KK is a great athlete, however, he not simply a 4.10 miler. Thats a bullshit statement. The man has incredible range and could easily run a 4 min mile under the right conditions.
KK is a great athlete, however, he not simply a 4.10 miler. Thats a bullshit statement. The man has incredible range and could easily run a 4 min mile under the right conditions.
fmr rnr wrote:
KK is a great athlete, however, he not simply a 4.10 miler. Thats a bullshit statement. The man has incredible range and could easily run a 4 min mile under the right conditions.
Agreed. He's run 13:24 on the roads. That was leading up to Chicago in '97, his marathon debut.
His 1500m PR is listed as 3:43 from 1995. There is absolutely no way that he cannot break four minutes in the mile. I don't believe he has lost any speed from that early in his career.
wombat wrote:
exactly. If we have learned anything from the cycling doping scandals we should recognize that guys who compete very poorly before a big event in which they do very well that they are probably in their "draw down" phase where they are slowly putting away blood to be re-injected at a later date. Remember tyler Hamiltons published doping logs? This is exactly what he did and a few weeks before hand he would do a small race and get his ass kicked and then when his "goal event" came along, he would re-inject and kick ass. Remember there is still no way to detect blood doping in running (that they use).
It's not too hard to imagine this is what KK is doing. His performace at london last time was really unreal concidering his 8k 3 weeks prior. When performances seem unreal, they usually are.
DUMBASS!
Yeah everyone races 100% all the time and you can make accurate performance judgements on that? If you have a bad day and then race well you are a performance drug addict? Ha, what a retard you are. Wombat=Dumbest poster ever. Retarded you are. Top runners can relax and race/train (cruising in 66) without being judged by ignorant fools.
TrackCoach wrote:
Get a grip!
Also, KK did not come from under a rock; start taking drugs and then run a 2:05 marathon...there is no drug in the world capable of that. He had moderate success on the track as a small college athlete. He began running road races for fun and to supplement his income and realized as he moved up in distance he got better. He eventually ran a marathon and found his calling.
In terms of his talent, he ran the fastest debut marathon in history to win the 1997 Chicago marathon. May be you think he was on drugs then, at that time he was living in Brooklyn washing dishes for a living and living in an apartment with 3 other guys. (Btw - PE drugs would be very expensive on a dishwasher's salary.) KK is a pure marathoner, when he runs a half marathon as a lead up to a marathon, he has run some good times, but other than that, every race you see his name listed in the results, you can completely disregard his performance. KK will not make any adjustment to his marathon training to accommodate other events. KK does almost nothing but run, he runs long and hard everyday; everyone who has tried to train with him has ended up injured. Like I said, he is purely a marathoner; he is not very fleet of feet. I doubt he could run better than a 4:10 mile, yet he can run 4:45 miles forever. He beats other great marathoners but punishing them, at the point where they want to back off, he pushes the pace and never lets it dip above a world record pace. When he is in rhythm, there are only a few athletes in the world who can hang with him.
At the 2002 USATF Annual Meeting, KK was presented with USATFs Pacesetter Award at the. The award is presented on special occasions to individuals who embody the highest ideals of the organization. He is a nice guy, a big supporter of running in general and will do anything that is asked of him as long as it does not interfere with his training. His greatness is in his monk like approach to his lifestyle which is built around training.
I personally think injuries and wear and tear have taken their told on him, but even a half baked KK is still among the top 10.
You are quite off, before he became world class marathoner, he was 3 times road runner of the year, virtually unbeatable, winning everything from 5k to half marathon. He was quite well off at the time he ran his debut marathon, getting huge appearance fee because of his reoutation. His track 5000m PR is under 13:20, so I think he can CRUISE at 4:10/M pace, not merely race this distance. From his prize money and appearance fees from road races all over US, he could buy all the EPO he wanted. Don't make him a poor hard working athlete- he was one, when he came to US, but was far from dishwasher in mid 90's.
Meb became a US citizen in 1998 and Khalid became a US citizen in 2000. Both did all of their progressing as athletes on US soil. Not a whole lot of difference. Meb is no more (or less) american than Khalid.
Dave Kuehls says we have lost our sense of charity and friendship. Twenty years ago when Dave´s friend Bert Griggs was going to be evicted, Dave sent Bert 600 dollars for his rent when Dave only had 900 bucks in his bank account. And 15 years ago when Brian Myers called and was in similar straits, Dave hopped the next plane to NYC with his check book to be with his friend Brian.
Today, if you need help, they make you sing for your supper. Or no one will help you, until you help them first. What has happened to true friendship? It no longer exists in the world. Who has perverted the concept?
A question for everyone dismissing the "Khalid and Abdi and Meb and Lagat are our 'American' team now, woohoo!" as simple xenpohobia rather than a commentary on the state of homegrown U.S. talent.
Do you all see the former Kenyans being bought up by Arab countries as being "just as Bahrainian" or "just as Qatari" as anyone else in those places? By definition, they are. They are citizens. They have the full blessing of their new governments. They even change their bloody names; how many of YOU are that dedicated? They're just as ethnically tied to the general populace as Abdi et al. are to the typical Yank, whatever that is. The fact that they were born somewhere else and may be perceived as having genetically imported their talent to the States is immaterial, right?
If a Qatari citizen walked up to you in a pub and started boasting about Saieeeeeeeed Sha-joe-joe-Jr. Shadoobaheen's exploits and how it reflected a good old Qatari athletic resurgence, you wouldn't mock him behind his back later on?
do you even kno what Xenophobia stands for? Some people are just upset because some foreigners come to our country and run faster than us, amd those haters are upset they will never make it on some National team bc their work ethic sucks. get over it
fstknynrunner wrote:
do you even kno what Xenophobia stands for?
I don't think it "stands for" anything and I don't think it's capitalised.