What exactly is time?
What exactly is time?
Yes there was a lot of doping in the late 90s, but the full blame falls entirely on the European agents. Athletes like Danial Komen had no clue what they were being fed with or injected with.
This was not the case with European and American athletes
rekrunner wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
Then how could he understand the complexities of "modern training" enumerated so often here by Canova and rekrunner? Maybe running is still just running as fast as you can for as long as you can?
No one says they do.
If you run in groups, then you follow the experienced runners who know what works, or the instructions of a coach who knows.
If all your training is on the roads, and you don't own a watch, how would you guage running 65 second quarters on the track?
I guess Komen ran 7.20 because there was no pack to follow and he didn't know what 65sec quarters are.
Sprintgeezer wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
A bit like a racehorse?
I honestly don’t know what you mean, but I know I don’t like the sound of it.
Neither did I.
Enough talk of the jungle - home is where you were born. What I can tell you about Komen is that he is some sort of a genius in business and farming. His daughter is about to graduate from high school and swept all of the prizes she qualified for - they were all academic. I don't think you'll find running is the biggest thing in his life now. What's not to be admired?
Aboshemane wrote:
Enough talk of the jungle - home is where you were born. What I can tell you about Komen is that he is some sort of a genius in business and farming. His daughter is about to graduate from high school and swept all of the prizes she qualified for - they were all academic. I don't think you'll find running is the biggest thing in his life now. What's not to be admired?
Did he make it in time for her prize-giving or did he have no idea what day of the week it was?
A lot of these stories sound like BS. Not saying there's no truth to it but wasn't it Ben Limo that told Mottram that it was a huge lie that all East Africans run to and from school at a young age? It's just myths they use to psyche out the western athletes. At any rate they're running way better than western athletes anyway.
Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:
I can't verify that but I do have a story about Joseph Ebuya - not quite as good as Komen but not bad. If you remember him he ran 12.51 and won World XC in 2010.
Ebuya was from very rural Kenya nd only started running because he saw Ben Limo out on training runs and started joining in running barefooted and in cut-off jeans. Ebuya legitimately didn't know what time was or numbers and I heard that when he first went to Europe to run they tried telling him to run a 5000m at a certain pace of lap but he didn't know what that was. His first 5000m race ever - 13.03 at Heusden having zero idea what a 62-63 was let alone what the clock was flashing with his cumulative time.
But the kicker to this story is that when he went to sign a deal with Nike after all this, he had never even held a pen before and he had to have someone hold the pen with him and scribble a signature on the contract. Classic. That is the best story I have heard regarding an East African coming from out of absolutely nowhere to be a world class runner.
I do have a good story about Komen though. I once stayed for a week next door to his place in Teddington with some guys (including Bob Kennedy) and Komen was having some trouble with the Dyson vacuum cleaner he had bought and trying to get it to work. Turns out the problem was he couldn't find the retractable cord and didn't realize he had to plug it in - so the story of him also not understanding things like time and even the concept of "effort" is completely plausible.
Wow. You have a lot of firsthand experience. Keep sharing. And in the podcast clip I told Robert I thought he was confusing the Ebuya story with Komen. Glad you have firsthand experience of the Ebuya story.
Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:
knox harrington wrote:
So because Komen mistakenly thought his vacuum was cordless, it's "completely plausible" that he doesn't know what time and effort are? Bullshirt.
No - Komen was just a very simple guy - hence why he didn't know he had to plug his vacuum cleaner in in order for it to work. Because of that simplicity yes it's plausible when he started running he had no idea what a "time" was and the associated effort for said arbitrary unit of measure.
Considering I met the guy multiple times and talked with him a few times I would say quite unequivocally that in this case I might have better chance of grasping this than you, you tw@t.
You met the guy, good for you (I mean that genuinely).
It is still ridiculous to come on here and say that he doesn't "understand things like time and even the concept of effort." That makes you the twat, not me. If you're still in contact with him, maybe you can ask him sometime, "Hi Daniel, do you understand things like time?"
Funny to see Harold Norpoth named in this thread. Yes, Norpoth generally had PRE's number, and outkicked him, for example in '69 and '73. He had better career highlights than Pre, an Olympic Silver from '64.
BUT! Let's not forget that Pre finished over 4 seconds ahead of Norpoth at the '72 Olympics. So, as regards the competitions between these two me, I consider that Pre had the better result.
Armstronglivs wrote:
rekrunner wrote:
No one says they do.
If you run in groups, then you follow the experienced runners who know what works, or the instructions of a coach who knows.
If all your training is on the roads, and you don't own a watch, how would you guage running 65 second quarters on the track?
I guess Komen ran 7.20 because there was no pack to follow and he didn't know what 65sec quarters are.
You would have to guess.
By the way, training has evolved since the '90s too, so I wouldn't be too quick to say that Komen's training is like the "modern training" today.
This requires collecting facts about his training, and analyzing his performance.
Or you can guess.
test
barney23 wrote:
Which African colleagues and at what school? African time, as I understand it and as it is used in Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa, etc, refers to the concept of Africans disregarding schedules and deadlines. So if a meeting is scheduled for 9am, that is 10:30am in African time.
Kind of like when drug testers give them a time window when they are going to show up?
Bill Reilly wrote:
Yes there was a lot of doping in the late 90s, but the full blame falls entirely on the European agents. Athletes like Danial Komen had no clue what they were being fed with or injected with.
This was not the case with European and American athletes
Please. Komen was not a small child or very low IQ. He had the cognitive ability to understand time and that the shots he was taking made his running super human. He was not an idiot savant. The story originates from a noble savage trope that stems from racist views and cultural eurocentrism.
knox harrington wrote:
You met the guy, good for you (I mean that genuinely).
It is still ridiculous to come on here and say that he doesn't "understand things like time and even the concept of effort." That makes you the twat, not me. If you're still in contact with him, maybe you can ask him sometime, "Hi Daniel, do you understand things like time?"
Oh shut up. He posted some entertaining anecdotes, you are determined to be offended by them somehow.
euro centric garbage wrote:
Please. Komen was not a small child or very low IQ. He had the cognitive ability to understand time and that the shots he was taking made his running super human. He was not an idiot savant. The story originates from a noble savage trope that stems from racist views and cultural eurocentrism.
If you accept that Europeans pillaging and colonisation of Africa led to a 3rd world continent with poorer education - then it's not surprising for a poor Kenyan to have a lower IQ.
Who is top of the educational standards in the world ? Finland, UK, Denmark etc. Its all European countries. Second tier is European colonies- Aus, USA etc. Africa appears far down the list.
rekrunner wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
I guess Komen ran 7.20 because there was no pack to follow and he didn't know what 65sec quarters are.
You would have to guess.
By the way, training has evolved since the '90s too, so I wouldn't be too quick to say that Komen's training is like the "modern training" today.
This requires collecting facts about his training, and analyzing his performance.
Or you can guess.
Like you do - as someone who has never competed as an elite.
Interesting, that even though training has "evolved" since the 90's no one today gets near Komen's 7.20. Or El G's records.
Now that it has been mentioned in this thread, it makes a lot more sense to say that the claim his coach or agent made that he didn't have a sense of time was probably just a smoke screen to tamp down doping speculation for someone who was running times that would have been unimaginable at 3000m and 5000m just a few years earlier, that is, before EPO came along in track.
When can also be fairly sure that if anyone applies "modern training" as you understand it they will rise to the same heights that you have. Which were?
Haida Pigskin wrote:
barney23 wrote:
Which African colleagues and at what school? African time, as I understand it and as it is used in Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa, etc, refers to the concept of Africans disregarding schedules and deadlines. So if a meeting is scheduled for 9am, that is 10:30am in African time.
Kind of like when drug testers give them a time window when they are going to show up?
So we have drug testers who can't tell the time and athletes who can't tell the time. A perfect storm.