AMERICANS DISAPPOINT IN CHICAGO

...Did we really have expectations for the Americans going into Chicago?

Besides, is 9th and 11-15 really disappointing?

Collin wrote:

How exactly did Llano have any hope of running under 2:10? His half marathon time is great, but not indicative of being able to debut under 2:10 or even close.

Llano was over his head in talking 2:08, but if you think a young guy with a 1:01:47 half-marathon time from nine months ago had absolutely no plausible reason to go after at least a 2:10, you know very little about distance running.

Christo had hamstring issues. He said he was experiencing cramps in his legs that really hindered his race time. Appears that he was fit to run well but didn't properly eat/drink throughout the race to mitigate potential health issues.

I respectfully disagree with your suggestions, Dixie.

What more could they get? Better marathon specific training. In 1980, there were no sub 2:!5 kenyan marathoners. That's a fact. Training has changed.

Also, Hastings time is only 12:00 of the WR where Curtis is also 12:00 off.

"

I thought we'd have a handful under 2:10."

Haven't read the whole thread, but you weren't one of the guys expecting a slew of sub 13's this year, were you?

Just because hordes of Africans are suddenly running ridiculous times doesn't mean everyone else gets to also.

get ugly wrote:

Secondly, recent college grads face much tougher financial pressures than the runners in the 70s did. Everything is more expensive now relative to wages: housing, food, healthcare, and most importantly, student loan debt.

A 28:00 10k guy is not likely to have much debt. Overall the cost of living, in real dollars, is not substantively different than the '70s. Besides it's not like the guys back in the day were living it up...

Even if it did take 13:20 talent, we have LOADS of it. Look up how many Americans have broke 13:20 in the last year, then tell me how many have broke 2:10.

know-it-all joe wrote:

Le Chapeau wrote:

Cop out. Every other record is faster now, what makes the Marathon so special?

Because the marathon is the LAST event our talented runners try. Only when they are not good enough on the track anymore, or in the infrequent (Ryan Hall) if they get injured doing track work.

For East Africans it's the opposite, many talented runners go to the marathon ASAP.

That is why the marathon is so "special."

Yep. To add, the typical 'high-school then college' system that weeds out the running talent doesn't train for the marathon race (notwithstanding the minority NAIA Championships:

).

Its The Training, Stupid wrote:

I respectfully disagree with your suggestions, Dixie.

What more could they get? Better marathon specific training. In 1980, there were no sub 2:!5 kenyan marathoners. That's a fact. Training has changed.

Also, Hastings time is only 12:00 of the WR where Curtis is also 12:00 off.

Curtis is 12:00 off what? 1:59:20?

adsfadsf wrote:

Even if it did take 13:20 talent, we have LOADS of it. Look up how many Americans have broke 13:20 in the last year, then tell me how many have broke 2:10.

Excellent point. The conclusion then is that rather than a lack of potential talent, it is the personal resource commitment to run 2:10, versus 13:20, that is the taxing factor in not doing so.

Steve Jones ran 80-100 miles max = 2:07:13

boomtown rascals wrote:

Cooralation wrote:

Landry runs a 32 mile long run and 150 mile weeks,

Bekele runs a 2 hr 30 minute long run and 120 mile weeks,

Kipchoge runs a 26.2 mile lung run before Chicago.

Kipchoge wins.

Correlation?

AMERICANS ARE RUNNING TOO MUCH!

Not sure if Bekele was completely open with his training or not. His initial comment soon after his Paris debut was that he needed to get longer (3hr) runs in.

He was running more for Paris. I think that he needs to run less and focus on quality efforts, similar to what Renato Canova does with his athletes. Big repeats, at a faster than marathon effort, increasing the rest interval as the training progresses and keeping the mileage in check (80 to 100 miles/week).

KudzuRunner wrote:

What's noticeable about Llano is his dismal positive splits.

You picked up on that too? I thought I was the only one who noticed that 1:05:30/1:12:13 on a flat course was probably not optimal.

KudzuRunner wrote:

He thought he was in much better shape than he turned out to be.

His very long long runs plainly did NOT help

The fact that he blew up does not make either of these statements true. He may have been in 2:10 shape and just had a shitty day or mismanaged his fueling or something. When someone runs, say, a 1:01 half, it's possible to make certain inferences about his marathon fitness. But it doesn't wor the other way around -- when someone collapses, it says nothing about whether the training he did was effective. If you look at every runner who has ever run a crappy marathon, especially in his first attempt, and condemn whatever training he did on the basis of his running crappy, you would quickly conclude that there is NO kind of marathon training that produces positive results.

Frigging naive ding dongs in this place.

know-it-all joe wrote:

Le Chapeau wrote:

Cop out. Every other record is faster now, what makes the Marathon so special?

Because the marathon is the LAST event our talented runners try. Only when they are not good enough on the track anymore, or in the infrequent (Ryan Hall) if they get injured doing track work.

For East Africans it's the opposite, many talented runners go to the marathon ASAP.

That is why the marathon is so "special."

Another cop out. I

In the past runners managed to transition just fine to the Marathon as a "last event".

Nobody is asking them to win. They just expect them to realize their lesser potential.

this is great. i pretty much got told on a thread last week "if your not running 13:30s while training hard & focusing a lot of your time on running in your 20s, maybe it's time to move on". every year a slew of 13:30-14:30 guys (many of which have the potential to run sub2:10) graduate from the NCAA system and assume their running career is done at age 21ish. too afraid that they'll be "missing out" on certain things in life if they devote 5+ years to see how fast they can go. just the mindset of the athlete in a culture that looks at running/training as "hard", "unenjoyable", and a "big sacrifice". rare these days are the ones with talent that actually ENJOY running/training & get after it after college.

ENTITLEMENT COMPLEXUAL wrote:

Nope, it doesn't.

川内優輝 / YUKI KAWAUCHI:

1500 metres - 3:50.51 min (2012)

5000 metres - 13:58.62 min (2012)

10,000 metres - 29:02.33 min (2010)

Half marathon - 62:18 min (2012)

30 km - 1:29:31 hrs (2013)

Marathon - 2:08:15 hrs (2013)

Sciatica Road wrote:

13:20-13:30 talent sound better?

Le Chapeau wrote:

recent college grads face much tougher financial pressures than the runners in the 70s did. Everything is more expensive now relative to wages: housing, food, healthcare, and most importantly, student loan debt.

Exactly. Plus there were a lot more official training groups offering athlete support back then like Zap Fitness, Hansons, NOP, OTC, and so on, whereas those things simply don't exist today. And you're so on the money to make sweeping statements about student loan debt -- I was gonna propose that some people have a shit-ton of it when they graduate whereas others (such as full-ride scholarship athletes) have none at all, but your post made me realize that evry recent grad actually has roughly the same debt and that it's crippling. Also, every one of them lives in an expensive renter's market where only Whole Foods is available as a grocery store.

My bet is that you were not even alive in the 1970s and most likely not in the 1980s either.

Good points here. There are interesting arguments throughout this discussion--excellent thread. Overall, though, I find the core issue here puzzling. How could basicaly one area of the world (East Africa) dominate a sport for twenty years? This, in and of itself, is simply astounding.

boomtown rascals wrote:

Not sure if Bekele was completely open with his training or not. His initial comment soon after his Paris debut was that he needed to get longer (3hr) runs in.

Jos Hermens, Bekele's agent, is under the belief Bekele needs to do longer long runs.

He said Bekele did one 40km run and that was it.

More on Bekele post race here:

I didn't say that but I have been alive since the 70s began.