The Canadian Running Thread

rsb wrote:

Canada did not suck at distance running...

I fixed that for you.

smell the coffee wrote:

There is certainly an unnecessary amount of condescension in one of those posts, but it was not Pete's.

That's extremely funny. (I apologised to Pete for being cranky.) But look what I've been called in this thread.....and for what exactly? What horrible crime did I commit, what loaded questions did I not answer to the satisfaction of someone who seems bent on continuing with his dangerously slanderous bullshit?

Hey Ron, the OTP bullshit really is infiltrating the populace, isn't it? So far in this thread I keep hearing that it is ok to stop focussing on long distance. It is ok to give up on wxc. It is ok to say that we in Canada do not have the "talent" for this.

Athletics Canada has done a brilliant job in planning and awarding all the National Championships for the next several years. Canada's 5 largest cities, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Calgary will all be hosting a Canadian Championship. This will allow the hosting Community/Committee to plan well ahead, and secure unprecedented levels of sponsorship and spectator and community interest. Bravo ! Very well done !

Now - the to the point...

At the end of the first year of this cycle, Toronto will have hosted the National 10 K. (road), Montreal will have hosted the National 1/2 Marathon, Ottawa will have hosted the National Marathon, Vancouver will have hosted the National Cross-Country, and Calgary will have hosted the National Track & Field Championships.

How many participants will there be in the Road 10K, the Half-Marathon, the Marathon, the Cross-Country, and in all the track events at Nationals that are 1500 metres or longer?

And how many participants will there be at the Nationals in all the events, other than the distance running events?

And what will the ratio of participants between the distance runners at our various National Championships,

and the non distance-runners?

Will it be 1000 to 1, or more? Who wants to guess, or maybe better, who can check the numbers from those same events currently? Anybody?

And which set of events is the only one that is not represented in our current High Performance plan?

If you said events 1500 metres or longer, you win !

Of course, we are just a nation of "sprinters and throwers", according to Alex Gardiner....Amazing !

You've been called an idiot for making that dumbass prediction about SB earning 3 national records in 2010. You've also been called evasive and for good reason.

I am hard pressed to think of any substantial question (not loaded) that you HAVE answered.

I don't think you understand the definition of 'slander.'

Sometimes the truth hurts. Get over it.

rsb wrote:

Of course, we are just a nation of "sprinters and throwers", according to Alex Gardiner....Amazing !

AG's actual quote:

"This (10K) is not one of our traditional distances. We are more of a sprinting and throwing country. ... We expect to see him (Bairu) right through to London."

Ron, you wax poetic all you want about the history of Canadian distance running, but what have Canadian distance runners done of note in the last 10 years. How many truly GREAT performances have Canadian distance runners put up to make AC believe funding them will somehow meet theirs and OTP's high performance objective. Canada has had ONE man under 13:20 in the 5000m, and TWO men under 28:00, and the Canadian marathon record has stood since 1975. If you don't count the recent citizenship of Jon Brown, the fastest Canadian marathoner in the past 10 years was a 36 year-old Bruce Deacon with a 2:13:18! On the women's side, two women broke 15 min in the 5k in the past decade...one is retired and the other has unfortunately passed away. There has been one girl under 32 min (again, now retired), and one girl BARELY under 2:30 in the marathon which I would hardly label as great. Put something on the board to prove you are worth the funding, and maybe some of this money you feel entitled to because of your great runners of the 60's thru 90's will come your way.

Pretty sure I know who reality checker is!!! :)

But anyway, IF the "reality" is, as he and others (incl AC)state, that Canada does not have the "talent" for ld running on the world stage, then we are forever doomed. Our governing body is supposed to be sending out the exact OPPOSITE of this message, and taking a leadership role in finding solutions to the current state of affairs, not giving up! (National Championships notwithstanding.) The newly stated "focus" and Gardiner's Big Boo Boo (any clarification yet?) cause me to lose sleep at night. The sport that I have loved for 40 years is on the verge of becoming extinct at an international level for Canada, due in large part because AC said so.

I think the real debate, with all the personal crap aside,

is whether we just give up on High Performance distance running, or whether, as some of us are advocating, we can rebuild what was once an extremely powerful High Performance distance running system in Canada...

We have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Canadians who run for longer than 1500 metres without stopping. Hundreds of thousands actually race over those distances. Many of these people have money, or access to money --- distance running has very much a "white collar profile", in population demographic terms. And they are very interested in fitness, and I am positive they want their kids to be fit, and their grandkids, and so on...

Then we have hundreds of thousands of runners in schools from elementary through high school, and Colleges and Universities, and again we are talking about distance runners here, not shotputters or hammer throwers...

And we all know there is an uber-abundance of very talented runners in those schools --- we literally have thousands of very talented runners who are in their teens or early 20's. They will be graduating University at some point, and then what...

Should we just tell them to run recreationally, because we don't have a High Performance Program for distance running in Canada? Maybe see if they can sprint or throw, because that apparently is what we do in Canada...

Or is there a better solution? This is not trick question...

rsb wrote:

And which set of events is the only one that is not represented in our current High Performance plan?

If you said events 1500 metres or longer, you win !

Of course, we are just a nation of "sprinters and throwers", according to Alex Gardiner....Amazing !

Amazing, cash available to Canadian distance athletes in 2010:

- half-marathon champs: $11,000 (plus potential open prize money)

- marathon champs: $17,000 (plus potential open prize money and time bonuses for those who run anything faster than 2:18)

- 10km champs: $11,000 (plus potential open prize money)

- 19 cards (covering five events or 3.8 cards/event):

Cash available to Canadian throwers and sprinters in 2010:

- 33 cards (covering ten events or 3.3 cards/event).

National championships that senior distance runners can compete, garner public and media attention and represent their private sponsors and potentially make international teams:

- five (track, cross, 10km, half, full).

National championships that senior sprinters and throwers can compete, garner public and media attention and represent their private sponsors and potentially make international teams:

- one.

Yeah, I can really see your point that no attention or support is being given to distance events, instead being directed to us being 'a nation of sprinters and throwers'.

Who wrote that, Ron?

I keep seeing stuff like that, and it's chicken-egg, and it kills me that current state of affairs = the driving factor in the decisions (very short sighted, abandonment of leadership, abandonment of playing the game internationally) rather than trying to solve the current state of affairs.

WHY are we in this state? Is it all the athletes fault? Why aren't they trying hard enough to hit those (new) A standards, which in some cases are better than NRs?

Lay the groundwork. Create the conditions. BUT DON'T JUST THROW IN THE TOWEL FFS.

rsb wrote:

We have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Canadians who run for longer than 1500 metres without stopping. Hundreds of thousands actually race over those distances. Many of these people have money, or access to money --- distance running has very much a "white collar profile", in population demographic terms. And they are very interested in fitness, and I am positive they want their kids to be fit, and their grandkids, and so on...

...

Or is there a better solution? This is not trick question...

Since it was never addressed previously, how about looking at the success of the US since we have so much other culture and economic similarities.

How much carding money have they given Solinsky?

How about the fact that they are implementing pretty much the system you are advocating with your citing of all the recreational participants and without USATF doling out public tax monies - get a bunch of good runners together, get a good coach, get some private funding, and run like hell?

But no, instead you and others continue to wax nostalgic for the glory days of twenty or more years ago (coincidentally before the real onslaught of African runners and emergence of greater Asian depth) while demanding that public tax dollars go towards your own personal visions of supporting events that have, on the whole, gone backwards in absolute terms.

If there really is the demand and support available from all those thousands who fill the fields at our nations road races, then surely you've got a business case to make to all those private sponsors eager to spend their bucks to enable you or anyone following your commandments to set up the Canadian equivalent to the OTC and their Nike backing. Don't need to worry at all about AC. But then that would entail supporters and athletes taking responsibility and not using the 'blame AC' routine as an excuse.

Skuj wrote:

BUT DON'T JUST THROW IN THE TOWEL FFS.

As if it is at all possible, the more you continue to repeat this 'throw in the towel' or 'surrender' crap, despite copious amounts of evidence to the contrary, the sillier and sillier you make yourself look.

Please cite for me the exact lines from the carding criteria that state AC will NOT nominate the equivalent of 66 senior cards for Canadian track athletes of all events, obtaining over $1.1 million dollars in athlete support, a disproportionate share in 2010 going to athletes in events 1500m or longer (and that's with many getting in on the 4x100 pool).

Yet our depth in 5000-marathon is woefully thin especially when compared to the 70's and 80's. There are hardly "hundreds of thousands" who RACE. Participation does not equal competitive racing.

rsb wrote:

Hundreds of thousands actually race over those distances.

Scotty Mac has sold out to the man for a paycheck, sticking his head in the sand. So sad.

Will one of rsb or Skuj please address the point that um yeah has brought up many times (not the same person btw, nor is reality checker - more than one person think you guys are biased idiots)? You know the one about the US, who have better distance runners now and historically, not giving any carding money to their athletes?

Also, I don't know how many times I'm going to have to repeat this, but the average person (and let's be honest the average track fan) would way rather see a relay team or a thrower or two hurdlers or possibly an 800 runner do well at the Olympics than a 10k runner get his ass kicked over half an hour. Many more people heard about the double medals in the hurdles at world indoors than Bariu missing his stated goal at World XC.

More repeating myself - can anyone prove that AC has not looked into WHY we are struggling at distance running? Yes, they are not funding it AT THE MOMENT, but I have seen it said that they are not looking into ways to improve it.

I love how my post about funding development teams was completely ignored. Pretty legitimate idea I thought.

To whoever talked about what to do with athletes after they grad university: The two most successful (which, in itself means fringe world class runner, maybe placing in the top half of an Olympics) have stayed and trained with their University training groups. Many have come back to Canada to training groups, in particular Speed River (Taylor Milne, Tim Konoval, Chris Winter) which is interdependently funded group. But the point still remains that none of these runners are good enough to dethrone the Africans, or even Americans, which is AC's stated goal. Therefore they are not in a group which deserves funding.

I will disagree with um yeah in that more national championships does not increase media attention for distance runners. The sure-fire to get media attention for track and field, and by connection AC, is medals. Therefore, it only makes for AC to put money into the events that will pay off! This doesn't mean abandon the other events, I think putting some money into researching why we are struggling, rather than blindly handing it to athletes is the way to go at the moment.

The only one's sticking their heads in the sand are those who think Canadian distance runners should be funded based on the performances of Lynn and Paul Williams, Graeme Fell, Paul McCloy, Jeff Scheibler, Jerome Drayton, Dave Edge, Art Boileau, Peter Fonseca, Peter Maher, Angela Chalmers, Robyn Meagher, Debbie Bowker, Susan Lee-French, Carol Rouillard, Sylvai Ruegger, and Jackie Gareau.

GeeeHood wrote:

Scotty Mac has sold out to the man for a paycheck, sticking his head in the sand. So sad.

pre32 wrote:

I love how my post about funding development teams was completely ignored. Pretty legitimate idea I thought.

I stopped responding to you after your multiple personal attacks. (Yes, this post ironic.)

pre32 wrote:

As far as I can tell, you're a wannabe coach in the middle of nowhere. I don't think AC really keeping you in the loop. Btw i was talking to you. You are a douchebag.

Skuj wrote:

On a personal note, I was the luckiest 31min 10k runner in the world: I went to 11 World Military XC Champs. (We actually got paid when we were there. Oh how good we had it, compared to our 29min counterparts in the civilian world.)

Our teams usually didn't do so well....near the back of the pack a lot of times, but sometimes, near the middle of the pack. I guess we should have just given up though, because we weren't owning the podium.

The dream of making a team drove many many people within the CF. I saw first hand what this opportunity did/created.

I gotta go hahaha.....I was going somewhere with his.....maybe much later.

What kind of support do military runners got now? Still quite good? it would be interesting to see if a group of distance runners could join the military and be funded that way (Zatopek, eg, was a military man. And I think there are plenty of other examples).