Greatest Runner of All Time?

Deanouk wrote:

Aouita could not run a 45 sec 400m, otherwise he would have been capable of easily breaking the 800 WR in 1988!

He has a reputed 46.9 time trial pb, but the location and date have never been given.

I would suspect at his peak years of 84/85, he would probably have been capable of 47 low in a competitive environment after a few attempts at it.

Said88, what say you, as you are probably the expert on this one?

I don't think so...!

It's just pure speculation and/or comparison to other athletes. I have just this 46.9 training-time (reportedly from '81) which was mentioned from Robert Hartmann, the leading "african specialist" for decades under the German athletics journalists. But for sure I have no idea how accurate this time is. If correct, than probably with flying start. The time easily could be worth 47.5 or slower.

His best year definitely was '85 (WR 1500m+5000m and fantastic finishing speed and 1:45.81 800m, but no serious attempt), but '88 was the year when he also concentrated in the 800m (1:43.86, but in Seoul worth more like at least 1:43.2). Even when probably little bit slower than Steve Cram over 800m, I think he has had better basic speed. Looking at his 800m races which I have, he always was far behind at 400m (not surprising for an 1500m specialist with great finish). His fastest last lap I know was 49.7 in a very slow 1500m.

But what does this tell for his 400m speed? Not much I would say...

But he definitely was not as fast as Coe or Kipketer. So maybe something around 47.0? Would he have concentreted in the 800m in '85, maybe little bit faster. But - as said - pure speculation.

harbig's record is counter intuitive.

he went down in distance over the years, held the 500m record and was the top German runner in the 100m at one point.

in the 500 wr 101x, he split 49 and came home in 12 low, which means maybe he wasn't quite flat out.

on a synthetic track with the best shoes, with the humidity and temperature efficiency gains, how fast would that 101 500m be? a 59?.

i got aoutia 47 low in his prime when he decided to go for the 8, and 48 x in racing season anytime you asked.

i got coe at 45 high at peak and 46 high most of the time during racing season.

ovett should have been 45 high, but in practice, 47 flat is where he's pegged.

cram is a 48 to 49 guy every day of the week, and 47 low,mid at rare peak.

john walker is a 49 guy and hard pressed for 48 high and 50 low is what you get at various points.

too bad walker did training for 2k or so more than anything, naturally he's every bit as fast as a cram.

you want to use lydiard principles but for heavens sake, you're not running 354 miles, you have to keep the 21x 200m type speed in your pocket, for most of the season, not just a rare moment in the season.

probably the hill bounding phase of a lydiard can be modified with modern sprint and weight work.

and the long slow distance over adaptation, with is catabolization of muscles for sprinting over time needs to be compensated for,

and certainly, after you have built up your aerobic engine, you can expand your horizons doing complimentary training segments, speed and particularly speed endurance, the best of which i think is one to three minute hill repeats at maximum,

say warmup a couple of miles, then relax and very light stretch yoga.

the session then is one minute hard steep uphill but something is left.

then walk downhill.

2 minutes very hard uphill

walk down hill.

3 minutes as hard as possible uphill.

walk down

one mile jog,

that's all, there should be only 30 seconds suffering on rep 2

and a minute or so suffering on rep 3.

that is enough for the adaptation to take place.

you only need 2 sessions per week like this.

but the quality needs to be very high and you can't come into quality workouts tired.

you need to push it so you really have a couple of minutes simulation of race pace pressure and pain.

it's very doable and motivational, because you only have to man up for a couple of minutes, which is all

you have to do in middle distance running.

one major point, after you have a number of years, having built up your aerobic engine, it's money on the bank, and you don't have to spend the bulk of your time on aerobic ability any longer.

at this point, you can add weapons to your arsenal, like a six week cross fit stage, a six week focus on power, an active six week recovery stage.

again, when you have that premium aerobic engine, it will only take six weeks to get back to near the top of your game.

however, if you're burnt out, all bets are off, but if you are getting burnt, the alternate training is what you need in any event.

I'm suggesting nothing of the sort. If you read my post again, you'll see I'm merely pointing out that Kiprop is no longer relevant because he got caught. Any chance he might have had at breaking 3:26.00 is gone. For that reason, citing his incredible performance as evidence that Guerrouj's record is not untouchable is pointless; you might as well bring up Lagat, Ngeny, or anyone else with an insane 1500m or 1 mile time that will never break Hicham's WR because it's too late for them to do so. The reality is that El G's 1500m mark has stood for 20 years, and in that time period, no one (barring Kiprop of course) who has come after him has run anything remotely close to 3:26.00. His record is basically untouchable. Three people in history have broken 3:27, just like three people have broken 12:40 for 5k. You don't see people suggesting that Bekele's 12:37 is attainable simply because Geb and Komen came so close, so I'm not sure why things are different when we're talking about El G.

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

kmaclam wrote:

He was.

Nope.

OK, I'll bite. 5th post on very first page.

kmaclam wrote:

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

Nope.

OK, I'll bite. 5th post on very first page.

........was Nurmi and Zatopek is all over page 3.

Pretty much agree with all the above. I certainly can’t see Aouita being slower than Cram over 400, and as they were very similar over 1500, then their 800 pbs should have been closer. I would think Aouita should have been able to run 1:43.0 in perfect conditions in 85.

I think your comments regarding 400m ability are spot on!

Great post!