What’s up with Joe Klecker and Kincaid?

Uh, stupid to run 10 on a track ever…

Klecker was in St. Moritz which was notably cold this summer. But they did do a whole Heat training regimen. Worked for Monson, didn’t work for Klecker evidently.

To the poster saying the US is just outclassed in the 10K and up (besides Grant) yes that appears to be the case. Woody/Klecker could beat Ebenyo in a 3-5K, but go to XC, a 10K of a half and he’s stomping them. It seems the lack of flashy 10k times is more about lack of opportunities. There are many East Africans that are in sub-26:50 shape and capable of hanging in these Fartlek-type 10k finals. Their trials system churns out strong teams for the most part.

Budapest weather was no different than most cities in the US and Europe in the summer. Hilarious to blame the weather on their poor performance. They just weren’t as good. Period. Back to the drawing board

did they renew their love spat?

What can you do, it's about 90 degrees. The organizers of these WC and OG meets need to think about starting the 10,000 at either 7 am or 10 pm. Hold the meets at a cooler time of year in a cooler city.

It may be that growing up in Africa makes it easier to run in heat that growing up in the US. Would the 2012 Rupp get a medal in such heat? He was a good heat runner, but 90 is pretty warm.

It is winter in KEnya by the way.

OUr winter started in JUne and ends in September.

It was very cold in June and July but now it is okay.

Also , it is never humid except in Kisumu and Mombasa which are at low altitude. Kisumu is highter but not that high.

Yes, it's funny to see the ignorance regarding Kenyan weather on here...having been to Kenya a few times myself I can attest to the cooler and less humid weather there. Quite chilly in June and July! I've also been to Addis Ababa and it's high and dry there too...I imagine it never really gets humid there being so high up.

True.

We have similar weather so to speak.

Addis is very high and yes, dry weather.

Call me a Johnson Brother then cause I am speaking out of my *ss. :)

Still, if 67-75 w/ relative humidity averaging 81% (according to Google) is a cold winter day, then that would still prepare them better than 40-50s in the rain at St. Moritz.

Wait until you at least get the basics down before you start giving out advice. Unfortunately, this scenario happens over and over on these boards in nearly every subject. I d in JT know if this board is a sampling of human nature or if it’s filled with just a bunch of blowhards that feel like they need to be heard and have their ill informed opinions taken as fact.

I'm not necessarily going to argue this point. But the Finns used to do very well at the Boston Marathon. The last Finn to win was Olavai Suomuleain (no vouching for correct spelling here) in 1972. It was a very warm day that year. In 1975 I was racing in Finland and staying with a Finn, Tenho Salakka, who had come second at Boston in 1964. A British friend who was racing with me and I got to talking with Tenho about why the Finns did so well there and seemed to do so even in hot years. He just talked about their training in general so we asked again what they did in training to prepare for racing well in hot weather. Again, there was just an answer about their overall training and nothing about heat training.

This went on for a bit, us asking what they did to prepare for racing a marathon on hot days and answers that said nothing about heat preparation. I finally got the idea that they did nothing special to race in heat. It seemed like their winter training was done in such cold weather for so long that they really liked the idea of running for a good while when it was hot.

Sorry, Ian, but that's not even wrong.

St C averages 54 inches of snow/year.

Buffalo averages 90 inches.

Erie averages 100 inches.

So, as a matter of fact, Erie & Buffalo togehter average 3 1/2 times as much as St Cs.

I thought Woody ran a fairly honest race - just couldn't hang when Aregawi started dropping 64s in the stifling heat. He didn't completely blow though, and for a lap or two, I thought he was gonna get back on. 11th place in the 10,000m at worlds is nothing to sniff at. There was a period in the 90s and early 2000s where non-Aricans couldn't get within a lap of the winner. Rupp (and to a lesser extent, Fisher) may have dimmed that memory a little.

Not sure what happened to Klecker; I thought he may have fallen because they flicked back after an ad break and he was 30 metres off the back. He then proceeded to close on the pack for the next 4 laps, until the race eventually got going at the front. Very strange.

The correct English expression is “used to”. Past tense is correct.

All these American posters making excuses about the weather show what's the real problem with US: culture.

As mentionned at the beginning of the discussion, it doesn't help that they need to peak for US trials.

Then when comes Worlds there's a likelyhood athletes aren't in peak fitness any more.

In some ways it's a paradox. The US trials system puts an emphasis on racing (the 3 best on a d-day vs. the 3 fastest that year) but forces athletes to peak earlier than they might want to be at their best for Worlds...

This is partially why cheptegei wins more than the Ethiopians… he doesn’t need to run fast or win trials. Not discounting his talent or skill but he makes it count when it matters and not DLs

I think this is a good point. What do Ebenyo, Cheptegei, Barega, and Aregawi all have in common? They all ran World XC this year. The top 10k guys all do a bit of top class XC every year - even Mo Farah saw the value in getting his ass kicked in international XC competitions as part of his season. By contrast, the US guys run a 10k TT, the national champs, and then go to the global champs. It doesn't prepare them for racing. With so few top level 10k races on the circuit, XC becomes the place for athletes to test themselves before championships. The East Africans get that, others need to catch up.

Also, good on Klecker for owning that race. No excuses from the guy, no cursing the weather, just an admission that he races badly.

To all these people saying heat this and heat that and that Kenya is much hotter, its not. Kenya(iten) and Ethiopia(Addis) are temperate climates and its also not hot this time of year there. The high in Iten today is 71f while its 96 in Boulder. The hottest day of the year in Iten is usually around March and the high is usually around 82-84f. Addis Ababa is very similar to Iten in climate. In fact, the temperature in Boulder today is hotter than the hottest day ever recorded in Addis. The high in Addis today is 66.

Yes the winter's are much colder in Boulder but the Summers are much hotter than either Addis or Iten. And this is before the fact that the peak temperature months occur months ago in both Iten and Addis. There are parts of both Ethiopia and Kenya that are deathly hot but they are not the same places that the runners are either born, live or train at.