Bill Rodgers, at his peak, raced almost every week. He did it for appearance fees, and used many of the races as workouts, but he was very approachable and spent time with the masses helping to grow the sport. It would be nice to see some of today's elites do the same!!
-
120
-
pay them enough and they will
21 -
What Gives? wrote:
Kvothe wrote:
The difference is nobody cares if a tennis player is at 92%. The sport isn't objective enough to notice. In track, no one wants to watch a sprinter turn in a 10.3 performance and they certainly don't want to watch a 3:50 1500 or 13:45 5000.
Except they do!
People are perfectly happy to watch Olympic 1500m races that are won in 3:50 or 5000m races won in 13:45.
every time it happens people post threads on here and whine until the cows come home
00 -
APPLES TO ORANGES BIZNATCHES!!!!
00 -
STFU … pure slop you speak.
00 -
DevonDixonFan wrote:
bigmig19 wrote:
That's just HR. Tennis is 5000x more intense on your overall body than running in a straight line.
You're just completely wrong. You must be terrible at running to not understand that it's probably the most physically taxing activity you can do (if you're doing a max effort).
This goes back to my original question; Then why don't we see (pick your sport) Any Pro Tennis player dominating a local 5k? Why isn't any pro tennis player ever known to run simply sub 6's in a 10k or half marathon?
14 -
Tennis is like basketball. Sure the match takes 3 hours, but the physical exertion is 45 minutes of short, intense bursts.
Like NBA the schedule is long, intense and injury causing.
Still for any track event, 82 (NBA/NHL) games, or 100 tennis marches, would be very counterproductive.
More along the line of 1 meet per week, or 1 meet every other week is at least reasonable thinking.
10 -
Several famous retired athletes have run the NYC and Boston marathons. Lynn Swann, the famous steeler receiver did it. It took him 4 1/2 hours.
10 -
Kvothe wrote:
What Gives? wrote:
Except they do!
People are perfectly happy to watch Olympic 1500m races that are won in 3:50 or 5000m races won in 13:45.
every time it happens people post threads on here and whine until the cows come home
But those people don't speak for everyone.
20 -
Interesting data point from AI: "Ron Clarke ran an incredible number of races in 1965, with sources citing around 46 to 56 total races, including a famous 44-day European tour where he competed 18 times and broke 12 world records, becoming the first to run three miles under 13 minutes and 10,000 meters under 28 minutes."
60 -
Elite tennis players play up to 100 2 or 3-hour matches per year, therefore...
- Elite marathoners should be able to race 100 marathons per year.
- Elite sprinters should be able to race 1000s of times per year
- NFL players should have a 100-game season
or, just maybe, different sports have different limiting factors? I don't know; it's just an idea. More likely, though, it must be that only tennis players, out of all the athletes out there, are tough and competitive, and like to complete.
60 -
Kickers usually win wrote:
former armchair athlete wrote:
Tennis pays more. He found tournaments worth his time and risk of injury.
Tennis is less dependent on physical athletic talent. Being only 90-95% “healthy” does not affect a tennis player's overall performance as much as a track athlete. (and a world class athlete is not 100% for 97 matches - they may not say it but they are hurting)
Have you watched tennis? The best players are tremendous athletes.
yes but lots of people play lots of 3 to 5 set matches, not just the best ones.
The correct answer is they don't actually run around all that much. Lots of standing around, lots of breaks.
Similar misimpression about soccer, allegedly they run 10km per match. Utter bollocks, no they don't, not even close
41 -
Since sprinting is so much easier, tennis players, being such "tremendous athletes," should very much switch sports and clean up, assuming they're not in the top five already, right?
11 -
4 Minute Mi-liar wrote:
I get what he is saying about starting and stopping and all that in tennis. And I get that tennis matches kind of give you a marathon style cumulative fatigue....
But in an entire tennis match of all those hours... there are only a few times when you are going all out for an extended period.... because most volleys don't last that many strokes.
But the idea that runners don't run as many races as tennis is as much a function of the way the sport is structured. Tennis is two players per match... So lots of matches. Obviously Track can have more than two in a contest... thus fewer contests are needed.
A volley is a single stroke where a player hits the ball before it bounces, usually when close to the net. A rally, on the other hand, is a period of time when the opposing players hit multiple strokes back and forth. But your overall premise is correct: in a pro clay court match the ball will be in play for only about 20% - 30% of the actual match time, and on hard courts it's even less, only 10% - 15% of total match time. And there is also a lot of total match time spent sitting down: players get 90 second seated breaks during changeovers every odd game, and 2 minutes between sets.
00 -
former armchair athlete wrote:
Kickers usually win wrote:
Have you watched tennis? The best players are tremendous athletes.
Yes, all the time. I even play tennis.
I don't see where you think I said tennis players aren't athletes. I even refer to Feder being a world class athlete.
That is about 60% of the responants on LRC, their main goal is to goad the OP.
00 -
Chode Smoker wrote:
Elite tennis players play up to 100 2 or 3-hour matches per year, therefore...
- Elite marathoners should be able to race 100 marathons per year.
- Elite sprinters should be able to race 1000s of times per year
- NFL players should have a 100-game season
or, just maybe, different sports have different limiting factors? I don't know; it's just an idea. More likely, though, it must be that only tennis players, out of all the athletes out there, are tough and competitive, and like to complete.
Excellent and LOLs!
00 -
bigmig19 wrote:
former armchair athlete wrote:
Tennis pays more. He found tournaments worth his time and risk of injury.
Tennis is less dependent on physical athletic talent. Being only 90-95% “healthy” does not affect a tennis player's overall performance as much as a track athlete. (and a world class athlete is not 100% for 97 matches - they may not say it but they are hurting)
LOL. I can't think of a sport that is MORE dependent on physical athletic talent. It's all speed, agility, endurance, hand eye, strength. If you tried to invent a sport that is the most dependent on athletic ability this is what you would come up with. These matches are 2-5 hours long of using the whole body, stop and go, running, hitting.... Im always shocked pro level layers are not always hurt. So much harder on the lower body than running. Probably says something for the more repetitive nature of running. But then again tennis players get hurt too.
Well, let's see...Gymnastics, Wrestling, Swimming. Just for starters and even in track & field sprinters have the best bodies and that is because of what they do not just because of natural abilities. I bet 98% of LRCers cannot sprint and have no idea what it means to truly be a world class sprinter.
00
1 post was removed from this page.
What People Are Talking About On LetsRun
No top threads at the moment. Check back soon.