David Moorcroft training and discussion

Why did the west germans not do so well? Their training was still the same crap that was used in th 60's. Doesnt matter how much dope you take if your training isnt anywhere near what you should be doing correct. Take it from women swimmer. I dont remember what olympics it was, but the entire german team was found to be taking performence enhancing drugs and hormones, we still beat them.

how dare you inject logic into this discussion!

In the 90s the Germans had two athletes win Olympic medals and a 40 year old man run a 2:11 marathon. That's better than nearly any other western country was doing.

Templar20 wrote:

Why did the west germans not do so well? Their training was still the same crap that was used in th 60's. Doesnt matter how much dope you take if your training isnt anywhere near what you should be doing correct. Take it from women swimmer. I dont remember what olympics it was, but the entire german team was found to be taking performence enhancing drugs and hormones, we still beat them.

I thought he ment the 80's, they were not so good then.

Although I am a great admirer of Dave Moorcroft from his high school days through his international career I have to point out that David only broke 13:20 on one occasion. That was the race when he set the world record.

Dave's training was very intense and eroded the aerobic base that he established during the winter months very quickly. He came to a short sharp peak which brought him to the very highest level very early in his record breaking season. By the time of the European Championships later that summer in which I believe he finished third his best form was well behind him. It was a very bad injury that prevented him approaching his beat 5K time in the following years.

The problem as I see it with the decline in British distance standing relates to the coaching curriculum which is severely flawed. The British governing body despite being the best funded in the world has reeducated the coaching fraternity as far as distance running is concerned with disastrous results.

The philosophy of a lop sided emphasis on anaerobic interval training while neglecting the aerobic base is primarily responsible for the dreadful distance standards that exist today.

No: there are simply far fewer people training and competing in the sport. The reasons for this may well be up for debate, but there are simply fewer good runners, fewer middling runners. There are plenty of joggers, but the numbers have dropped out of competitive running. The value of aerobic conditioning in distance running is quite apparent from a whole wealth of literature that's easily available these days - just look at all the "useful threads" on here - and to think that British coaches as a community are missing this obvious point while you can see it is ridiculous.

The clubs are run by joggers these days. Many of them come into the sport in middle age. They take coaching courses with no personal background and are fed rubbish which they take back to the clubs. The philosophies of Peter Coe, John Anderson and Frank Horwill are given too much prominence and have had a negative influence on the distance running fraternity.Sure decent information is available so why isn't it part of coaching education?

Sorry. Should have said "many clubs are run by joggers these days".

Many people only want to jog! I don't see that there are huge numbers of talented and motivated runners being horribly misdirected - to me, the coaching and training of competitive runners these days seems to be fairly similar to that in the past thirty years. Nearly everything comes back to numbers for me: greater numbers of motivated people means more people to work with and feed off in training, which recent generations have lacked. There are youngsters that drop off from promising starts, talented kids that don't put the miles in and tail off, people that get burnt out or bored. But there always have been, there just isn't the same depth of talent around it.

David only broke 13:20 on one occasion.

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there are MANY runners now who have this same record, and are regularly accused of (and in some cases caught) doping.

This does not mean DM doped. It does however put him at the thin edge of the statistics of very dubious company.

We all want to believe that "then" and "now" are overwhelmingly different. Are they really?

The main observable vairable is out-of-competition drug testing. It did not exist in any real sense until 15 years ago. Coincidence? ....I have no idea...

Big stick - you make very good points but I think most of GB;s leading distance runners are with coaches who haven;t swallowed the FH ' laws' and who were mainly already coaching in the 1980s themselves - no doubt you know the relevant names.

Agree about the current state of young blood into this tough demanding sport. The youngsters want quick results, instant glory and are not prepared to put the hours of training needed to gradually improve and get the results. Plus kids are lazier and dont have the competitive thirst for winning as they have other peer pressure distractions such as computers, tv, booze etc.

They dont want to be running 6 miles on a rainy, cold night when their mates are enjoying themselves!

Bad state of affairs and cant see it improving afraid!

Clubs and coaches have a massive task to conquer!

David Moorcroft had the ability to break 13;20 in any given season during his competitive years. It was injury that prevented him doing so.

David Moorcroft was clean no question about that. He would have retired rather than have resorted to cheating. A man of great personal integrity.

Also no question that for a Western athlete to run close to 13:10 is very difficult. We look at Tim Broe, Adam Goucher, Matt Tegenkamp etc and expect them to have linear improvement year to year. The physical demands are so great that in most cases this does not happen. There is no guarantee of a return to 13:10 form the following year. Bob Kennedy was outstanding in this respect and remains the most cooonsistant high quality

Western performer over 5K if you discount Dieter Baumann

I don't believe that it's about numbers.

It's about talent combined with passion, courage and dedication.

We need athletes that stand and think outside the box and coaches that understand the sport and help them on their journey.

World standards are so high for 5k runners that we need athletes that will max out at 1500m and then spend what ever time is required to gain the endurance/speed endurance to make their mark at 5K.

Big Stick wrote:

It's about talent combined with passion, courage and dedication.

.

...thanks Coach Rockne....lets go win one for the Gipper!

fattie wrote:

amazed. it is truly amazing. almost too much to believe. Its fairly likely that they were all doping. There was virtually no drug testing and these guys were running times that zero Brits can even dream of touching 30 years later.

Yes you can say they trained hard but I don't by it. That explanation is an insult to the efforts and talents of hundreds of runners around the world today.

Actually it's the other way around. Runners were being tested, and EPO hadn't hit the sport. Now we have to witness not only more and more characters working round the clock to create 'invisible' drugs and masking agents, but the spectacle of politics protecting runners caught with their pants down, like Bernard Lagat, with his "false positive". If you think El G was clean you're a clown.

Not be overlooked of course is the brainwashing in the West, the 'feminizing", that has most young white guys scared to put it on the line against anyone black, anyone non-white really.

You should be aware that the percentage of youngsters competing in Cross Country is now less than 10% of what it was in mid 1970's thru the mid 1980's in Great Britain. I agree that Westerners are psyched out, but while GB was always soccer mad like most of Europe, things went soccer insane by the mid 1980's. Soccer has taken away a lot of talent while in fact a lot of kids are wrongfully taught that they'll never be able to compete. It might take several years longer to reach world class level than it does for someone with talent born and bred at 8,000 feet, but it's possible. There are more drug cheats today. Look at how many refuse to go to labs to be tested for their VO2 max etc these days. If they do, there has to be agreements about what will be looked at and what won't. The sport is at it's all time dirtiest now. Cram ran a 3:57 mile at age 17, he was simply talented.

One thing I think should be mentioned when people question the success of British middle/long distance running in the late 70s and 80s is that blood transfusions were legal until around 86/87 I find it hard to believe that any athlete would turn down a chance of improving their performance via legal "doping" (as it is now).

I don't think it's a coincidence that the top British runners all declined from around 87 (although Coe did have a good season in 89). Only Peter Elliott, Tom Mackean and maybe Curtis Robb stood out from the late 80s. All of whom I think were clean.

Templar20 wrote:

Why did the west germans not do so well? Their training was still the same crap that was used in th 60's. Doesnt matter how much dope you take if your training isnt anywhere near what you should be doing correct. Take it from women swimmer. I dont remember what olympics it was, but the entire german team was found to be taking performence enhancing drugs and hormones, we still beat them.

All the European nations doped during the 70s and 80s. The difference from East Germany/Soviet Bloc countries was that it was left to individuals and coaches whilst officials turned a blind eye. As with now, everyone is doping (some take it a lot further) but that only takes you so far - natural talent, training and mindset are required to make champions.