Lack of 10k success in the 70's

uhhhh...BryanB2....first, there were no 5ks in the 80s. second, you better re-check your all time list in that half marathon:

All-Time Performances- Half Marathon

USA Men

1:00:11 a ( 2) Todd Williams (MI) 24 Jan 1993 Tokyo JPN

1:00:55 ( 1) Mark Curp (MO) 15 Sep 1985 Philadelphia PA USA

1:01:17 ( 1) Khalid Khannouchi (NY) 17 Sep 2000 Philadelphia PA USA

1:01:30 ( 2) Keith Brantly (FL) 19 Sep 1993 Philadelphia PA USA

1:01:32 ( 1) Paul Cummings (UT) 25 Sep 1983 Dayton OH USA

1:01:43 ( 2) George Malley (OR) 19 Sep 1982 Philadelphia PA USA

1:01:43 ( 1) Mark Curp- 2 14 Sep 1986 Philadelphia PA USA

1:01:47 ( 1) Herb Lindsay (MI) 20 Sep 1981 Manchester VT USA

1:01:47 ( 4) Bill Reifsnyder (NM) 15 Sep 1985 Philadelphia PA USA

1:01:47 ( 5) Jon Sinclair (CO) 15 Sep 1985 Philadelphia PA USA

10

1:01:52 ( 1) Todd Williams- 2 07 Dec 1991 Orlando FL USA

1:01:57 ( 2) Bruce Bickford (MA) 14 Sep 1986 Philadelphia PA USA

1:02:00 a (18) Bill Reifsnyder- 2 20 Sep 1992 South Shields ENG

1:02:06 ( 1) Eric Polonski (TX) 19 Jan 1997 Carlsbad CA USA

1:02:07 ( 1) Martyn Brewer (KY) 20 Sep 1987 Philadelphia PA USA

1:02:08 ( 3) Bill Reifsnyder- 3 14 Sep 1986 Philadelphia PA USA

1:02:09 ( 2) Steven Spence (PA) 16 Sep 1990 Philadelphia PA USA

1:02:12 ( 2) Mark Curp- 3 20 Sep 1987 Philadelphia PA USA

1:02:14 ( 2) Kirk Pfeffer (CO) 20 Sep 1981 Philadelphia PA USA

1:02:14 ( 1) Dean Matthews (FL) 16 Sep 1984 Philadelphia PA USA

20

1:02:14 ( 6) Phil Coppess (IA)15 Sep 1985 Philadelphia PA USA

1:02:15 ( 4) William Donakowski (MI) 14 Sep 1986 Philadelphia PA USA

1:02:16 ( 1) Stan Mavis (CO) 27 Jan 1980 New Orleans LA USA

1:02:19 ( 5) Mark Stickley (VA)14 Sep 1986 Philadelphia PA USA

1:02:22 ( 2) Jon Sinclair- 2 20 Sep 1981 Manchester VT USA

...fact_checker

I beleive that Gerry Lawson also ran 1:01:43 in the 3M TX 1/2 marathon in the years he was really hitting it hard.

...BryanB2

there were no 5ks around, they were called 3 milers & there purpose was to get the Fatty Patties to cough up some $$ & get everyone else off the sidelines (a beginners race). No "real runners" took the 5k-3miler serious back in the day. The distances I remember on the road were 5 milers, 10K HUGE, 20K, some 1/2Mth & of course the marathon.

Damn...that Philly 1/2 is a fast course!

"Both Bryan2B and Crossman should be ashamed for falling for such a crappy analysis."

Malmo - reread my post. If Roll produces a list of Kenyan athletes and their PR's at the track distances he will probably find some enlightening statistics. He will then probably ignore those statistics as they will disprove his theory.

a guest wrote:

As was said, read these old guys, read me, you decide who is adding the spin. Anyone reading this board KNOWS how much these two have dissed any training other than "just running" no matter how much they try to backtrack and maintain their Internt God/wizened mentor staus amid the backlash some are callin them on.

From one of the new guys:

Guess where's there's no old-guy/new-guy Top 10 bias? The track.Where's the biggest old-guy/new-guy bias? On the roads.If we look at standard track distances from 3k-10k, there's an approximate breakdown of Top 10 performances (by decade) of:70s 7.5%80s 47.5%90s 45%Look at the roads (5k to marathon):70s 3%80s 63%90s 33%Greatest performance discrepancy, by decade? roadsGreatest possible measurement errors? roads"So it's not that they couldn't count laps before 1990, it's that they couldn't measure accurately :-)>Tell me guest - which group is putting the spin on things?

Actually I just picked some random names that had come up recently on this and other LetsRun threads. I?m sure I can come up with many more that fit the profile.

I?ll accept your Lawson, Morris, Kempainen (although old schoolers often cast his PR off as ?a freak day? his next fastest being 2:11:59?) exceptions but I?ll challenge you to come up with any others.

As far as your list of Old Schoolers and ?Tweeners? here are a few points:

Despite your vast experience, you?ve mis-categorized many of the athletes:

Brantly is no Tweener: as a marathoner he?s definitely New School. I don?t think he started marathoning until after 1988.

Gregorek is also no Old School marathoner, as his 2:16:31 was run at the Ocean State Marathon in the early 1990s.

Same with Plasencia, Nenow and Eyestone, Old School track guys, New School marathoners who didn?t run marathons prior to the mid-80s changes. (Too bad for them too!)

Furthermore, your list of legit Old Schoolers doesn't do much to bolster your point:

With the exception of MacDonald and Hunt, each of the Old School athletes has a faster half-marathon and marathon PR than New Schoolers with equivalent or faster PRs in the other (track) events.

Bob Roll wrote:

I?ll accept your Lawson, Morris, Kempainen (although old schoolers often cast his PR off as ?a freak day? his next fastest being 2:11:59?) exceptions

One thing about Kempainen: His "freak day" as you call it was hardly that. It was the high mark of a logical progression. After that, he drifted away from high-level running and concentrated his energies back in medical school so it's no wonder he never ran faster.

What's more, he didn't run that time on just any old course. It was at Boston. Not exactly a "PR" course. And even with that effort, he took only seventh place place behind a stellar field. 2:08:47 and only seventh. At Boston of all places. What a field!

Kempainen did hang on until the 96 Olympics. But he was injured then. He was still very young and had some great marathons in him but I guess he decided it wasn't worth it.

To the Old School guys:

Newsflash: There were not any Kenyans, Moroccans or Ethiopians in the 70's early 80's.

Sure there was your occasional Henry Rono, or 40 yr old Miruts Yifter, but there were not DROVES OF KALENJIN WARRIORS STAMPEDING OUT OF THE RIFT VALLEY TO SWOOP DOWN UPON NIKE, FILA, PUMA CONTRACTS AND ROAD RACE, EUROPEAN TRACK PRIZE MONEY.

You old school guys crow about how Shorter, Rodgers, Meyer, Virgin etc. were among the top ten in the world AND they were doing it for the love as there was no money in it. HELLO???!!!! Did it ever occur to you that the reason they were top ten in the world IS BECAUSE THERE WAS NO MONEY IN IT??????

The advent of a lucrative road racing prize money circuit, big marathon prize money, and European Track appearance fees strangely coincides with the masses of african runners arrival on the world scene.

Do you think maybe there were a hundred or so potential sub 28:00 kenyans in the 70's who chose to become farmers because they couldnt afford to run 120 miles a week and pop over to race at World Cross or Weltklasse for zero dollars?

Boston Billy and Flatulent Frank were the best in the world because they lived in the most prosperous country in the world where you can run 150 miles a week and still find a way to put dinner on the table thru unemployment benefits, welfare, food stamps, etc

Franks 27:45 is still just that 27:45. It gets no special bonus because the World Record was only 27:30 at the time. If Frank were 25 years old today he would still be running 27:45 and noone would give a rats ass about him (except the people on this message board)

.

Hey Joe,

You might wanna chech on Boston's stats. It is a net downhill. And it is point-to point in an easterly direction the whole way. If you see any pictures of that year's race you will see the hurricane force winds blowing Kempainen's mullet and Barrios' fro in front of their faces.

On that day it was 50 degrees, huge tailwind, net downhill course, and the best field ever assembled at the time.

Perfect conditions.

Heck even Mark Coogan ran 2:13!!

Old School, New School. Kenyans, no Kenyans. Short Course, wrong course. I don't see anybody out there with the balls of Dick Beardsley:

Olympic Trials Summer '80 2:16:00

Nike/OTC Marathon Sept.'80 2:15:00

New York Marathon Nov. '80 2:13:00

Houston Marathon Jan. '81 2:12:48

Beppu Marathon Feb. '81 2:12:41

London Marathon Apr. '81 2:11:48

Grandma's Marathon June '81 2:09:37

Houston Marathon Jan. '82 2:12:00

Boston Marathon Apr. '82 2:08:54

I thought Mr. Beardsley lost his balls in the farm accident with the threshing machine?

Maybe it was an arm...

Capping of a seven-marathon year with a 2:09 aint too shabby.

Phil,

You don't think that Henry Rono made any money back in 1978?

We have stood still while the world has progressed. We can't blame that on the Kenyans.

Hodgie-San

I agree with you that American distance running is at the same level it was 20 yrs ago.

I dont agree that the rest of the world has "progressed". Rather the rest of the world has "shown up".

When running was a hobby of middle class white guys in America and Europe, there were no africans.

Now that there is big money availible, the africans have shown up, and shown who is boss.

Im sure Henry made some dough. But he was about the first Kenyan to cash in, unless Kip Keino was getting envelopes under the table to race Ryun. I'll have to ask Martin next time I see him.

From world records to homeless shelter, Kenyan great ran the gamut of life's extremes. The storied career of Henry Rono

By Mark Zeigler

STAFF WRITER

February 27, 2000

Some weeks back, a photograph on the front page of the Albuquerque Journal appeared with a story about survivors of a grisly van crash returning home to Mexico.

The photo caption began: Henry Rono, a skycap at the Albuquerque International Sunport, helps ...

That was all: Henry Rono, skycap.

Not: Henry Rono, maybe the greatest distance runner the world has ever known. Not: Henry Rono, who broke world records at four distances over 81 days.

Not: Henry Rono, the Nandi tribesman from Kenya who attended Washington State in the late 1970s and still holds numerous collegiate records.

Not long after that, Rono was talking to a Moroccan runner who trains in Albuquerque and was jetting off to a race. Rono's boss at the airport happened to walk by.

The Moroccan motioned toward Rono and asked the boss: "Do you know who this is?"

The boss: "Yeah, a skycap."

The Moroccan: "Go home tonight, get on the Internet and type in H-e-n-r-y R-o-n-o."

The next day, the boss pulled aside Rono and said: "You were the highest-paid track athlete of your time. What are you doing here?"

Rono hoisted a bag onto the carousel. "I'm working, you know," Rono told him. "I'm doing my job, just like everyone else."

Everyone has his favorite story of Rono, who last night received the Running Legend Award at the annual Competitor Magazine banquet at SeaWorld.

Tracy Sundlun's story is from the 1978 NCAA track championships in Eugene, Ore. Sundlun was a coach at USC and had a long jumper on the runway, defending NCAA champion Larry Doubley. Rono was on the track, running a preliminary heat of the 5,000 meters.

Rono already had run the prelims of the 3,000 steeplechase and set the NCAA meet record. He was comfortably ahead in the 5,000 and essentially running it as a workout, jogging the curves, sprinting the straights.

Rono rounded the turn at the same moment Doubley began charging down the long jump runway. Rono blew past him, Sundlun swears.

"It was like a Peugeot," Sundlun says. "All of a sudden his hips went back and his knees went up and vooooooom. He was just toying with everybody."

Rono set the NCAA meet record that day in the 5,000 as well. Both records still stand.

"I've always said that two people were put on this earth by God to run," says Sundlun, who once managed Rono and now works for Elite Racing in San Diego. "One is Mary Decker. The other is Henry Rono. If you ever watched him, he was just on another planet."

Eighty-one days, four distances, four world records. Rono did it running alone out front, without challengers to push him, without pace-setting rabbits.

He set the 5,000 world record at a dual meet at Cal. He set the steeplechase world record before a couple of hundred people at the University of Washington.

It all seemed too good to be true, and it was. Sadly, lamentably, tragically, it was.

Kenya's boycotts of the 1976 and 1980 Summer Olympics robbed Rono of a world stage and enduring fame. Kenyan track and government officials tugged him in different directions, all the while trying to siphon off his newfound wealth.

And there was his own innocence. Rono had no financial manager, no investments, no retirement portfolio.

"I took it personal, some of those things," Rono says. "I started drinking."

Started, and couldn't stop.

"I appreciate what I did in those years, what I did in running," Rono says. "I did well. I just didn't know how to manage it. Maybe it was an African guy coming to the Western world for the first time -- it's hard to handle that life. I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot about life, about reality."

By the early 1980s, he was drinking heavily and gaining weight. But even then, his legs did not betray him. In September 1981, he got drunk the night before a race in Olso. He woke up the next morning and ran for an hour to sweat out the alcohol. He went back to the hotel, ate lunch and took a nap.

That night, he ran the 5,000 and broke the world record.

Soon, though, he was missing races and disappearing for long stretches. He was in and out of rehabilitation clinics, in and out of friend's homes across the East Coast.

He had blown hundreds of thousands of dollars. He carried 220 pounds on a 5-foot-8 frame that once had 140.

Six years ago, he was in Washington, D.C. In a homeless shelter.

"That's the lowest you can go," Rono says. "After that, the only place you can go is up. If you go down, you're dead."

He moved to Portland, Ore., where he got a job parking cars for $5.75 an hour. From there he moved to Albuquerque and the job as a skycap.

He works full time at the airport, part time as a substitute teacher, serves as an assistant high school track coach and is taking two computer classes at night.

He is running again, every day at 5 a.m. for an hour or more. His weight is down to 190. He says he hasn't had a drink in two years.

"The key is to keep busy," Rono says. "You come home, you're tired, you sleep . . . I have to keep busy. I'm scared to go back on the street again."

A month ago at the Sports Arena, Rono, now 48, ran a celebrity mile at the San Diego Indoor Games. He was lapped by the leaders and finished last.

Rono didn't care. He crossed the line and smiled. He knew what he has been through, where he has been. He knew that the greatest accomplishment in his life is not 81 days in 1978, but six years at the end of the 1990s.

Phil,

OK, The rest of the world showed up, but still we have not progressed. We have gone backwards until very recently & hopefully we are now on the upswing.

"The next day, the boss pulled aside Rono and said: "You were the highest-paid track athlete of your time. What are you doing here?""

Not Henry Rono, runner. But Henry Rono, skycap.

"People look at me and they, 'Henry Rono achieved this and Henry Rono had all this money,'" he says. "You may have money and you may have fame, but you are not free. You have no control of yourself.

"I'm free now."

Postscript: I met Henry Rono at a 10k race in Baltimore, MD in 1986. He was overweight and drinking. He ran the race that day. He didn't win, but finished in the top five, then headed straight for the beer table after the race and never left it until it closed down. However, he was a very friendly and approachable guy. Happy to talk running with a mid-packer. I was a fan of his when he was at his peak, that day in Baltimore, and even more so today.

"the africans have shown up, and shown who is boss"

what a load of bollox

here's some more stats from a UK perspective

World Cross Country Championships

1979 Team Gold: England. There were no Africans around then you say. Well consider this;- here are the 5k PBs of that English team.

Julian Goater 13:15:59

Nick Rose 13:18:91

Mike McLeod 13:23:26

Bernie Ford 13:26.0

Nicky Lees 13:33:59

Andy Holden* never ran a serious 5k but was UK record holder at 3k steeplechase 8:26:0

1989 Team Silver: Great Britain.

Tim Hutchings 13:11:50 (2nd, behind Kenya's 5 times winner John Ngugi)

Gary Staines 13:14:28

Dave Lewis 13:21:13

Dave Clarke 13:22:54

Richard Nerukar 13:23:36

Craig Mochrie 13:26:74

2002 10th Team: Great Britain

Sam Haughian 13:19:45

Matt O'Dowd 13:30:56

Allen Graffin 13:40:07

Glynn Tromans 13:43:40

Ian Hudspith 13:52:80

Matt Smith 13:55:0

Now I'm not saying that the England team of 79 or 89 would win gold in 2002, but it is clearly that the the best team we are capable of sending these days is not as good in both relative and absolute terms as those from previous eras. I'm sure there is a similar apttern in the US. If British runners had carried on progressing as they did through the 70s and 80s we should be sending half a dozen guys capable of running between 13:10 and 13:20. A team of that standard would be very competitive at the highest level.

In the last couple of years the US has had at the very least the capability of putting together a good squad for World XC and performances on the track have finally been surpassed or equalled to those of the 70's and early eighties.

There was a 15 year period in which the US did not produce very many quality distance runners with a couple of exceptions - Bob Kennedy and Todd Williams being two of the obvious ones.

You're right, it depends on the list. This is the one I used. Incidentally, the one you provided bolsters the conclusion I had (early runners dominate when roads are involved)... Thanks

Todd Williams (TN) 1:00:11 (2) Tokyo 24Jan93

Bob Kempainen (MN) 1:00:51A (2) Las Vegas 04Feb95

Mark Curp (MO) 1:00:55 (1) Philadelphia 15Sep85

David Morris (NM) 1:01:08A (3) Las Vegas 04Feb95

Paul Pilkington (UT) 1:01:17A (4) Las Vegas 04Feb95

Khalid Khannouchi (NY) 1:01:17 (1) Philadelphia 17Sep00

Keith Brantly (FL) 1:01:30 (2) Philadelphia 19Sep93

Paul Cummings (UT) 1:01:32 (1) Dayton 25Sep83

George Malley (MD) 1:01:43 (2) Philadelphia 19Sep82

Jerry Lawson (FL) 1:01:43 (1) Austin 01Feb98

I've had a hard time finding really complete numbers for this stuff. I've been trying to compile things from a few different places but it's a little frustrating. If someone would just establish a website with all-time lists for all distances of road and track, that would be just great (or has a link to a good reference that would be nice too). :-)

Looking at the all-time lists, it's clear that comparisons are tough because of all the non-matching race distances. For example, it seems to me unlikely that early-90s guys were inherently superior at 5k road racing. It's too anomalous to believe on its face.