 if they put their minds to it and it is just a clear matter of putting the work in? Because if so you're insulting the effort levels of every marathoner who put their all into it and haven't run 2:15. (given 2:15 as a time that will qualify you for the oympics which it won't)

The way I see this discussion, we're accepting that someone is willing to put the work in (as Alex may well be) and whether that's enough to run 2:15. I personally don't think it is, it's an impressive feat, but it is something that the runner with more average talent, with hard work and perserverance has a shot of running if everything goes right, they could be the 1 in 50 average runner that does it.

The Athletic Life and times of the man From Quite Near Stroud should be revealed in next BMC Mag as he kindly did a fairly detailed profile with me after I'd assisted him with some Spanish 1/2s where about 27 Kenyans deprived him of a prize large enough to pay for 30 mins parking at the airport. Training aside, it flags up the whole lifestyle/support package that is relevant as one starts approaching excellence and one's own physical limits - so that ties in with the thread's main subject.

btw, we can probably guess that GB marathon selection criteria for OG 2008 will, as in recent major champs, enable selectors to make some allowance for high quality performances achieved in difficult conditions - the Tokyo WC in '91 was won (in immense pain if anyone else recalls watching Taniguchi in the last few k) in I think just under 2.15 by a Japanse guy who had a 2.07 PB and I don't think osaka in august is likely to be any more favourable in terms of PB opportunities.

Just on the stattoe front, I skimmed the annual Top 3 per year GB marathon runs, and excludung 83/85 when Jones x 2 and Spedding where all at their peak, in most other years, even before the decline really kicked in, the 3rd best GB time was in the mid 2.11s. So whilst standards in depth have clearly fallen big time, the idea that year by year there were sub 2.10s popping up all over the shop is just not right.

I think we are maybe slightly confusing marathon 'talent' with meaning something almost identical with ' great middle track speed', which I'm not sure is quite right.

oops, that should end ' great middle distance track speed' - before I get shunted to the remedial literacy group.

Renato had this to say in another thread:

Personally, the performance of a my athlete that gave me more satisfacion was a 2:18:23 in a marathon (Venice, '95) of a Swiss guy (was at that time the physiotherapist of Italian Team, working with us in Tirrenia, our national center), without any kind of talent (4:20 in 1500m, no elasticity, very bad running style), working 8 hours per day with our athletes, that had the will to train hard after finishing is job (sometime from 9 to 11 pm during September), that was a totally unthinkable performance.

It'd be interesting to get more details on this athlete.

Best of luck to Alex, I hope this quote gives him some fuel.

Don't underestimate Kenenisa Bekele's absoulute determination to be the best in the World. The proof of this if you really need it is that he carried on winning after his fiancee died.

What would you have done in that situation. If it had been me I am sure that my "talent" would have been completely drained from me.

Regarding Alex. If he is physically suited to marathon running, then in several years he could produce a remarkable performance, but only if he does remarkable training.

I'm not attacking Bekele's determination in the slightest, from all accounts he trains as hard as anyone does and his dedication shown after his fiancee's death was truly inspirational, even now I'm still in awe, not just that he carried on after his devastation, but that he took those two losses and then went on to destroy the fields at the world cross in one of the most dominant displays of distance running I've ever seen.

The point is that he could qualify for the olympics on less training than Riley could if that was his only aim. As it is they are both extremely driven and hard working, it's just that because of differing talent levels Riley will probably qualify for the olympics and run well, whilst Bekele will likely take at least one and maybe two titles. (Once again, major respect for Riley (one of Britain's most talented athletes), I just don't think he's quite as talented as possibly the greatest distance runner of all time!)

Do people think this is wrong? That there is no such thing as talent? Is the sole reason that the Kenyan's run far more sub 2:10s than any other nation because they work and train harder? Okay, there are altitude factors and factors in their upbringing that may not be genetic (though the sheer concentration in a few tribes seems to dispute that) but given two adults and with the background factors unchangeable, then they are more "talented" (i.e. can run faster on less training).

Any recent news?

He has added two weeks of training information.

I was just taking a look at his training and he is moving the right direction but he has only averaged 60 miles a week over the last 6 months, hardly enough volume for a marathon guy who appears to have average talent, who wants to break 2:30.

Same here, I was quite impressed then realised his training was totted up in km's!!!!