What’s the point of running if you don’t race? I ran with guys in high school who just wanted to train and never race. I was like what’s the point then? I’m just a competitive person so racing and competing is why I ran. That’s why I stopped when I couldn’t compete for wins anymore.
What’s the point of running if you don’t race? I ran with guys in high school who just wanted to train and never race. I was like what’s the point then? I’m just a competitive person so racing and competing is why I ran. That’s why I stopped when I couldn’t compete for wins anymore.
What’s the point of an open forum if you can’t say Jerry sucks without getting your post deleted? LRC is an absolute clown show as of late with the moderation. Not renewing SC membership
This is why I have shifted recently to following sports I never thought I would care about. For example, biathlon is awesome. It's a short season but the top biathletes are in every race. I never have to tune in and worry about Lagreid needing a rest day or Vittozzi's coach finding some phantom injury and she's trying to explain that she's merely a robot who does everything he says.
Amen! This is why cycling is amazing. 95% of the top riders fighting it out week in and week out. Every race is different: weeklong stage races, the cobbled classics, glorified kermesse races, the grand tours, etc. With few exceptions, all the top guys race every type of event! Lots of drama, rivalries, momentum, danger...
Cycling also has a very important team aspect to the competitions that does not exist in professional track and field. NCAA championship meets are probably my favorite to watch for that reason. Katelyn Touhy at XC trying to balance winning the individual title and leading her team and doing both in amazing fashion, Raevyn Rogers winning the championship for Oregon in the anchor leg of the 4x400, even something as simple as Taylor Werner getting second in the 5000 but it being a big part of Arkansas winning the championship. These are all such great moments.
This is one key reason JS has never had a WR holder or OLY gold medalist. He is the exact opposite of Bob Bowman, whose constant race prep and rehearsal has lead to dozens of WRs and many Gold Medalists. Some coaches have to drag their athletes down to their mediocrity.
This is why track ain't too popular. All the most popular sports have a regular season and corresponding playoffs with intriguing head to head matchups the focal point.
Exactly.
It isn't optimal for Lebron's body to play 82+ games in a year. I am sure Lebron would play a lot better if he could take weeks off to recover between games. But he plays regardless because sport is entertainment and the NBA is a unified league with rules.
If track every wants to grow athletes need to race. Which means fans, coaches, and athletes accepting they won't be at absolutely peak performance. It will require a massive shift in mindset.
I don't see it happening and it is just getting worse if anything.
Personally, I don't want to see athletes complaining about losing contracts or not making any money unless they are racing 15+ times a year
LeBum was one of the more vocal NBA players behind the adoption of the "load management" model so he probably is not the best example for your point.
It isn't optimal for Lebron's body to play 82+ games in a year. I am sure Lebron would play a lot better if he could take weeks off to recover between games. But he plays regardless because sport is entertainment and the NBA is a unified league with rules.
If track every wants to grow athletes need to race. Which means fans, coaches, and athletes accepting they won't be at absolutely peak performance. It will require a massive shift in mindset.
I don't see it happening and it is just getting worse if anything.
Personally, I don't want to see athletes complaining about losing contracts or not making any money unless they are racing 15+ times a year
Not a single athlete in the world cares what you think. Playing 82 NBA games a season is physically destroying players bodies and it is not helping with marketability. Both track and the NBA would benefit from structural changes that allow for athletes to compete at a healthy/peak level.
Everyone complaining about someone not racing is being ridiculous, they aren't your entertainment puppets.
Load management is the norm these days. Ya parrot.
Amen! This is why cycling is amazing. 95% of the top riders fighting it out week in and week out. Every race is different: weeklong stage races, the cobbled classics, glorified kermesse races, the grand tours, etc. With few exceptions, all the top guys race every type of event! Lots of drama, rivalries, momentum, danger...
Cycling is currently in a modern golden age!
Pogacar, Wout van Aert, and MVP among the best ever in the same generation battling it out every week in the classics and year around. Pogacar vs Vingagaard in the TdF is a rivalry between absolute monster grand tour talents. ... reminiscent of LeMond vs Hinault or Lance vs Ulrich. ... imagine watching Kipchoge battling Bekele or Jakob vs Tim 20 or 30 times a year.
I do wish they'd race more often but his coaching methods have turned Moh Ahmed from a very good runner to one of the best 5k/10k North American runners of all time, late in his running career.
This is one key reason JS has never had a WR holder or OLY gold medalist. He is the exact opposite of Bob Bowman, whose constant race prep and rehearsal has lead to dozens of WRs and many Gold Medalists. Some coaches have to drag their athletes down to their mediocrity.
I mean I think the main reason for him never coaching a gold medalist or WR record holder is not coaching enough African runners, but I do think you have a point. AlSal raced the sh!t out of his runners who won a heap of medals by being able to race well, despite not having the fastest PR's. Grant Fisher, on the other hand, doesn't seem confident at all in his racing ability and seems to leave it to too late before making significant moves.
I do wish they'd race more often but his coaching methods have turned Moh Ahmed from a very good runner to one of the best 5k/10k North American runners of all time, late in his running career.
This is why track ain't too popular. All the most popular sports have a regular season and corresponding playoffs with intriguing head to head matchups the focal point.
Exactly.
It isn't optimal for Lebron's body to play 82+ games in a year. I am sure Lebron would play a lot better if he could take weeks off to recover between games. But he plays regardless because sport is entertainment and the NBA is a unified league with rules.
If track every wants to grow athletes need to race. Which means fans, coaches, and athletes accepting they won't be at absolutely peak performance. It will require a massive shift in mindset.
I don't see it happening and it is just getting worse if anything.
Personally, I don't want to see athletes complaining about losing contracts or not making any money unless they are racing 15+ times a year
The thing with Lebron is that he's a professional athlete on a TEAM, and he is paid to play basketball. He knows that he needs to play in order to win games and championships. The NBA is a business, and the owners and players are all trying to make money. If Lebron were to take weeks off to recover between games, it would hurt the team's chances of winning, and it would also hurt his own chances of making money (if LeBron's team misses the playoffs because he's not playing, he'll lose out on a significant amount of money from playoff bonuses. He'll also lose out on endorsement opportunities, as sponsors are less likely to sign a deal with an athlete who isn't winning).
So, while it is true that it is not optimal for Lebron's body to play 82+ games in a year, he is still going to play because it is his job and it is what he loves to do. Plus, he's super competitive, and he wants to win as many championships as possible. He also knows that he can make more money by winning championships. So, while it might be better for his body if he took weeks off to recover between games, it's not in his best financial interest to do so.
It's not entirely fair to compare Cooper Teare, a newly signed pro runner whose not racing much in the early season with Lebron, who plays as many games as possible.
Cooper Teare isn't actually dropping any groundbreaking insights. EVERYONE knows that this is the way Jerry operates.
It might not be a popular take, but Teare running near a PB in April off all strength actually lends some support to Jerry's strategy.
It's also worth callling out that Jerry's approach works best for the athletes newer to his group than his others. Even German Fernandez had a good first year w/ Jerry, but the critical thing will be to avoid being ground into dust on high school tracks in flag and park city (as another poster called out).
How is it that plenty of the world’s best can race frequently but BTC has to disappear for months at a time and only leave altitude to beat up on B-tier Americans? There’s a middle ground between burning yourself out racing the circuit every week and doing the bare minimum to qualify for championships.
Fisher and Cranny racing in Europe last year after Worlds was a welcome change and it needs to stick.
BTC is a team that is focused on winning championships. They have a very specific training plan that is designed to help them achieve their goals. This training plan may not include racing as frequently as other teams, as they may believe that it is more important to focus on quality over quantity.
BTC is a US-based team. This means that they have to travel to Europe to race in most of the Diamond League events. This can be a costly dip into their sponsorship, grant and donation money and is also a very time-consuming endeavor. It simply may not be worth it for BTC to race in every competition you hope they would, not even around the US, and I'll share why.
What works for one athlete may not work for another. BTC is a team that has found what works for them, and they are not going to change their approach just because some random people on a message board are criticizing them.
Absolutely, Fisher and Cranny racing in Europe last year after Worlds was a welcome change, and I also think it's something that BTC should continue to do. However, it is important to remember that BTC is a team that is focused on winning championships. They will not sacrifice their goals in order to race more frequently.
OAC is better than BTC, but NOBODY races enough. Beamish ran some random steeple this weekend. Why didn’t Olli, Yared and Mario also come to LA and hop in that 1500 with Teare? Only racing when you are at peak performance is definitely bad for the sport, but it’s bad for the athletes too. When you race a lot you perfect your tactics in all sorts of scenarios, you learn to deal with every situation, you learn how to perform well even when you are not 100%. Certainly the pros should get paid to race. Let their sponsors and WA set up the right sort of incentives, both in terms of $ and access to global championships to get them all out their more often.
I agree most pros should be racing more, but at the same time we cannot expect them to be setting an AR or WR every time they race. We have become accustomed to some record being in jeopardy in each of the handful of times the big names on the circuit race. Racing with those kind of expectations is not sustainable more than just a handful of times in a season. If you want them to race more, we need to accept slower, perhaps more tactical, races.
For the rest of ye lot, we need to be more supportive of the athletes who are willing to race more often. These athletes are taking a risk by racing more frequently, and they deserve our support. How many times do we read a post where someone's queried, "where can I see a live stream, for free?"
That's not really appreciating their efforts, and it doesn't show them that we're actually behind them.