Fukuoka All-Time Top-20

Maybe I'm stupid but I don't see why you're so upset about the whatever the hell is his name's comment. It actually makes perfect sense to me.

I don't think I can even run 52 seconds for 400 but I may be able to run 13 seconds for 100...or let's make it 6.5 for 50m (;o)). No way in hell I can hold on to that "pace" any longer but I can run that fast. So I can't say I'm as fast as El G would run for his mile race but just slow down more dramatically; i.e., El G doesn't slow as much as I do (if at all). Usain Bolt is faster than me. I may even be able to beat him in 5k race (I wouldn't know) but I'd imagine he would "slow down" a hell of a lot more than me (one can only hope...) because he works out for his speed and I run distances.

It dosn't make sense to me more why one has to be so nasty about something that at least makes sense to me.

You may not be trying to be mean but you sure are being rude and nasty.

Thanks,

photo

NobbyH wrote:

Maybe I'm stupid but I don't see why you're so upset about the whatever the hell is his name's comment. It actually makes perfect sense to me.

Sir Lance a lot is angry at the world. He's always been like this. Worst poster on Letsrun.

Yes, this will be one of my typical way-too-wordy posts, so if others don't want to read, by all means skip it. But here goes...

I am not "upset", but I am simply saying: what the guy wrote made ZERO sense on many levels. But to you it made "perfect sense" ??? That is your honest opinion?? Please re-read what he wrote, re-read my points (without focusing on my supposed “tone”, I actually thought the guy might be pulling my leg), and come back and say that with a straight face. At best you can conclude: he meant something possibly rationale, but did not express it rationally. Or, he said something so obvious, it was strange to say it, like saying: we need food to live (saying " This *might* imply that we are getting close to the limit in the sense that you actually have to run faster to beat the current record " is a good, solid point?? It isn’t like saying: “you have to score more points than the other team to win” ?? )

You are being serious? I can't even believe we are having this discussion, but, here goes: so what exactly is your point? So you can keep up with El G for maybe ~1/16 of the race, but he can keep going at that pace the whole way, and you can't. Now tell me: looking at it that way (the above way) rather than saying: if you ran an even pace you'd finish 2 minutes behind him....what on earth does that initial way of expressing it (ie, I can maintain a certain portion of his race pace, but then I can't hold it) tell us that the second, more normal way of looking at it didn't tell us?? Nothing.

In ANY distance race, avg runners can run a certain portion of the race at the pace of the elites, but then they die and have to slow way down. And in ANY distance race, top runners can run a certain portion of the race at the pace of the current WR(if they choose to), but then can't maintain it the whole way. What is so unique or interesting in looking at that way rather than saying: 'at an even pace I need to run X seconds slower per mile than the elite' ? How is: I can run X% of the race distance at the same pace as the elite, but then I need to slow down or stop revealing anything different ? I'll answer that for you, it doesn't tell us anything different. The elite is faster/more aerobically conditioned for that distance, either way you look at it. Endurance/stamina is and has always been about ability to maintain a pace for the longest time. It has never been about being “faster” at some shorter distance. Did anyone think otherwise?

So saying, 'wow, isn't interesting that elite guys in the past could go out at today's WR pace for 1/2 the race, but they just couldn't maintain that pace' is very strange to me. I don't think it reveals much. It reveals that an individual guy like Nakayama was capable of running faster than he did at an even pace (your point). But…

Again, more to the point, what on earth does framing the difference between the best ever and others in this way:

'The best ever could complete the distance x minutes faster than the other guys' rather than/vs. framing the difference this way:

"the best ever could run the whole distance at X pace, while others could run that pace for X% of the distance, but then had to slow down'

..tell us?? I just don't see it telling us anything that we didn't already know about distance running.

Obviously. If “don’tfeedthetroll” was trying to say that today’s marathon/10k runners don’t have more “pure speed” (say, 400m ability) than yesterday’s runners, they just have more stamina,

a) he did not do a good job of making that point at all

b) it isn’t true, Geb and Bekele’s speed crushes the speed of Jones, Nakayama and virtually any distance runner of the past

c) no one has ever thought that having more pure speed trumps having more stamina in an endurance event (the speed helps, but it isn’t the key)

So please, and I am trying to be nice here…..what was his point (and apparently yours too since you think what he wrote makes so much sense) ?? What does the fact that some runners of the past could run today’s WR prace for ½ the race, but then slow way down, tell us about distance running today that we already didn’t know? Runners have ALWAYS been able to do this and always will.

(today’s runners could go through the ½ way mark in 1:00:30 if they felt like it. Maybe in 40 years when the WR is 2:01:00, we will say: ‘wow, so and so went through WR pace for ½ race a long time ago, but then crashed and burned….’ Will that reveal anything about distance running? )

Ok, nobby, next time I will check with you first to see if someone’s post makes sense to you. If it doesn’t pass muster with you, then I will consider that license to be rude and nasty! I somehow have the feeling that you will give me the go-ahead to be a little mean if the poster is bad-mouthing Lydiard, right? Then the poster will be fair, game, correct? (ha ha I've seen you take some anti-Lydiard posters to task)

Gamecocks wrote:

Sir Lance a lot is angry at the world. He's always been like this. Worst poster on Letsrun.

oh please. I am not "angry at the world." And since many people on here consider the likes of Flagpole or the 430miler the "best poster ever", I will gladly take a nomination for "worst poster ever" in such a bizarro letsrun world as that.

And I'd come up with something mean to say about your posting, if I could only remember a single post of yours that was about something I care about (college football, I do not care about).

Man, this started out as such a good thread . . . (*sprains elbow while patting his own back*)

I do think it's interesting that you don't see elites today going out in 60-flat (and then hanging on to run 2:05 or 2:06, which would be the present-day rough equivalent to these Jonesy/Nakayama-type performances). I don't know whether it's better pacers, less of a go-for-broke mentality, or a better understanding of the demands of the distance and their own limitations, but this just doesn't happen anymore (that I'm aware of).

Not An Expert wrote:

Man, this started out as such a good thread . . . (*sprains elbow while patting his own back*)

I do think it's interesting that you don't see elites today going out in 60-flat (and then hanging on to run 2:05 or 2:06, which would be the present-day rough equivalent to these Jonesy/Nakayama-type performances). I don't know whether it's better pacers, less of a go-for-broke mentality, or a better understanding of the demands of the distance and their own limitations, but this just doesn't happen anymore (that I'm aware of).

Sir ALnace a lot f***s ups all good threads.

Gamecocks wrote:

Sir ALnace a lot f***s ups all good threads.

Kind of like how you "f***ed up" my name?

ok, I really don't care what you think, but here's your chance:

besides this thread, what is your major beef with me? and before you answer that, be HONEST here, answer these questions:

a) did you ever think, at any point, that George W. Bush was a decent president (no hindsight here) ?

b) do you think it is likely that many top east africans are on drugs ?

c) do you think political correctness is a bigger problem in this world and on this board than is out and out racism??

If you answered "yes" to ANY of those, then of course you don't like me. Because I answer a vehement and solid "no" to all three and have constantly argued my viewpoint on them. If that is the case ( a difference of opinion on one of those issues), then the problem is yours not mine.

If you go back to the era of Shorter/Jones/Seko/ etc. you're at a time when there was no real pacemaking and there were few rewards for winning with a faster time than with a slower one.

Either last April or the April before there was a story about Greg Meyer and his 1983 win at Boston in the Boston Globe. Greg said that once he knew he had the race in the bag, at about the 22 mile mark, he immediately dropped from five minute pace to five tewnty. He did not say that he had to slow down or was struggling. He'd done what he came to do, i.e. win the Boston Marathon, and eased back.

Shorter did the same in many of his wins. I know after Munich he talked about "maintaining," at the end of the race, i.e. running fast enough to avoid being caught and no faster.

If you look at Meyer's Boston race you see that he ran 2:09:00. If he hadn't slowed from that five minute pace for the last four miles he'd have run 2:07:40.

You simply get a different kind of race if there is no pacemaking and if winning or placing well is your only goal compared to what you'll get in a rabbitted race where there is some attempt at achievening a particular time.