6'0" 165 lbs. isn't extraordinary for a sub-3:36 1500m guy. There have been others. There are two T&F performances which are statistical outliers for C Solinsky's size, his 5000m & 10000m personal bests. Someone has to be the statistical outlier. Look back to 1912 Summer Olympics. C Solinsky was not the first world class 10000m man over 6' and over 160 lbs.
Chris Solinsky trained really freaking hard and he wasn't afraid to eat. One of the best articles ever on Letsrun by Jonathan Gault describing Solinsky's American record 10k and how he crushed Galen Rupp and shady Salazar includes this gem: "If you look back at some of my better moments in my running career, I actually had, the night before, an insatiable appetite,” Solinsky says.
Solinsky began with the gnocchi at Il Fornaio, an Italian restaurant in Palo Alto, but the portion was insultingly small. So when Solinsky showed up to Cold Stone Creamery, a pre-race tradition dating back to his Wisconsin days, for his usual order (vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cookie dough, white chocolate chips, and caramel), he ordered a “Gotta Have It” — the biggest size they had. That didn’t do the job either. Only after devouring the majority of a medium pizza from Little Caesars that he “split” with Bairu did Solinsky go to bed satisfied."
Only a LRC poster would describe this meal as the result of an insatiable appetite... To recap:
1. Small portion of gnoochi - basically a cup of pasta
2. A large ice cream - effectively a milk shake
3. half a medium pizza... - a cheap, cardboard brand pizza - medium...?
To me this looks like a typical night-before-a-race glycogen fill-up.
For a guy with a high cal-burn metabolism, and insatiable appetite would be more like: a large, whole pizza with topping, milkshake/ice cream, and then some kind of take-out/fast food.
You should watch your diet to lose weight leading up to a race but in the day or two before you toe the line, get a couple good meals in. I'm convinced (from my own experience and observations), that a lot of runners show up on race day woefully fueled. They've basically "bonk" shortly after the gun goes off - you can't run hard like this. If you're good with your diet and cutting weight, don't worry about an extra pound on race day - that's your gasoline!
The day before state XC my senior year:
Box of Pop-Tarts
Big Mac, fries, two cheeseburgers, chocolate shake
Wrong. They don't have huge engines, they have the right sized engines to do the work, i.e. optimal power and efficiency.
It turns out that the "optimal power" is as much as possible and the optimal efficiency is as efficient as possible.
If you compared Bekele's and Geb's vo2 max, LT and relative efficiency numbers to those with a similar weight, you would see that their numbers are huge in comparison.
Wrong. They don't have huge engines, they have the right sized engines to do the work, i.e. optimal power and efficiency.
It turns out that the "optimal power" is as much as possible and the optimal efficiency is as efficient as possible.
If you compared Bekele's and Geb's vo2 max, LT and relative efficiency numbers to those with a similar weight, you would see that their numbers are huge in comparison.
The heat is on! Rupp, Chelanga, Solinsky, Salel, photo by PhotoRun.net. K. Ken Nakamura, one of our top track statisticians, scoured the lists to find out where Chris Solinsky’s 10,000m debut sits on the world performance lis...
nah.he wouldnt have broken 28.20 clean.his drug cocktails are what gave him that big engine.
Don’t forget, he won Foot Locker Nationals (in the era when that was THE nationals, not one of many) in high school. Unless he got started on the sauce quite young, he obviously had the talent to haul his big @ss to way faster than 28:20 (whether the 26:59 was actually clean or not)
It turns out that the "optimal power" is as much as possible and the optimal efficiency is as efficient as possible.
If you compared Bekele's and Geb's vo2 max, LT and relative efficiency numbers to those with a similar weight, you would see that their numbers are huge in comparison.
You have no idea ehat you're talking about.
I love how often people make spelling and/or grammatical mistakes when accusing others of being idiots.
I supposed I should clarify one thing. When I say weight isn't important, what I mean is to FOCUS on weight as an athlete or a coach is counterproductive and often self-destructive. The focus should be on the training, and if you train properly your body will adapt to the stimulus and your weight will be what it should be. The number of the scale is irrelevant and so is your physical appearance. Remember when it came out that Salazar was criticizing Jenny Simpson's "proportions", and she was the gold freaking medalist at the time!
You wanna talk about garbage...
This kind of hyper-fixation on weight destroyed the running career of one of my high school teammates, and eventually killed him. It's a dark road to go down, and no ethical modern-day coach should push their athletes in that way.
Lighter is faster. I don't know how fat became healthy and skinny unhealthy. We all know it isn't true. We just don't want to shame 2/3 of the population but seem fine telling the healthy people to gain weight.
Lighter is faster. I don't know how fat became healthy and skinny unhealthy. We all know it isn't true. We just don't want to shame 2/3 of the population but seem fine telling the healthy people to gain weight.
I feel like the lighter is always better no matter what crowd actually thinks a runner should aim to weigh one pound and not an ounce more.
Who do you consider "a runner" and who do you consider "a sprinter?" Do you consider 1500m athletes runners? Watch 1976 men 1500m final. 2009 I charted the height & weight of all Olympic track medalists, sprinting and running events. Sixty yard & 60m dash, strength to weight ratio is more important than weight. It's gradual when you view a chart of Olympic medalists. One cannot simply say it's advantageous for runners to be little. Do you mean 10000m to Marathon? Do you mean 1/2 Marathon to Marathon? C Solinsky never was going to race sub-59 1/2 Marathon or sub-2:05 Marathon. Is that your argument you are trying to make? If so, we can agree.
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