Suspicious of club running teammate progress

4455 wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

This is a pointless question to ask on Letsrun because no matter what kind of dramatic improvements a runner makes it will always be justified here on the basis of "talent" and "training". But with your knowledge of the athlete and his training your suspicions are probably correct.

You know nothing about training. You are a one trick poney. Everything is doping to you.

OP, I coached a 38 year old who had a similar evolution, which I observed in person 5 days a week. The only difference was that he didn't go from 0 to 70 miles a week but 20 to 60. And 4 months after a 1:34 half marathon he ran 1:27

This is just one example.

I also had a 19 year old who went from zero training to 1:56 for the 800 and 34:10 for 10k in 6 months.

Of course Armstronglivs has never coached anyone, so he doesn't know what can be achieved by talented, dedicated athletes without doping.

Armstronglivs wrote:

"There’s a guy (21 years old) in my run club that has improved significantly in the last 9 months to the point that multiple people in the club have become suspicious of his recent training."

"While at first inspired by his recent dedication and improvement, his fitness has grown so rapidly I, and several others have began to question the legitimacy of his recent success."(quote)

This is the part of the original post that most commenting here have overlooked. The OP isn't the only runner in his club who finds the improvements suspicious. Indeed he says "multiple" other runners in the club find it so. So they are all clueless? Or are they quite plausibly seeing something that isn't explained by their perceptions of the runner in question? It is apparent that most commenting here would be amongst those who observe nothing out of the usual. Since that is so with the sport generally I am not surprised.

Small Pond wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

"There’s a guy (21 years old) in my run club that has improved significantly in the last 9 months to the point that multiple people in the club have become suspicious of his recent training."

"While at first inspired by his recent dedication and improvement, his fitness has grown so rapidly I, and several others have began to question the legitimacy of his recent success."(quote)

This is the part of the original post that most commenting here have overlooked. The OP isn't the only runner in his club who finds the improvements suspicious. Indeed he says "multiple" other runners in the club find it so. So they are all clueless? Or are they quite plausibly seeing something that isn't explained by their perceptions of the runner in question? It is apparent that most commenting here would be amongst those who observe nothing out of the usual. Since that is so with the sport generally I am not surprised.

Dude, it's 90min, the club is garbage, and they are a bunch of gossips. The guy is still 30sec per km behind the good level women.

Too good to be true? wrote:

There’s a guy (21 years old) in my run club that has improved significantly in the last 9 months to the point that multiple people in the club have become suspicious of his recent training.

While at first inspired by his recent dedication and improvement, his fitness has grown so rapidly I, and several others have began to question the legitimacy of his recent success.

I don’t believe he is just a hidden gem that is more talented than the average hobby jogger as his high school PR was 20:30 off of 30 mpw before retiring from training after graduation due to injury issues.

About 9 months ago, he began to take interest in ultra marathons (he read David Goggins) after very little running over the last couple years (maybe a 30 minute run once every week or so week) he increased his mileage to 70 mpw in about 5 weeks from 0. Since then he has improved at a pretty standard rate and never had any injuries despite the huge increase of mileage. In the beginning of august he ran a 1:32 half marathon which he said was the greatest race he ever had. The whole club was really impressed with this performance and he had undoubtedly worked incredibly hard to have gotten to that point from where he had started.

Fast forward to now, his last three long runs have been between 15-18 miles at 6:40-6:55 pace. Is there anyway he could have improved that much in such a short span? I know it’s still hobby jogging time but these LRs are far more impressive than anything he had done in a race setting or training just weeks before and he had run 4 years in high school so it’s not like he was new to the sport and had untapped talent.

Is this progress really possible? Am I just a someone that has plateaued and is bitter? Is David Goggins the key to distance running? Are people really juicing at this level?

Too good to be true? wrote:

There’s a guy (21 years old) in my run club that has improved significantly in the last 9 months to the point that multiple people in the club have become suspicious of his recent training.

While at first inspired by his recent dedication and improvement, his fitness has grown so rapidly I, and several others have began to question the legitimacy of his recent success.

I don’t believe he is just a hidden gem that is more talented than the average hobby jogger as his high school PR was 20:30 off of 30 mpw before retiring from training after graduation due to injury issues.

About 9 months ago, he began to take interest in ultra marathons (he read David Goggins) after very little running over the last couple years (maybe a 30 minute run once every week or so week) he increased his mileage to 70 mpw in about 5 weeks from 0. Since then he has improved at a pretty standard rate and never had any injuries despite the huge increase of mileage. In the beginning of august he ran a 1:32 half marathon which he said was the greatest race he ever had. The whole club was really impressed with this performance and he had undoubtedly worked incredibly hard to have gotten to that point from where he had started.

Fast forward to now, his last three long runs have been between 15-18 miles at 6:40-6:55 pace. Is there anyway he could have improved that much in such a short span? I know it’s still hobby jogging time but these LRs are far more impressive than anything he had done in a race setting or training just weeks before and he had run 4 years in high school so it’s not like he was new to the sport and had untapped talent.

Is this progress really possible? Am I just a someone that has plateaued and is bitter? Is David Goggins the key to distance running? Are people really juicing at this level?