I mean excuses.
I mean excuses.
I'm not sure being tall is a big disadvantage or that being short is an advantage for running, but the notable thing is that being tall is not an advantage like it is in many sports. Most years there is not one player in the NBA who is below average height for their population. The fact that Muggsy Bogues was a decent NBA player at 5'3" is not proof that height doesn't matter. In the NFL, tall is good for some positions and big is good for most positions and tall is part of big, so the average NFL player is 6'2", 245 lbs.
On the old Runnersworld forums it was quite common for new runners, men and especially women, to come on and lament that they'll never be good at running because they're shorter than average. The idea that tall and long-legged is good for running seems ingrained in people. They are surprised, and usually don't really believe it, to find out that short isn't bad and may in fact be good.
6'4" is at the 99% percentile for men in the US, so you wouldn't expect a high percentage of 6'4" runners anyway. I think the main thing people are noticing when they observe that very tall runners are rare is the contrast to some other sports.
elephino wrote:
I'm not sure being tall is a big disadvantage or that being short is an advantage for running, but the notable thing is that being tall is not an advantage like it is in many sports. Most years there is not one player in the NBA who is below average height for their population. The fact that Muggsy Bogues was a decent NBA player at 5'3" is not proof that height doesn't matter. In the NFL, tall is good for some positions and big is good for most positions and tall is part of big, so the average NFL player is 6'2", 245 lbs.
On the old Runnersworld forums it was quite common for new runners, men and especially women, to come on and lament that they'll never be good at running because they're shorter than average. The idea that tall and long-legged is good for running seems ingrained in people. They are surprised, and usually don't really believe it, to find out that short isn't bad and may in fact be good.
6'4" is at the 99% percentile for men in the US, so you wouldn't expect a high percentage of 6'4" runners anyway. I think the main thing people are noticing when they observe that very tall runners are rare is the contrast to some other sports.
Exactly! I think variations in height are much more rare in competitive distance running than they are in the actual population. Extreme variations are rare in both cases, but it feels more rare in running. It’s just a hunch that I have—it would certainly need to be backed up with hard data.
outside running wrote:
mortyd wrote:
I can imagine all the runners in the group being very close to 5’9” with exactly zero runners that are 6’4”. Without knowing the distribution of heights we can’t say for certain whether taller runners were less likely to make it that point.
It's not zero runners in the Olympic Trials that are 6'4". Luke Puskedra, one the guys with the fastest PRs (2:10) in the field, is 6'4". You've lost all your arguments.
Nobody can explain why the average height for top 100 marathoners in world decreased an inch while general population increased over same time period. The fact you can find one tall runner doesn’t mean it isn’t a competitive disadvantage to be tall; it means you may have found an outlier. You need to see how rare it is to be tall in running and compare it to how rare it is to be tall in general population. The case isn’t closed just yet!
A taller person is more likely to have an advantage in another sport, and therefore less likely to ever begin training competitively as a runner.
I'm 6'5" and 205 lbs., and I didn't start training more seriously as a hobby jogger until my 30's. I certainly do not feel like I am at any disadvantage due to my height, and BQ is not a difficult standard. My weight is greater than competitive runners because I never needed to keep my weight so low like them for the sake of competition. When I was in school I could play basketball, so why in the world would I have wanted to go out and just run.
If you give 100 kids who have the talent to play basketball or run cross country the choice of playing on the basketball team or running on the cross country team, how many of them would choose the cross country team instead of the basketball team? My guess is that less than 10 would choose the cross country team, although maybe the answer is zero.
Nutsack McGee wrote:
A taller person is more likely to have an advantage in another sport, and therefore less likely to ever begin training competitively as a runner.
I'm 6'5" and 205 lbs., and I didn't start training more seriously as a hobby jogger until my 30's. I certainly do not feel like I am at any disadvantage due to my height, and BQ is not a difficult standard. My weight is greater than competitive runners because I never needed to keep my weight so low like them for the sake of competition. When I was in school I could play basketball, so why in the world would I have wanted to go out and just run.
If you give 100 kids who have the talent to play basketball or run cross country the choice of playing on the basketball team or running on the cross country team, how many of them would choose the cross country team instead of the basketball team? My guess is that less than 10 would choose the cross country team, although maybe the answer is zero.
Fantastic insight! It may be selection bias towards other sports. Thanks for the post.
mortyd wrote:
Nobody can explain why the average height for top 100 marathoners in world decreased an inch while general population increased over same time period.
Yes it's easy to explain that. More East Africans. No other reason.
Hardloper wrote:
mortyd wrote:
Nobody can explain why the average height for top 100 marathoners in world decreased an inch while general population increased over same time period.
Yes it's easy to explain that. More East Africans. No other reason.
What specifically about East Africans do you think confers this advantage In distance running? It’s not hard work and training. They all work hard and train. At the most elite levels, people win because they have a competitive advantage. They don’t have a magic wand that let’s them run more efficiently.
It is their body type. They are smaller in height, have a slender frame, and are lighter in weight. If the average height of the top 100 runners in the world drops a whole inch over twenty years (while the average height of the world population gets taller) that is telling you something about the body type that has a competitive advantage in distance running (whether you listen or not).
Martin and Coe “A survey of 1500 New York City marathoners suggested that as height increases linearly, body weight increases exponentially to the 2.5 power. Thus, if runner A is 66 in. tall (5'6") and runner B is 72.6 in. (6'1/2")....a 1.1-fold difference....runner B's expected body weight(156 lbs) would be 1.3 times that of runner A (120 lbs)." The greater weight requires that taller runners do more work to move their body mass a given distance. That takes more energy.” It also generates more heat.
In my opinion it all comes down to weigh (that is linked to height). It is easier for shorter people to have less weight to lug around.
mortyd wrote:
In my opinion it all comes down to weigh (that is linked to height). It is easier for shorter people to have less weight to lug around.
If that were true, then the average height of a marathoner would be lower than that of the general population. It's not.
You are taking a narrow view. If the height of top 100 runners in world has dropped an inch over time, then it will happen in the US too when enough people are born here that have the ideal marathon body type. It’s just a matter of time.
Paula Radcliffe - 5'8" - towering over the other women.
Marathon difficulties.
Discus.
Uhh wrote:
Paula Radcliffe - 5'8" - towering over the other women.
Marathon difficulties.
Discus.
My guess is it has to do with her weight being only 119 lbs. That weight is extremely light for her height.
I’m not saying you can’t have a successful tall marathon runner, just that on average it is more likely for the taller runner to be heavier and less efficient. I agree that there are plenty of exceptions to that rule though.
mortyd wrote:
I’m not saying you can’t have a successful tall marathon runner, just that on average it is more likely for the taller runner to be heavier and less efficient.
Except you repeatedly fail to back that up with any data and deny all the data that conflicts your view.
mortyd wrote:
You are taking a narrow view. If the height of top 100 runners in world has dropped an inch over time, then it will happen in the US too when enough people are born here that have the ideal marathon body type. It’s just a matter of time.
That statement made no sense. If height was correlated to marathon running it would show up in the US data already. It doesn't.
Hardloper wrote:
mortyd wrote:
You are taking a narrow view. If the height of top 100 runners in world has dropped an inch over time, then it will happen in the US too when enough people are born here that have the ideal marathon body type. It’s just a matter of time.
That statement made no sense. If height was correlated to marathon running it would show up in the US data already. It doesn't.
If the height of top 100 marathoners in the world decreased by an inch in 20 years, then with open borders that trend will show up other places as people relocate. The trend for the fastest marathon times is toward smaller lighter people, not bigger and taller. The trend is obvious.
Now you're just being stupid. The average skin color of a marathoner got a lot darker in the last 30 years. That doesn't mean dark skin makes you run faster. The fact is you have yet to show any actual correlation between height and marathon running within a controlled sample. You are never going to BQ anyway with your attitude. You will probably increase your training slightly, get injured, blame your height and then quit and declare you were right all along.
Uhh wrote:
Paula Radcliffe - 5'8" - towering over the other women.
Marathon difficulties.
Discus.
"While smallness is generally a boon for endurance runners, Paula Radcliffe, the world record holder in the women’s marathon, at 5'8" is literally head and shoulders above most of her world-class competitors. It didn’t keep the iconically tough Brit from winning eight marathons in the prime of her career, 2002 to 2008. But Radcliffe’s size may have helped confine most of her victories to autumn. One reason that marathon runners tend to be diminutive is because small humans have a larger skin surface area compared with the volume of their body. The greater one’s surface area compared with volume, the better the human radiator and the more quickly the body unloads heat. (Hence, short, skinny people get cold more easily than tall, hefty people.) Heat dissipation is critical for endurance performance, because the central nervous system forces a slowdown or complete stop of effort when the body’s core temperature passes about 104 degrees.
While Radcliffe in her prime was unbeatable on autumn mornings when races were held in cool temperatures, she was feckless in summer heat. At the Athens Olympics in 2004, when the marathon was held in 95-degree heat, despite having by far the fastest time coming into the race she was unable to finish and crumpled in a heap by the side of the road. The woman who won the race was 4'11". At the Beijing Olympic marathon in 2008, the temperature was 80 degrees and humid and Radcliffe finished a distant twenty-third. From 2002 to 2008, Radcliffe was 8-0 in marathons contested in cool or temperate conditions, and 0-2 and never even in contention in the sweltering summer Olympic races."
~David Epstein The Sports Gene
Hardloper wrote:
The fact is you have yet to show any actual correlation between height and marathon running within a controlled sample.
Here is a graph of the olympic marathon winner's height over time:
https://www.topendsports.com/events/summer/science/athletics-marathon.htmHeight is decreasing, weight is decreasing, and BMI is decreasing for olympic marathon winners.
Your link shows no decline in height over time whatsoever, not that this would even prove anything, because you are trying to correlate height with year rather than height with marathon ability.
Hardloper wrote:
You are never going to BQ anyway with your attitude. You will probably increase your training slightly, get injured, blame your height and then quit and declare you were right all along.
My "attitude" is dogged persistence and a thirst for knowledge--great attributes for a runner to have. I'm grateful for the big/tall posters who have encouraged me and said I can BQ. I believe them. What I don't believe are the people saying I don't have significant challenges to overcome. I likely will be injured in training (higher force loads on joints with heavier weight). I will have to pick my races in cooler climates to control for heat challenges. It's going to be hard and it may take many years, but I'm going to do it.