Why we're all not running 2:22?

The question no one has asked is why do we care if there are 100 peopple running 2:12-2:20??? Big deal! I would rather have none running between those times and 3 who can run 2:05-2:07. The 2:15-2:20 guys you guys mention with admiration from 20 years ago I NEVER HEARD OF! They are nothing in our sport, were nothing in our sport. They are just another 15:00 5k guy, which is nothing to give up your life for. Hey, if you want to, go ahead... but don't tell me that 5000 people running 2;20 is benefitting US Distance running at all... its benefitting the egos of 5000 people. What's going to benefit US Distance running is properly training Olympic talent... something we don't do and something tha IS related to this thread... as a lot of Olympic talent stop running after college.

M

Sehon

If you spent less time on the computer reading and posting you could have gotten a double in. Quit your damn whining. (just kidding)

Excellent thread. Running 2:22 is a lot harder than I thought it was when I was coming out of college.

There have been some runners that have done the big hours and run fast. Check out Joe McVeigh's work schedule sometime as a case in point(I would guess he put in 50 - 60 hours per week). I hope JAM will post on this to verify my accuracy, but I know he was running 120+ per week. His average day was get up 5 am or so, run 4 or 5 miles hard. Get over to Wall Street, work until it was after dark, get home, train a hard 10 or speed in the dark, eat dinner, go to bed. It takes a total monk like existence. No going out, no girlfriend, use the weekends to catch up on sleep and get in your long runs and races. It is not easy, but it can be done.

AS for me, I lack the discipline to get that training done and my job is easy. I am in awe of someone like Miles (Chad) that does what he did at CIM with his life.

BF

The benefit of having 5000 people running 2:20 is that it means there'll be more who are faster. Why? Because it means there's a large group of people putting in the work necessary to see how good they can be. And they won't all hit sub-2:10. A lot will fall short. Others won't.

Just like building any pyramid.

Miles and Miles, your feat is all the more impressive. But for most, striking the balance between work, family, and running at a high level isn't that easy. There are examples of those who do it. Look at DeHaven.

imo, the hard part is the family. I can see working fairly long hours and getting in training--hell even I did it for many years--and did some of my better racing while working 50+hrs/week (60-70 was too much). After college I was mostly a mid mileage runner, but would build a big base in the winter. However, with kids I found it hard to justify training two hours a day when there are home obligations. I waited until my mid - late 30s to have kids though.

Now, sehon40, back to your questions. I think it WAS easier and more acceptable for people to step out for a few years to train at a high level. A lot of good-decent post college runners got a job a shoe store and just lived the Bohemian runner's existence. Some got really really good.

Well, if you're debt free and you still have the desire, what are you waiting for??? Find a lower key job. Go to grad school into something you really want to do (a great time to train at a high level because you have all the flexibility in the world). Find a career that will give you some flexibility with the hours. Train hard and race well.

Miles and Miles wrote:

I work 45 hpw. I have 2 kids and a wife. I was my daughter's soccer coach. I cook dinner every other night. I go to my kids functions. I play with my kids, read bed time stories, etc, etc. I find a way to get up to 140 mpw training. I ran 2:22 on Sunday. It can't be done. Depends on your commitment level, I guess. Some have that lives that get in the way, others use it as an excuse (I am NOT saying that is what you are doing). I get up early and I don't have that much TV time, but I get it all done.

Man your a liar.

...I have run 2:06 for the marathon off of 3 years of formal training. My suggestion is don't wait to move up to the marathon when you legs are feeling old.

I am sure you USA guys must have another BR who was 27 when he went 2:09:55? How old was your great Frank Shorter when he went 2:10:30 at Fukuoka, 25. How old was Dr. Kempainen at Boston with the wind blowing him to a 2:08:47, 27. Rookie Salazar was what, 22-24 when he blew away NYC 3 times. Sandoval was 26 when he ran 2:10:19 in your Olympic trials. Hodgie-san was 25 when he hit his PR of 2:10:59 at Nike OTC. John Tuttle was 25 at NYC in 83 when he finished in 2:10:51.

In the book Train Hard, Win Easy: The Kenyan Way, Toby Tanser writes about how he witnessed a race of more than 25 competitors & less than 10 finishers. Here in the USA that would qualify as a disgrace. In Kenya he goes on to explain that your not a loser if you don't finish the race, the runner walks off without shame!! Intense competition, breeds very strong bodies & maybe more importantly the strongest of minds. The strongest survive to break records & win medals all around the world, as they should. Don't you agree? Again maybe you USA guys should go back to the idea that there are no guarantees of success in this world?? You need to start instilling in your young people that it is right & the cool thing to go out & bust ass, try as hard as you can, no matter the outcome. If you USA guys are as hard core as you say you are than I think that you must agree with my solution to this assumption that self esteem is not solely tied to one's win/loss record? Not everyone is a winner. Not every time will one win. There will come a day when the winner will fall to another, so on & so on. Oh, I can hear you now saying that the Kenyan runners do not last long, well how long did the great miler Herb Elliot last on the international circuit? Something like two years, correct me if I am wrong? We young men train very hard, win or lose & want to retire to our home country & farm or what ever may suit us.

What you USA guys have to do is get over this fantasy that runners should train in hopes that some day they will become champions when they become "older"! What a great way to stunt any type of competitive fire that may be there in the first place. Now , I am not saying that you should make heros & champions out of little kids but I do believe you need to start only awarding the very best at every race & stop with this non-sense of awarding every runner in the field a prize. Not everyone is going to be the winner. Last time I looked the winner was a singular person or thing, or animal!! Train hard in high-school & college if you want, pay your dues, take your licks, collect your wins & your loses, move up or face reality that everyone will not become the gold medalist!! That's OK, there will always be more losers than winners, that's the reason that Olympic gold medalist are celebrated like they are, they are what you are not...truly WINNERS! USA how much high tech shit do you need in front of your young people & they still lose to the least high tech nations? Most of these Kenyan runners that hit the top are in their 20's, if I were to take a stab at their median age I would have to say that age would be 25, or 26 years old, I am 25 myself. Mean while you USA guys want to make hero's out of antique athletes such as Rodgers, Shorter, Scott, & any other runners past the age of 35 at your marathon expos. Why should you try to keep digging up the past heros to put in front of the American people? The High School programs have failed your young runners. Where are the new Prefontains, the new Salazars, the new Deckers? Oh that's right Web & Ritz are being ruined as I speak to you now. Why is your country afraid to have your young men & women train at the edge that is required to produce the type of competitive athlete that once received the accolades of the nation. Herb E. trained his freakin' ass off, sorry to say but Cerutty did not make that man, any more than Bowerman made Prefontain!! In fact I would go on to say that their grandmothers could have "coached " them to their glories! Salazar, the man had a set of balls & went out to prove to everyone second. The USA should wish for a whole team of Al Sals! I guess you think that Jim Ryan should have waited to run fast? 3:51.1 that speaks for it's self!! What you USA guys really want is a team of guys that are more worried about their new babies, their new wives, all of their aches & pains, oh ya their 7am-11pm, high tech, high stress careers, than bettering their fellow team-mates, or their previous best times, or better yet setting WR's & hammering the freakin' Kenyans' at what is their playground!! Olympic swimming has the best training philosophy, if your good you keep going a few more months or a few more years to the next Games. That's it period. The reason that the USA doesn't have any champions at the world class level in running is that the young athletes are not at the same level that they once were in the past coming out of college, & are not prepared to bite the big one for a few years, put off the career & family, train like a wild freakin' animal & just plain go for IT! Just do it! Then get out if they are not one of the best, period! HARD TRAINING is what brings this about! I must go home & start building up again to see you next year, your friend, Tasfaye Jifar.

One of the benefits is the interest it can generate in the sport. Think of it this way. The guy who can run 2:22 to get to the Trials as his ultimate goal can be a hero to those in his own community. That can inspire the local kids to think seriously about the sport. And from there can come the kid who one day runs 2:10 or faster.

Sure, 2:22 is a long way from 2:06, but it's still an awesome accomplishment. The level of talent and/or dedication required is huge. I guarantee if there were 500 guys who could run between, say 2:17 and 2:22 our sport would be better off. Each one of them would be an ambassador for the sport.

if all i did was play golf and hit range balls, i could break 75, but nobody would care CAUSE THERE ARE A MILLION PEOPLE WHO CAN DO IT. 2:22 is like a 4:05 mile, impressive enough, but nowhere near elite.

ds-man wrote:

Am I right on this, the Hansons and the like notwithtstanding? A guy who was like 29:00-29:30 coming out of college had a lot better chance to make money 12-18 years ago than he does now.

The volume of guys like this was higher and that's a big reason why there were so many sub-2:20s in 82 and 83 (300-400 in the two years combined?).

ds-man,

To support your point, here is a quote from Steve Spence:

"The roads now are a lot harder than it was back then. At that point there were few foreign athletes over here. Those who were here, I knew who they were, we raced often, and we were friends. Three weeks ago the 8k had 400

bucks for the win and like 25 bucks for eighth. Eight Kenyans, a couple Russians, showed up. It was crazy. I was 8th in 23:41. I thought I could be competitive for the win in a 400 dollar race."

"It is really competitive and difficult to make money on the roads. When I came into the sport, it wasn't easy but it was very feasible to do. Now, outside of the US championship races, you are really limited in what you can

make. It's tough. I don't envy guys out there now trying to do it for sure."

it may be like a 4:05 mile, but for many of us who will never have the leg speed to run a 4:00 or a 13:50 to get to the oly trials, 2:22 is what we shoot for. my buddy and i say every weekend that the oly trials marathon is "our olympics." if we could make it there, then we will have accomplished our goal. no one may care if you could shoot 75 in golf, and no one may care if i ever toe the line at the oly trials marathon...but i'm not trying to run under 2:22 to make other people care - the only person in matters to is me!

the person who said earlier that nobody knows the guys who ran 2:19 in 1982. that may be true. but i hope that they wake up every morning and think about it, and allow it to put a smile on their face. they know they did it!

Wasn't Carl Rundell a 2:27 guy before joining Hanson's and now has run 2:20. And Clint Verran was a good runner, but not national caliber in college and is one of the best marathoners in the US with his 2:14. It's all about motivation and commitment.

Alan

M&M,

Congrats on your race, seems to me that you have the right attitude & will to succeed or at least you will have a blast trying.

I wondered:

Where did you come up with your running plan? Jack Daniels, Pfitz/Dougass, Martin/Coe, or was it your own based on other athletes you know/run with, trial & error methods.

Do/did you use a heart rate monitor?

Do you know your Vo2 Max?

Have you trained at altitude/altitude house/tent?

If you stick with your consistent training good things will happen. You brother miles have mastered the basics.

All the best.

ds-man wrote:

Just to sort of go off on a tangent ... a big reason US distance running has suffered is not because the potential 2:22 marathoner isn't out there pounding it, but that guys who are somewhat better, maybe All-Americans but not superstars -- guys who could become Bill Reifsnyders or Mark Curps or something like that -- don't have the incentive to continue like they did in decades past.

.

ds-man what incentives did the guys from decades ago had that the guys from today don't?? To my understanding, the kats from the 70's and 80's ran simply to see how FAST they could be and for the LOVE.

agree 100%

imho, this is where a relatively strong club system could be of great benefit. supposing each major population center/metropolitan area in the u.s. had at least one hansons-style (even something slightly scaled-down) group that would afford a venue for these sub-31 types, along with even some under-trained/late-blooming 31-34 types, to grind away at each other for several years in search of their own personal summits, distance running would be a lot healthier. the farm team, invaders, hansons, etc. are great, this is in no way to down them, but ideally the kind of opportunities those groups provide would be quite a bit more widely spread. unfortunately, usatf/usaldr seem to be interested in giving little more than lip service to growing the grass roots, though i have seen some revolutionary yet seemingly highly feasible ideas from people like ed parrot.

If you made up your mind that you wanted it... really.. you no doubt could do it.

Might have to make some sacrifices, but that would be part of the decision. You can't always have everything.

Hector Matos wrote:

ds-man what incentives did the guys from decades ago had that the guys from today don't?? To my understanding, the kats from the 70's and 80's ran simply to see how FAST they could be and for the LOVE.

I remember this guy who I knew, not very well, in the mid 70s. He'd just run his first marathon in about four hours off of maybe 40 miles a week. Afterward, he decided that he wanted to be a three hour marathoner and imediately began working his mileage up to about 120/wk in order to do it. He stayed at this level for years and after about four or five years ended up doing 2:36. Not much of a time, but a massive personal accomplishement for which he got the admiration of people like me and a bunch of t-shirts. But it was what he wanted to do, for no reason other than he wanted to get as fast as he could.

I don't hear stories of people like that anymore. Today, a guy like that would stay at 40 or so mpw figuring that he hasn't got much talent and it would be a waste of time and poor prioritizing to train much more than 40. Better to use that extra time to advance the career as that pays.

It all comes down to what you want to do. My career and times were very similar to the above-mentioned marathoner and I don't regret a second spent running or dollar not earned. I learned what I was capable of and had a lot of fun. Many of us in those days wanted no part of American corporate life and found running to be something we could devote ourselves to and derive some rewards from. For better or worse, that's changed. I understand Sehorn's frustrations. I'm not sure I'd have the discipline to do what Miles&Miles does. On the other hand, I knew enough to avoid starting a family in those years.

All I'd say to someone in Sehorn's position is that you're only young enough to run your very best times once. But if you've got the ability to make a pile of money when you're young, you'll still have that ability when you're a geezer.

eveyrday you wake up in the moning you're one day closer to dying. make the msot of it!

and that's another thing that I think that's great about what Chad did. NO F'ing altitude training, no tents. NOt to knock those who train at altitude, it's just inspiring when someone is able to be "successful" without it.

personally my reason for not runnign 2:22 is well i'm just not fast enough. what is that, abouyt 5:25 pace for 25 miles. hell i'd like to keep that up for 45 minutes much less 26.2 miles. OUCH. painful. so i don't know what your excuse is but tha'ts mien.