The year: 1984 & the USA had 165 Sub-2:20 performances

Here's something for you to chew on, from

http://www.michiganrunner.com/0401/kurside.html

DOUG KURTIS:

Kurtis won 39 marathons: Detroit, 6; Seattle, 5; Bangkok, 3; New Orleans, 3; Grandma's, 2; Vietnam, 2; Fox Cities, 2; and Austin, Barcelona, Ft. Worth, Las Vegas, Manila, Marquette, Memphis, Penang, Port Huron, Providence, South Bend, Tahiti and Tempe. Bill Rodgers is runnerup with 20 marathon victories.

Kurtis ran 76 marathons in less than 2 hours and 20 minutes. The runnerup is Kjell Erik Stahl of Sweden with 70. He is older than Kurtis and neither is marathoning now.

Kurtis ran 12 sub 2:20 marathons in 1989 out of 13 races. He missed the other one, in Bangkok, by 15 seconds. But he won the race. He also won in Barcelona, Duluth, Seattle and Detroit that year.

Personal bests for the 5-foot, 8-inch, 135-pound Kurtis: 2:13:34 in the 1982 New Orleans Marathon (he won); 1:17:58 in 25 kilometers and 1:04:51 in the half marathon. His best 10km: 29:44 and his best 10 mile: 48:33.

As I remember 1984 we didn't walk away with any medals in the Olympic Marathon. Yes we had a larger pool of runners that were getting their asses kicked at the Olympic level. Please don't feed me Boston or New York bull shit. Africans just hadn't discovered those races yet.

I think one of the differences between then and now is just the whole philosophy and approach that the current runners take to what they do. Shorter was not yet 25 when he won the gold medal, and Rodgers was 27 when he first won Boston. The top runners back then seemed eager to jump to the marathon early, while now it seems like a lot of American runners make that jump later in their careers. What would guys like Culpepper or Kennedy have run in their mid-20's? I'm guessing if Culpepper had made the jump right out of college he would be better than the 2:09 guy he is now.

For these current crop of guys, they feel they need to specialize their training so much that they don't want to try the marathon until later, after they have taken a shot at the distance of their choice. Other countries encourage their runners to run at all distances, but here we have coaches that just pigeonhole their guys. "He's a 5000" guy, or "He's a 10K" guy. Back in the day, all guys wanted to know was where the starting line was -- distance didn't matter, they were ready for any of them, so it was just time to compete.

I think Jorge Torres would be an outstanding marathoner, but he's not even going to think about it until four years from now when he's 28. What's the wait? I mean, after Culpepper ran so well at Chicago in 2001, why did he go back to the 10,000? Think of how much more prepared he would be now if he had run two marathons last year -- especially if he had run Worlds.

If more guys (and gals) were encouraged (or interested) to go right to the marathon after college, the rate of success would get better. There are a lot of younger guys who are getting into it now, so now it is just a matter of waiting for them while they develop.

I'm pretty sure Rodgers did this training on the cold winter roads of Boston while working as a school teacher!I've got an old Boston Globe article showing him running in the dark on snow and ice. No HRM, no altitude, no Goretex, no money, just shoes and sweats and alot of desire! He also got third at the World XC when they did the the correct way, one 12 Kilo race.

Jzs wrote:

Another hack who put in some miles, Bill Rodgers.

Rodger's training miles in the weeks before the 1975 BAA Marathon, Taken from Boston Marathon By Tom Derderian.

Jan: 201-WOW,136,85,140,96 = Ave 131.6/wk

Feb: 80(trials for IAAF XC team),117,143,125 = Ave 116.3/wk

March: 135,107(IAAF XC in Morocco in which BR placed 3rd),113,139 = Ave 123.5/wk

April: 140,128, taper off to 14 on Friday, 5 easy on Sat, 3 easy on Sun, BAA Monday 2:09:55

Before the taper BR ran about 126mi/wk for 15 weeks leading up to the race.

atownrunninsay:

>If more guys (and gals) were encouraged (or interested) to go right to the marathon after college, the rate of success would get better. There are a lot of younger guys who are getting into it now, so now it is just a matter of waiting for them while they develop.<

It be the marathon BOGIE MAN, BOO!!!

Sorta like we did huh? Where are the new BRs today???????

BB QUEEN wrote:

As I remember 1984 we didn't walk away with any medals in the Olympic Marathon. Yes we had a larger pool of runners that were getting their asses kicked at the Olympic level. Please don't feed me Boston or New York bull shit. Africans just hadn't discovered those races yet.

In 1984, the men's marathon medallists were from Portugal, Ireland and the UK. Africans had, been running marathons since at least 1960. And I have this vague recollection that in the women's marathon "we" did have someone who might have gotten a medal.

Atownrunin,

Yes. Exactly.

Top 3 times from 84 are 1st, 3rd and 4th on all-time Olympic marathon list.

I have tape of the 1992 OGames with Martin Fitz running 5k, Silva of Mex running the 10K, Paul Evans running 10K. They all moved up to the marathon shortly after & had huge careers at the longer distance. I believe they all ran 2:08 PRs after realizing that their good track skills were not enough to make an impact.

The more sub 2:20-22's a nation has the better the chance of getting talent and the runners with the right attitude in 5-10-20 years, no one would argue that? More knowledge, more runners to emulate regionally, less obscurity as a goal, etc

The current African invasion doesn't discredit all the results and hard work from the yesteryear runners that have paved the way for the current generation, but the national to international barrier is different and that could be one cause among many. Maybe part of that solution is to get the young runners grounded early in that their running will take a long time to reach full potential- 10-20 years maybe. Let's take Deena again, she took a year off racing NCAA's. She is at her best way out of college years (still young). The NCAA folks should possibly be looking more long term to make sure they don't get discouraged because they are ONLY 8th-15-47th in NCAA ranks. Some may come out kicking in HS, some may take longer to develop- look at Micheal Jordan.

Well said.

Reading Runner's World, running 40 mpw and crosstraining so they don't get injured! quote]Jzs wrote:Sorta like we did huh? Where are the new BRs today???????

Re: Why we're slower (or at least not as deep) now than 20 years ago....

(1) Difficult to make a living (but it was difficult in 1983, too... not because of Kenyans on the roads, but because of less money in the sport overall).

(2) Soccer

(3) My #1 reason -- I believe we spend too much time talking about training (thanks, Runner's World) and not enough time actually training. In the marathon, especially, mileage rules. I love the line from the fictional Bruce Denton to an Oregon guy (Prefontaine? I don't remember) in Once a Runner: "You may not believe in mileage, but you sure as hell do mileage!" I'm willing to bet that the real Bruce Denton (Jack Bacheler) actually said that, and Bacheler and his FTC group are still well-represented on the U.S. top ten lists, 30 years later. Padilla did great on low mileage, but he damn sure wouldn't have been a good marathoner.

The real problem is that we throw talented guys like

John Gill in prison!

i can't speak for anyone else, but i think RW had an effect on me. i went to a high school with no xc team and a poor track program...ran for 10 weeks a year and, predictably, never accomplished anything. quit runing for a couple years after high school, but got the bug after watcheing steve jones' famous WR run in chicago (fall of 84, i believe). i was self coached, and guess what my ONLY source of info was? you guessed it. a year later i tried to walk onto the team at my school ( al large, D1)on my paltry 35-40 miles a week(gotta stay rested, you know!). predictably again, i got cut. but i was also exhausted from running 70s every week, so i sought out some better advice than what i was getting from my coach(whom i realize now did'nt even push us that hard). hellooooo runner's world!

long story short, i rested my way right down being complete garbage as a runner, and up to 170 lbs from 140. and honest to god, it wasn't until i discovered THIS WEBSITE and learned not only how much more i needed to run, but more importantly, how to do it, that i started getting better again. i am pushing 40, and i am almost as fast at the short distances now as i was in college, and at the longer ones, i am WAY better. i PRd in the half and the full marathon last year at age 38.

so you can say what you want about me being lazy, untalented, unfocused, etc, for the last 15+ years, but the bottom line is i ran down to the quality of the advice i was getting. if the internet existed at that time i think my career would have gone quite a bit differently. so for now, i am working to make up for lost time by running 100+ miles per week, whereas for YEARS i believed i was physically incapable of doing half that much. why? because whenever i pushed up to that level, i got TIRED, and we all know from reading runner's world that if you are tired, you need to take 3 days off, right?

don't get me wrong. i am not pointing the finger of blame for my lack of accomplishment solely at rodale press. all i can say is, i have back issues of that magazine dating back to 1979, and i never read anything that was 1/10th as avaluable to performance as one f***ing thread by hadd, jason, hodgie, malmo, etc. and i can't be the only one.

[quote]running fan wrote:

How many or your running friends do you know are willing to work a 40 hour week and still run 120 mpw. With that give up on going out with their friends at night or not having a girlfriend or a nice new car ect or all the trappings of today. My guess. Few if any. There is your answer on one of many reasons todays post collegiate do run what they did years ago. [quote]

"All the trappings of today" LOL. Girlfriends and cars were around in the days before the remote control.

You are the paradigm of runner's today. Your perspective is all f***-ed up. You guys think running is all about training and staring at the walls in your altitude house. It's not, nor has it ever has been. Running is life! Life is not a dress rehearsal. Live it, don't watch others do it.

RW hasn't changed in 22+ years. I recall being in high school, asking my coach if I could borrow some of his RW Magazines to read. He let me borrow them, but with the following. "don't believe half the shit in there, that magazine is for the typical weekend jogger."

Seems it ain't changed. Most dumb f***s just can't keep from buying it or subscribing to it.

People are making money now, plus there is the internet and other activities such as mountain biking, hunting terrorists & illegal aliens and using the Carlton Sheets Real Estate course to occupy ones' waking hours.