HOW COULD STEVE CRAM RUN 1:42 WITH ONLY 49.1 400m SPEED?

this post about aouita may offer something ( you probably know dionisi & may have insight ) :

I see you know me very well. You know why I went Kenya (and of course I think you know also how much money I took off poor Kenyans), and you know that I learned how to recruit the best runners.

Sorry to inform you that I always GAVE money to Kenyan runners (for example, in 2005-2006 I ran a training camp in Iten paying about 30,000 USD per year for growing new athletes WITHOUT ANY MANAGEMENT behind me), and I NEVER RECRUITED ANY ATHLETE, because are different managers ocoming to me for training their athletes, or sometimes the athletes themselves. Probably they do this because they want to find somebody taking off their money....

A load of hypothetical B S.

Your methodology is rigid and a total nonsense as everyone is physiologically different. Your long list of pointless numbers spoil every thread they litter.

I've never seen someone live in Wonderland quite like Ventolin. Nice to see him thoroughly schooled by those in the know.

In a way I wish we could all live in his fantasy world of what if potential.

Renato Canova wrote:

I see you know me very well. You know why I went Kenya (and of course I think you know also how much money I took off poor Kenyans), and you know that I learned how to recruit the best runners.

Sorry to inform you that I always GAVE money to Kenyan runners (for example, in 2005-2006 I ran a training camp in Iten paying about 30,000 USD per year for growing new athletes WITHOUT ANY MANAGEMENT behind me), and I NEVER RECRUITED ANY ATHLETE, because are different managers ocoming to me for training their athletes, or sometimes the athletes themselves. Probably they do this because they want to find somebody taking off their money....

Renato, unless I miss my guess, this is just Chris Kelsall - Wetcoast - (or one of his cronies) having a go at Antonio (see Lydiard thread). Ignore it, as it's not really relevant to anything in this thread.

Yes Renato is a humanitarian...giving his vast running knowledge (and money) to the Kenyans. Do you think we're stupid?

TrackMonkey wrote:

Yes Renato is a humanitarian...giving his vast running knowledge (and money) to the Kenyans. Do you think we're stupid?

In your case, yes.

Idiot! Aouita had no form at all over 400m in 1983 or 1984. His 800 best in 84 was 1:46.81 and his 1000m best was 2:19.17.

How is it, according to you, that when Cram runs a 3:33.1 off shit pace, he has that as his maximum ability for that year, but when Aouita doesn't run a 400m and runs a 1:46.81 for 800m, you can claim he was capable of 48.2/1:44.0?

You change the goal posts to suit yourself.

Aouita also ran a 3:31. 54 1500m in 84, so where you get 3:28 from is laughable. You have no 400m time to input into your calculator and a 1:46 for 800m. That doesn't give 3:28 potential.

moron

that 1'46.8 musta been a jog

in '83 when he was nowhere near as good as in '84 & no injury concerns in interim, he went 1'44.38 to win in lausanne

i have little doubt that in '84 he couda gone close to 1'44-flat

as for his 3'31.5, that was in low key meet with absolutely no opposition, with 2nd a no-name german in 3'37.4 - i doubt he had any quality pacing help at all

the suggestion is that aouita may have been little different between '84 & '85 for his main distances of 1500 - 3k - anyone with a brain woud recognise that as a very possible suggestion based on how easily he cruised to 13'05 gold in the heat/pollution of the games

as for cram, idiot, i've never claimed 3'33.1 was his limit in '84 - he mighta been close to 3'32.0 form in games, but still not as good as '83

Just to say that regarding the speculation around Crammies 400 capability, I saw him run a session of 10 x 200 with 30 seconds recovery and they were mostly in 24s with one or 2 in the 23s. From this it was obvious he could run much faster than 49. I observed this session around the time when he ran the Commonwealth double in Edinburgh.

Nonsense. In 1983 he ran six 800m, two 1000m and never ran further than 1 Mile. He was an 800/1500 runner and his focus was on the 1500m at the World Champs. He set national records over 800 (1:44.38) and 1000 (2:15.75). He worked on 800m speed knowing he'd likely need 1:44 ability to beat the likes of Cram, Ovett, etc at the Worlds, thus it would more likely have been better than in 1984, when his main focus was the 5000m at the Olympics.

In 84 he ran six 1500m, SIX 5000m and a 3000m, the emphasis clearly on endurance. He only managed 1:46.81 and 2:19.17. I don't doubt he could have run faster, but you have nothing to go on to suggest 48.2 and 1:44.0. After all, he only managed 1:43.86 in 88 when the 800m was his focus for the season! So the idea of him being within 0.2 of that during a season when he was focussing on 5k is a weak one.

His 3:31.5 was not in a low key meet, as you state, it was at the Fanny Blankers- Koen meet in Hengelo. He was paced to the bell by Rob Druppers, who gave him 56.14, 1:53.08, before Aouita reached 1200m in 2:51.16. Evening this out you won't get any faster than 3:31.0.

The guy who was 2nd was Uwe Becker, a finalist in the previous year's World Champs, hardly a "no-name German". I thought you'd watched every race and knew of every athlete!?

His 3:32.54 in 83 was as impressive as his best in 84 :- he was in front at 800m and proceeded to run the last 500m in 1:07.2 and last lap in 54.0. You can knock 0.7 off for lack of drafting on the 3rd lap and about another 0.5 for uneven pace. That brings it down to around 3:31.3.

So the actual FACTUAL evidence is that in 84, while training for the 5000m as his focus event, he ran no 400s, one 800 in 1:46.8 and one 1k in 2:19.1.

Your suggestion that he could have run 48.2 and 1:44.0 is just what you WANT to believe he could run. Your proposal that he was better than in 83 is not backed up by the facts, not at 800m anyway. Your times are random and have no bearing on reality whatsoever!

Seen it with my own eyes wrote:

Just to say that regarding the speculation around Crammies 400 capability, I saw him run a session of 10 x 200 with 30 seconds recovery and they were mostly in 24s with one or 2 in the 23s. From this it was obvious he could run much faster than 49. I observed this session around the time when he ran the Commonwealth double in Edinburgh.

No one's doubting he could run faster than 49.1. What is clear however, is that he was never capable of 46.5 as Ventolin keeps claiming.

In the 1985 interview he claims that, "Even in training I've been running low 23s for 200 with a couple of yards rolling start,..."

To me that doesn't sound like he's talking about at the end of a series like you mention above. I might be wrong, but it sounds more like a one off. If its from a rolling start it more like 23.5 from a stationary start. So unless he is going to run the 2nd 200m at the end of his top speed for 200m some half a second faster, then he's NOT going to run 46.5!

He wasn't any better in 86 as he had been in 85.

Again, I'd give him absolute top of 47.5, but more likely around 48 flat in 85 and 86.

analysts here need to consider how some athletes / people communicate. there is the school of thought, under state and over perform.

the new zealanders for example, the style was

they would say things were a bit hard, which means really hard, or i am starting to get in shape, which means they are not far from big things.... and no doubt, most of the time, statement projections about upcoming performances were minimums not maximums.

then there is the other school of communication, where you venture optimistic projections, and suffer the consequences when you come up short.

that is why people understate, to avoid pressure of living up to a high standard.

anyone that knows cram would be able to tell if he is in the overstating camp (which i think he is).....

this is crucial if you wish to include cram's statements in the analysis.

you need to decipher what people say at all times.

ventolin^3 wrote:

moron

sums it...

ventolin^3, I have a serious question for you:

You have a theory and are good with numbers, but how do you know when your model is wrong?

In the real world (i.e., races), falsification of a hypothesis is easy: runners win or lose. They run faster or slower on the day. You can judge results over a season.

If you can't state in advance what constitutes disproof of a theory, then you don't really have a theory, just an ex post facto massaging of the data. Aren't you in danger of curve-fitting?

Have you used your model in a predictive capacity? Do you have confidence intervals? Have you made money betting on it?

Any thoughts?

Seen it with my own eyes wrote:

Just to say that regarding the speculation around Crammies 400 capability, I saw him run a session of 10 x 200 with 30 seconds recovery and they were mostly in 24s with one or 2 in the 23s. From this it was obvious he could run much faster than 49. I observed this session around the time when he ran the Commonwealth double in Edinburgh.

In your dreams you saw that. No one is able to do 10x200m with 30sec recovery at 1-3seconds FASTER THAN A WORLD RECORD 800m PACE, idiot.

trfhuyjklm wrote:

Seen it with my own eyes wrote:

Just to say that regarding the speculation around Crammies 400 capability, I saw him run a session of 10 x 200 with 30 seconds recovery and they were mostly in 24s with one or 2 in the 23s. From this it was obvious he could run much faster than 49. I observed this session around the time when he ran the Commonwealth double in Edinburgh.

In your dreams you saw that. No one is able to do 10x200m with 30sec recovery at 1-3seconds FASTER THAN A WORLD RECORD 800m PACE, idiot.

Actually, while never having seen such a session, I don't doubt it's possible by the likes of Cram, EL G etc. I've heard of similar sessions from other athletes.

E,g. Coe: - in 84 in the lead up to LA he did "20 x 200m, the first 10 with 25 secs recovery, the second 10 with 35 to 40 secs recovery. The times were mainly around 26 secs, but the last one was 22.5, against a personal best ever of 21.7"

(P.93, "Coming Back").

So Cram's rep session doesn't seem impossible.

CORRECTION.

i said in error that cram was prone to overstatement,

it should read, i think cram is in the understatement camp.!

for those interested, you don't need to be a mathematician to come up with ventolin's interpolation functions, it is not rocket science.

you just get a data base of athletes best times and fiddle with various equations and get the best fit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_analysis

certainly part of the challenge is in coming up with reliable data for off distances of athletes. data is often scant and you need to estimate from time trials, workouts, sections of races.

you can also compare athletes who have good data for many distances and infer that a similar athlete could run those times as well.

the best person to perform this interpolation task is a former athlete and coach that is blessed too with some basic training in applied maths.

and yes you can use the results to gamble...

Red Arrow wrote:

Actually, while never having seen such a session, I don't doubt it's possible by the likes of Cram, EL G etc. I've heard of similar sessions from other athletes.

E,g. Coe: - in 84 in the lead up to LA he did "20 x 200m, the first 10 with 25 secs recovery, the second 10 with 35 to 40 secs recovery. The times were mainly around 26 secs, but the last one was 22.5, against a personal best ever of 21.7"

(P.93, "Coming Back").

So Cram's rep session doesn't seem impossible.

No. From "Better training for distance runners"

Friday, 13 July 1984: 30x200m 27/28sec (this was ~1500m pace for Coe) recovery not mentioned, but I´ve read that he could do this with a 45sec rec. Of course he could run the last ones faster. But you have to understand that 1500m pace is much more aerobic than 800m pace is, so he could do the last ones close to 23sec.

Thursday, 19 July 1984: 20x200m 27/28sec.

10x200m @ 1-3sec faster than this days 800m WR pace is, only 30seconds recovery, still not possible. Not even for David Rudisha.

The information you got is rubbish, even if it´s true, because the times were mainly only 26 secs.