What are the US men missing in marathon training????

This is easy. Distance running has no where near the depth that it does over in Eastern Africa.

More people wanting to become super star runners= more super star runners. EZ

Giant Johnson wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

EA dominance of running is as genetic as US dominance of basketball.

After a quick wiki search: "the NBA in 2011 was composed of 83 percent non-white players, including 78 percent black".

I'm sure genetics has absolutely nothing to do with that statistic.

Does genetics have anything to do with why there are so many Latin Americans in baseball? What about Russians and hockey? Absolutely not. It's historical and cultural. In the case of baseball it began with exploitation of cheap labor. The players eventually gained more control over compensation and now baseball is seen as a way out of poverty for youths in Latin America. Whether that's right or wrong... still, it has nothing to do with genetics. Cultural, historical and monetary influences are highly complex but I believe they tell most of the story here just like they do in basketball, hockey, marathoning, etc.

You really don't know? He gets hurt often, and too much volume breaks him down. He'd do more if he could. Part of "talent" is being durable. In fact, it's one of the most important aspects of natural ability. And yes, some people are much more naturally durable than others. Or is someone gonna chime in and say: 'no, kimetto is healthy enough to run more miles (150 per week) because he stretches more" or some nonsense? No, he simply can handle it, most can't.

And I think you are way off. A LITTLE bit of the huge gap between US marathoners and the E africans might be training methodology, but very little. Again, it's easy to say: do MORE volume and LONGER and HARDER long runs, and it's quite another to actually be to handle, absorb, and translate those increases in training stimulus into actual gains in performance. It's never as simple as: do more, do it longer, do it harder = become better. Not even close.

For you to say: "we have the talent" is just not backed up by reality.

They are too heavy.

/thread

If you are a decent runner in Kenya, you can show up in Iten and join a group of 100+ runners who are better than you for workouts and training. Everyday, you bust butt to try to stay in the workouts a little longer and try to pass a few others in your training group. You know that once you get up with the better runners in the group, you will get flown to Europe or the USA and possibly win enough money to buy a farm for your family (everyone wants a farm in Kenya because owning a farm means that you will never be without food).

In the US, if you are a decent runner, you might get in with a training group that has at best a half dozen guys who are not much better than you are. Everyday your runs are carefully scripted workouts or training runs with predetermined paces. The only time you see international level talent is when you go to a race. If you find a race you can win, you might be able to pay your bills for a week or two. All of your friends drive nice cars, live in big houses and take fancy vacations.

Opiate for the Masses wrote:

Giant Johnson wrote:

After a quick wiki search: "the NBA in 2011 was composed of 83 percent non-white players, including 78 percent black".

I'm sure genetics has absolutely nothing to do with that statistic.

Does genetics have anything to do with why there are so many Latin Americans in baseball? What about Russians and hockey? Absolutely not. It's historical and cultural. In the case of baseball it began with exploitation of cheap labor. The players eventually gained more control over compensation and now baseball is seen as a way out of poverty for youths in Latin America. Whether that's right or wrong... still, it has nothing to do with genetics. Cultural, historical and monetary influences are highly complex but I believe they tell most of the story here just like they do in basketball, hockey, marathoning, etc.

1) comparing skill sports with "pure fitness" sports like running is not apt. More people have the potential to practice, practice, practice, and become a star at skill sports, but in fitness sports one still need enormous talent to translate increased practice (training) time into improved performance. It's different. Talent will play a bigger role in a natural fitness-based sport like running where true skill plays very little role than a completely learned, non-natural game like tennis (but sure, fitness and talent still plays some role in sports like tennis or basketball)

2) "Cultural, historical and monetary influences are highly complex but I believe they tell most of the story here just like they do in basketball, hockey, marathoning, etc"

Cultural, historical and monetary factors (and geographical environment ) influence the genetic traits that are passed on from generation to generation, i.e., it still means talent.

Still waiting for the "cultural" explanation on why people of west african descent (living in many different countries) have absolutely dominated every other people of the globe with a different genetic heritage in sprinting for modern history. I am sure it has nothing to do with talent, but instead "complex...Cultural, historical and monetary influences". Really, hit me up with it. Should be entertaining!

The biggest factor is numbers, as in number of people trying to run the marathon at a top competitive level.

Because with numbers you can identify the most talented outliers, and once you identify talent you can train that talent.

You can't take the tiny pool of American college runners who decide to keep training for a couple of years before moving on to "real life" and have very good odds of identifying enough top marathon talent to compete with the East Africans.

Numbers numbers numbers wrote:

The biggest factor is numbers, as in number of people trying to run the marathon at a top competitive level.

Because with numbers you can identify the most talented outliers, and once you identify talent you can train that talent.

You can't take the tiny pool of American college runners who decide to keep training for a couple of years before moving on to "real life" and have very good odds of identifying enough top marathon talent to compete with the East Africans.

to me this is the key - if we had 100 million 15 year olds trying out for the USA Marathon team...I have no doubt that we would be right up with Kenya and Ethiopia.

We have the raw talent, but never find it.

Think about your high school - the best athletes played some other sport. And guess what - it's not a coincidence that we are the best at those sports - basketball, football, baseball.

The XC team was mostly whoever was left.

If Rupp hadn't lived near Al Sal he might never have been a distance runner. he would have been just another guy who used to play soccer.

Jobby Hogger wrote:

The infrastructure in the US is flawed for young distance runners. Too much emphasis on the amateur NCAA which burns out many athletes before they can start earning money from the sport.

A lot of athletes would benefit from taking a more long term professional approach to their running career rather than killing themselves to earn points for their college every week.

The NCAA system might be flawed for runners, but if you look at the highest level schools (the Stanfords, Oregons, and OK State's of the world), those runners race much differently than the average D1 runner who isn't going to do anything on the national level. They race one big XC invite, train through conference, race regionals, and then nationals. In track its all about running one fast time to get your auto/regional qualifier out of the way. So, I don't think this is really holding us back too much, especially since the NCAA system does give you a nice place to train with very little worry about supporting yourself financially.

What I am curious about is the amount of obligations shoe companies have for their East African athletes. I hardly think Nike is putting out billboards and displays in shoe stores in Kenya to sell shoes, but over here, our athletes almost have to serve as Nike spokesmen, or look for other endorsements and media appearances. Does anyone know roughly how much Nike pays its Kenyan athletes? I would imagine whatever it is they receive from their contract goes much further than it would in the US. Then, they can focus solely on training, not doing photo shoots for magazines.

Another point that I discussed with a friend while running this weekend is that the prize money or appearance fee an African wins from a major race like Chicago is enough to live on the rest of their life (Kimetto probably took home 250-300k - not sure since the prize purse breakdown is nowhere to be found online). A US runner who won that would certainly be set up well for a while, but it is nowhere near enough to live off for the rest of your life. To make enough money to support themselves, our runners are forced to race on the track, try and make US teams, and then when they need one or two more big pay days try and snag an appearance fee at a major marathon. Until we have young guys like Derrick, Puskedra, Rupp racing it in their prime we will never contend with the 2:04 runners of the world.

From an early age, I told my Basset Hound that he could run as fast as a Greyhound if he just trained properly. We go to the park every day and run intervals until he trips over his ears, but for some reason he keeps finishing dead last whenever I take him to the track. I can't fathom why this keeps happening!!

Tyrannosaurus Rexing wrote:

Still waiting for the "cultural" explanation on why people of west african descent (living in many different countries) have absolutely dominated every other people of the globe with a different genetic heritage in sprinting for modern history. I am sure it has nothing to do with talent, but instead "complex...Cultural, historical and monetary influences". Really, hit me up with it. Should be entertaining!

I agree that there are varied levels of athletic ability based on your genetics. Of course there are! Anyone competing at the highest level is a genetic outlier. That's not under debate. What I am saying is that the distribution of athletic ability across a population is basically the same whether its the USA or Kenya: tons of people in the middle who have "average" ability, a small group of people that are absolutely horrible at running due to genetic factors and a small group of people that are freakishly good due to genetic factors. I don't believe that the shape of that distribution (Gaussian or otherwise) is different because of geography.

How many 18 year olds (relative to total population) see marathoning as a way to make a good living in the US?

How many 18 year olds (relative to total population) feel the same way in Ethiopia or Kenya?

What kind of parade or notoriety would Ritz get back home if he won the Chicago Marathon?

How much will Kimetto get when he heads back to Kenya?

What's Ritz's training motivation like within his current group? I'd say he's lower in priority for Salazar compared to Rupp or Farah. How many people does Ritz get to run with that push him hard during marathon workouts?

What's Kimetto's motivation like training with giant group of guys all over the spectrum of ability? Was he not motivated to take chances in his training to get to the top of that heap? No such training group exists in the US for marathoners.

Drugs? Who knows, but that's a separate issue all together.

How many 18 year olds (relative to total population) see marathoning as a way to make a good living in the US?

How many 18 year olds (relative to total population) feel the same way in Ethiopia or Kenya?

What kind of parade or notoriety would Ritz get back home if he won the Chicago Marathon?

nice point - the prestige factor is very important to young men. If a Kenyan 18 year old male thinks, if he trains really hard and wins just one big race, that hundreds of thousands of girls will compete to marry him...that's quite a motivator.

An american 18 year old male doesn't have that kind of prestige to fight for.

I think we are missing your efforts in the marathon.

Opiate for the Masses wrote:I agree that there are varied levels of athletic ability based on your genetics. Of course there are! Anyone competing at the highest level is a genetic outlier. That's not under debate. What I am saying is that the distribution of athletic ability across a population is basically the same whether its the USA or Kenya: tons of people in the middle who have "average" ability, a small group of people that are absolutely horrible at running due to genetic factors and a small group of people that are freakishly good due to genetic factors. I don't believe that the shape of that distribution (Gaussian or otherwise) is different because of geography.

That may be true, but at the top level of athletics we aren't talking about the middle, but the most extreme outliers. The distribution may be normal but a comparative handful of extreme outliers who are identified from the general population is all it takes to be very competitive at the Olympics or in the marathon. If Kenya is identifying outliers and the US is not, Kenya will dominate.

I also expect that the median Kenyan is a better runner than the median American but that's neither here nor there for top-level athletics.

Believer in ATTITUDE wrote:

From an early age, I told my Basset Hound that he could run as fast as a Greyhound if he just trained properly. We go to the park every day and run intervals until he trips over his ears, but for some reason he keeps finishing dead last whenever I take him to the track. I can't fathom why this keeps happening!!

Yes, but if you told him that if he beat the greyhound he could screw any female pooch he wanted (they'd "all line up" to let him because of his standing in dog society) I am sure he'd rise to the challenge.

Some people are DESPERATE to figure out another reason besides talent on why there is an epic gulf between E African marathoners (distance running in general) and western/USA marathoners. Strange. I guess it is an insecurity issue or something.

Again, still waiting to know why white sprinters AND east african sprinters (and everywhere else int he world) get dominated people of west african descent. Couldn't be talent, gotta be something else!

You crack me up. You have "no doubt", eh? Why, just because? You have ZERO evidence to support that belief, just wishful thinking.

But even more importantly, are there "100 million 15 year olds trying out for the ETH and KEN Marathon teams" ?? No, of course not. Despite the constant romanticism on these boards of the ETH and KEN environments to produce distance runners, the reality is much different. There are pros AND cons to becoming a distance runner E africa. Poverty isn't as magical and wonderful a force for become a star runner as many think. Often extremely talented runners in ETH and KEN have likely died of starvation, malnutrition, disease, etc, etc, or like Kimetto and even Geb could have under slightly different circumstances, been forced to stay working on the farm, and we'd have never even heard of them.

ETH and KEN are getting better because they are being exposed to more western influences/technology: better coaching, better nutrition, better tracks, better equipment, etc. Its mostly the talent, but they are getting better as they become more advanced, not more primitive. Geb loves his high powered treadmill, and the Bekele boys wanted to train with Salazar and all his gadgets. Western society DOES have some advantages over E Africa when it comes to producing great athletes.

And kimetto and Geb, etc, etc might have just been guys who worked on their farms. For you to suggest that E Africa is finding nearly all of THEIR talented guys is absurd. There are 10 more Kimettos waiting in the wings. There are not 10 more rupps. Sorry, that's reality.

A country's identification of outliers doesn't seem to have much to do with genetics. I would imagine that 16 year old boys in the US who are identified as "fast" have more opportunities to be shuttled into the "cooler" team sports than their Kenyan counterparts. A given country's desire to shuttle high athletic ability into a particular sport is largely based on perceived prestige and/or money.

Genetics

A dog analogy

The EA's are Greyhounds, Americans are Pointers. The best Pointers can beat many Greyhounds, but the best Pointers cannot compete with the best Greyhounds.

Visualize 2 bell curves slightly overlapping - the leading edge of the bell curve of the EA's (the best of the best) extends farther out than that of the Americans.

Some people are DESPERATE to figure out another reason besides talent on why there is an epic gulf between E African marathoners (distance running in general) and western/USA marathoners. Strange. I guess it is an insecurity issue or something.

Again, still waiting to know why white sprinters AND east african sprinters (and everywhere else int he world) get dominated people of west african descent. Couldn't be talent, gotta be something else!

It's all genetic so why even try? I'm white and ill never do anything because black people have superior genes. East Africans are born with magical distance running genes and west Africans are blessed with amazing sprint speed.

How many West African sprinters born and raised in West Africa medaled at the last Olympics and World Championships?? ZERO

Caribbean and American athletes dominated the sprints. But they have west African slave genes.

Have you ever had any african teammates? I have and they weren't anything special at all. A lot of the posters on here have already been beaten before the competition starts.

How many Chicago Marathon runners had a faster 5k pr than Ritz?