Gebre breaks 25km WR, 1:11!

Not you too Perspective! You're such a voice of reason usaully. Oh man...look, you and TTC has either of you ever taken the time to speak to an Ethiopian or Kenyan about their upbrining...I've spoken at length with some, and given what I've heard, it makes a lot of sense to me that they are as successful as they are given their lifestyles/motivation alone...without even beginning to get into possible physiological differences.

By the way, how do you explan a US HS girl running 51sec indoors on a slow track today? Or the # of Dominicans in MLB given their tiny population compared to the US? Just curious...

Women's times dropped rapidly in the seventies and eighties because they were finally accepted in track and field as athletes and were allowed to compete in many more environs than earlier.

sayitisn'tso... wrote:

US HS girl running 51sec indoors on a slow track today? Or the # of Dominicans in MLB given their tiny population compared to the US? Just curious...

Those don't approach an insane 12:58 5K split, an AR on its own. Nor a 26:20, which is faster than a Webb to Webb 2x5K relay.

There's a difference between an 'against the odds' accomplishment versus 26:20.

You keep bringing up Webb's 5k time as if it is relevant to Bekele's 10k performance.Why?

ttc wrote:

Nor a 26:20, which is faster than a Webb to Webb 2x5K relay.

ttc,

How fast is too fast? Is it 12:50 something, is that the absolute limit of human performance, given that 12:5x has been done by athletes that have not had the advantages which I've already outlined?

If you accept Bekele's 5k all his othertimes are reasonable. So what is so crazy about his 5k? Geb ran 3:31.76(i) and 12:39.36, Kennedy ran 3:38.74 and 12:58.21.

Based on these, Kennedy has better stamina -- he's running his 5k faster as a percentage of 1500m speed than Geb! So what's that say about Bob? That he's an incredible athlete, same as Geb.

You know what's one factor that you haven't listed: glory in Ethiopia starts at the long distances and goes down. The saying goes that the guys running the 1500m for Ethiopia are the ones who aren't fast enough to make the 5k/10k teams.

See, western runners who have 3:31 potential don't think at all about 5k/10k -- they're focused on the mile/1500m. Imagine if we took every guy we've had approach that and said, "screw the 1500m -- your going to focus on the 10k." I bet there'd be a lot more Americans in the style of Mottram.

Because he feels that Webb is one of the most talented runners on the face of the earth and that his training is near perfect.

Correct me if I'm wrong, ttc.

Why is Alan Webb the barometer of all things track and field? Just because webb's 5K isn't as fast as the WR split in the 10, doesn't mean that it is impossible. Webb is a great runner, there is no question to that. But, he is not the yardstick to measure a performance. Was Webb on drugs when he ran 3:50something in high school? When he broke the record, it was pretty cool, there wasn't talk EPO use by a high school phenom, it was talk of phenominal talent by a high schooler. Maybe there is something physiologically different in the Eastern Africans. Trackhead made more than enough medical references to their hypoxic upbringings and diet of unprocessed foods. They also may just have more slow twitch fibers in the muscles and more hemoglobin (occuring naturally due to their elevation) to oxygenate these endurance oriented muscles. It may be hard to understand their dominance, but the fact that you don't understand how they do it, doesn't mean it is from PED's.

An interesting debate. As for as the 'he's a good man so he can't be a doper' issue goes, well, I spent two weeks training with two Maroccan brothers in 2002 in Spain. One had got bronze at the World Juniors in 2000, the other was hoping to go to that summer's World Juniors. Surprised the hell out of me when the older brother was done for EPO 2 years later; they were both great guys and I mean that sincerely. (Apart from the drugs bit which kinda spoils what I just wrote since I hate drugs cheats.) But the moral of the story is, let's not go on the 'nice guy' issue.

Second off. I find it amusing that people on this board will back to the hilt those athletes that they've never met. Added to this a 'head in the sand' approach to the issue of drugs, which, if you're widely read, can be taken despite testing and do have a considerable positive impact on performance. Sadly people cheat in all walks of life, whether it's theft, benefit fraud, or tax evasion. Becoming the world's best athlete and becoming wealthy are an easy option in some ways compared to that. The difference is that you might pay with you life, a la EPO users in the 90s and FloJo with her steroids.

Runningart2004 wrote:

Did Zatopek ever hold the marathon record? I know he won all three distance events at the same Olympics but am unsure of what records he set.

Alan

Alan: Zatopek set 16 World Records at the following track distances--

5000m

6 miles

10000m

10 miles

15 miles

1 hour

15000m

20000m

30000m

He was at his peak from 1949 to 1954. Took the 10000 record down by over 30 seconds. From 1948 to 1954 his 10000 time improved by 2 minutes. No one accused him of doping because he told everybody how he did it. Hard work. Before Zatopek most elite distance runners trained fairly lightly.

Zatopek ran up to 80 x 400 meter reps, jogging 200m between, per day. This is 30 miles. (He did do it in 2 workouts) Zatopek told newspaper reporters this so the whole world knew. Within 2 years there were many others nipping at Zatopek's heels. The whole world finally figured it out...The better runners train harder.

Zatopek was very slow (3:52 1500m). Once the naturally faster runners could stay up with him, his "days in the sun" were over. A funny man, when asked why he frowned, grimiced and basically looked like a heart attack happening, said "I look so bad when I run because I'm not talented enough to smile and run at the same time".

A great man. Actually gave his 1948 10000 meter gold medal to Ron Clarke "because he was never able to win one, even though he deserved it"!

I guess what I'm getting to is, WHAT IS THE TRAINING THAT THE SUPER FAST AFRICANS DO? Of course to just get to the stage to even do 1 hard African workout a week would take most runners years to achieve. But if today's jr high and high school kids could see these workouts, it will give them something to shoot for...

Ten years of relaxed/moderate steady mileage before really pushing the envelope.

That aside, someone on here reported that Bekele, while training in the US, did 10x1200m in 3:00-3:03 w/ 90s rest.

I think that you have to question drug use at the top level.

I don't think that you can absolutely conclude that the top runner(s) are using, but neither can you rule the possibility out. It doesn't matter if the athlete is from Kenya, the US, Canada, or Ethiopia. We are all subject to the same temptations: riches, fame, and glory.

For me, at least, the day of the athletic "hero" is gone: just one more casualty in the proliferation of performance enhancing drugs.

trackhead wrote:

That aside, someone on here reported that Bekele, while training in the US, did 10x1200m in 3:00-3:03 w/ 90s rest.

How does reporting a superhuman workout support your arguement that he is clean? Im not saying hes dirty, just questioning your logic.

Look Mark Pilja, or ttc.

Just because you shat your wad and ran 100mpw and thought you put it all out there and only achieved marginal national results and got eaten alive by Webb does not mean that all guys faster than YOU are cheats.

You can rationalize to yourself all you want but YOU are not one of the finest athletes in the world. Sorry pal, just not.

Everyone knows ttc is a legend in his own mind and part time troll. By the way ttc, how about those Knicks?

You are a bitter loser.

So how about that 25k that Geb did today then?

Trackhead, talking to these guys about African runners and their singleminded commitment to trainng and racing is a waste of time...they dont understand that given the same talent as an American its the AMOUNT of time they spend getting a head start that counts, and they have a unique ability to recover faster from hard workouts.

The clowns who have issues with this logic are so caught up in their "greatness" as runners, and cant comprehend anyone running that much faster than them.

The sad thing is that its this attitude that leads them to continue to be mediocre.

Haile, Bekele, Kipchoge, Chebii, Choge etc are all very legit. extremely talented and VERY HARD WORKERS.

More power to them.

The previous poster asked what workouts they ran.

TTC - I'm with you on this one. We can't prove anything right now, we can only go by hunches. But its my opinion that Geb and Bekele are likely on something. That's just what it takes to compete (and totally dominate) at the highest level against other runners that are also cheating.

At one point I had a hunch about Regina Jacobs, Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, Flo Jo, Eddy H., so I've been pretty accurate with my hunches.

I hope the IAAF improves on their drug testing capabilities, but its not likely to happen anytime soon.

So, who's the fastest runner you don't have a "hunch" about?