They didnt train 120-140 miles a week. They trained 160-200 miles a week. That is the difference. If we had any American runner out there training 3 times a day (At least 2 times on easy days) with their mileage being that high, and having intense workouts all the time. We would run 12:50 on avg. and faster.
i know wrote:
They didnt train 120-140 miles a week. They trained 160-200 miles a week.
Go back to Dyestat.
runn wrote:
This discussion is great, minus the "runners back in the day couldn't run 12:50' morons.
You saying they could? If so, then why didn't they? Nostalgia for slow times doesn't make much sense to me. Emulating the past greats is not going to get our runners back to the top. They need to emulate the CURRENT top runners. Bob Kennedy had the right idea going to Kenya to train with the Kenyans, but that doesn't mean every aspiring American elite should copy his exact training. You are right that there are more distractions now, and that is a critical insight. We have more opportunities than the Kenyans, so we are perhaps less likely to make sacrifices to pursue careers in running. Lincoln is in medical school right now, while Shaheen probably can't read and doesn't care (running is all that's ever going to pay the bills for him).
Side note: Burnout is nonexistant? Tell that to Jos Hermans. He'll tell you all about the effects of training like a crazy person.
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBUUUUUUUUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLLLLSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!haha!
i know wrote:
They didnt train 120-140 miles a week. They trained 160-200 miles a week. That is the difference. If we had any American runner out there training 3 times a day (At least 2 times on easy days) with their mileage being that high, and having intense workouts all the time. We would run 12:50 on avg. and faster.
HRE,
I have removed all the fluff from your post and exposed the only bias that drives you. All else is simply the punchbowl that conceals the turd laying on the bottom.
You would actually presume to speak not only for an entire generation of Americans but the entire western world now too?
So John Brown and Craig Mottram simply didn't "want it badly enough"? So Allistar Craig and Mark Carrol just kind of "gave up the quest"? And what about Mark Davis outkicking Khalid Skah? You don't think the D.O.C. wanted to harness that intensity everytime he raced?
I hate to shatter your "RUDY" vision of the world, but in distance running many who work hard and have plenty of heart still don't get to the top.
Likewise, there are Kenyans out there who don't give a crap and can still break 27 on an easy day.
[quote]HRE wrote:
The fact that Africans hold all the records now is as much because westerners have pretty much given up on the quest to be at the top at a time when Africans have picked it up.
Beaver Tranquilizer wrote:
You are right that there are more distractions now, and that is a critical insight.
THANK you! My college coach has been saying this for years, and unfortunately many of my team mates simply don't believe it.
As a matter of fact, he got into a rather heated discussion with an immature teenager on DyeStat a few months ago who REFUSED to believe that could possibly be a major contributing factor in the decline of our men's distance runners. Something about "I'm only 17, but my Dad and brother have run & coached for years, so I know more than you!!" LoL!! I edited out the profanity, though. After that, DyeStat found themselves with one less veteran D1 coach posting on their message boards.
You can say what you want about the occasional trolls on the LetsRun boards, but there is also a much higher percentage of knowledgeable veterans than anywhere else you will find.
You have to compare athletes in their time. You can't say that runner 2004 is better than runner 1972 because 2004 runs 12:50 and 1972 13:20.
They were each great for the knowledge and technology of their era. Even all-weather tracks were slower back then.
George Young (in RT) said "burn out is mental, the only physical burn out is death."
I think Hermans and Bedford were injured from crazy training. They were both known for their excessive mileage.
Hermans peaked too early for the 76 Games- that's not burn out. You can also burn out mentally.
The burn out I'm talking about is the RW induced "if you train too much you'll burn out' garbage they feed the public. It's always less is more and cross-train. The emphasis has to be on going out on the roads and trails and put in the miles.
I'm talking about kids who think that if you run over 30 miles a week your body will somehow rebel and "burn out". I'm not talking aobut someone who explores the outer limits of training and runs 200+ mpw.
We went through a period in the 80's and early 90's where even elites were running lower mileage (80 or so). Kennedy relaized that if oy wante to race with the best you have to train like they do.
Now, we have a lot of HSers training right and times are getting better. Times for the US elite are coming down, too as they emulate the 70's and train in groups and train more- no excuses.
Read, "Bannister & Beyond". Profiles of sub-4 runners.
The common thread is that they had a clear goal, reached it, then moved on w/ their lives.
Jim Ryun's commnet - "People didn't consider it HARD work then. It was work. That was what everybody did".
Runners from developing nations have this same focus - achieve a goal ($, time, etc) and then move on.
E.g. William Sigei. Broke 27 in 10k, then quit. Done. Time to move on.
What did Bannister and Landy do after the Commonwealth Games in '54? They retired. Done. Time to move on.
People read the series of Slate articles about how the Kenyans trained in Iten, Eldoret etc. and were amazed that between runs they did nothing. This is the most telling - Westerners now can't imagine just focusing on one thing for 4-5 years. They consider it inhumane. No Playstation?!?
Western society has multi-tasked itslef to the point where we are incapable of focusing on one task, doing it well, and quitting when we have achieved that goal. The method by which contracts are awarded seems to confirm this. And when was the last time u heard a Western runner say, "I have met my goals. I am done".
[quote Lincoln is in medical school right now, while Shaheen probably can't read and doesn't care (running is all that's ever going to pay the bills for him).
[/quote]
Don't you have a cross-burning you should be attending?
Which Kenyans would those be?
There have been a few westerners that have begun doing things more along the lines of what their predecessors were doing. I recall Mottram mentioning that he kept up a pretty good volume all of the time. Craig and Carroll do still show up on the European circuit. Brown seems to select his races with an eye toward finding tough competition. I don't realy know anything about Marc Davis, but I'll take your word.
How many others? What you're seeing with the Kenyans, as many have mentioned here, is the tip of the iceberg. No one is arguing that there aren't hordes of Kenyans doing the same sort of training as the top guys but not getting the same results. That was what was going on in the US in the 60's, 70's and 80's. When it stopped happening here, we got worse. When it started happening there, it got better. There are glimmerings that it might be happening here again and I'd love that, but it isn't going to happen if our prevailing mindset is that 90-110 mpw is high volume.
That actually is a bias that drives me. I have no expectation that everyone will agree. But there will be a few people here and there who'll read this stuff and decide to have a go. I'm hoping to encourage them.
I think you misconstrued what I was saying. Perhaps Shaheen would make a more brilliant doctor than Lincoln, but we'll never know. Shaheen is focused on running only, while Lincoln devotes considerable time and energy to school. To better express this disctinction, my previous post should have read:
Shaheen probably can't read and doesn't care (he relies entirely on running to provide for his future).
I was careless with my diction, which left too much room for misinterpretation.
I can only add that in the 70's and early 80's there was nothing like 25 guys running well under the American records in the distance events. If Shorter came out of Yale today with his great talent somehow I question if he would have been able to gather the same excitement, focus, and commitment that he had in 1970. Being within sniffing distance of the best in the world has got to help you. Contrast that to a talent like Ritz , one of the best, if not the best, who runs close to a pr and isn't within sight of 10 guys from Africa.
You can't compare the eras and say "yeah, Rodgers and Shorter and those guys were so tough they would have adapted and figured out a way to compete in this era. I don't buy that. Also I don't buy that there is a genetic factor with the Africans.
Beaver Tranquilizer wrote:
I think you misconstrued what I was saying. Perhaps Shaheen would make a more brilliant doctor than Lincoln, but we'll never know. Shaheen is focused on running only, while Lincoln devotes considerable time and energy to school.
I'm curious as to how you know Shaheen is focused on running only.
I am making what I believe is a reasonable extrapolation based on what I know for sure. Shaheen jets around the world to training camps, is coached by the best coach in the world who probably doesn't put up with distracted athletes, and is being paid a lifetime monthly stipend for his running services by his adopted country. I may be wrong, but the only person who reads these boards who can say for sure is Mr. Canova. For the record, when I predict that Shaheen is focused on running only I mean it as a compliment. Total focus is how you meet your potential, and here in the USA our athletes are not totally focused on running because many are hedging their bets with other ventures.
Geb is the model for those who wish to reach the highest level in running and pursue other interests. But recall that in his younger (and fastest) years he had nothing to do with his business in Ethiopia. He sent money home for his family to manage like many East African runners.
You make excellent points. I think it would be harder for younger people to understand what you're saying because they have only lived in the present era (so to speak). One difference I see now is that people (in general) are focused on retirement from the very start.
The emphasis is on getting a job and putting money away for a house and retirement. That does not leave room for 4 or 5 years of total focus on one hard to obtain goal.
Think about it- get an education, get a job- pretty much a sure thing. Sacrifice, train like crazy toward a lofty goal- highly unlikely.
The distractions are many and so many qualities that young people used to have are now missing. I am a teacher and I have seen changes in just the last 10 years.
For example:
Imagination, in many teens, is gone. The computer game geeks simply do not need imagination, everything is done for them on the screen in front of them.
Immediate gratification is worse than ever. If it's not stupid funny or violent many are simply not interested.
I also see many teens as close minded as some senior citizens.
I think it takes a dreamer with imagination and certainly an open mind to sacrifice 5 years of your life for a dream goal.
It is really a cultural thing that may change.
Before you young people who don't fit this stereotype bash me- believe me, I think there are dreamers out there. I think many of you are intelligent and independent enough to chase a lofty dream. Go for it- no matter what anyone tells you. There is always time, in the future, to use your education to settle down.
We've become a society dominated by accountants and lawyers. The "bottom line" rules everything. The idea that something is worthwhile largely measured by what tangible rewards it brings is pretty widespread. You see it when school districts cut extra-curricular activities, when funding is cut for park maintainence and user fees are instituted. There is less of an idea that these sorts of things have some value that can't be measured in dollar terms than there once was.
One of the big youth sports in these parts is hockey. Families make enormous committments of money and time getting their kids into leagues and camps. The explanation almost all of them have is that they're hoping the "investment" will pay off with a college scholarship for their kid.
With that sort of mentality, it is very hard to imagine you'd have large numbers of people in their early 20s living six to an apartment delivering newspapers or pizzas to support themselves in hopes of running as fast as they possibly could for a mile or marathon unless they had some inkling that there would be some bottom line payoff. But by the end of college, most of us have decided whether or not we have the ability to get to that sort of level. So today, I think collegiate running serves as sort of a filter separating the very few who see that potential in themselves and might carry on very seriously from the masses who don't see that potential in themselves and will either quit or run recreationally.
There's nothing wrong with that, but if you look back to the era we're discussing, you'll see that a fair few of the guys who reached the top were late bloomers, i.e. guys whose collegiate careers didn't indicate great things to come. Billy Mills, George Young, Jeff Galloway, Bill Rodgers, Tom Fleming, Benji Durden, etc., (I'll never think of them all) and many, many others who were somewhat less successful but very, very, good, were not established stars at 21-22. I think we've lost tons of guys like that in the last couple of decades as we've become more oriented to the bottom line.
I'm 21 years old, and feel I understand my generation better than most. I have some running ability, but not enough to justify 'chasing the dream' when in the USA there are opportunities to make more than Bekele's lifetime income in one year using my mind. In Africa the top runners have the same goals I do -- provide financial security for themselves and for their families. For them, running is the best option. Not so here in the USA.
It's not just video games and the desire for instant gratification that is diminishing our talent pool. The opportunity cost of running is far greater now than it was in past decades because the income gap between rich and poor has widened exponentially. If you failed in running in the 70's, you could still land a decent job and retire with a decent pension. Now you'd be screwed. Like Geb growing up a poor farmer, I want to make a better life for myself and for my family. Running is the least of my opportunities, while for Geb it was the only one. Even if I could run 13:00, I would give up running in a heartbeat for a job managing a hedge fund. Can you blame me?
I'd rather run 13:00 for 5k than manage a hedge fund. You would have a good income fromn being that fast, and I think your quality of life would be a lot better. You could live in any town you wanted, whereas a hedge fund manager would need to be in NY or some other large city where there are a lot of wealthy people. (That's assuming that you are not a legend in the hedge fund world and have clients knocking on your door.)
A hedge fund manager is in a pressure cooker all the time, since there's always some new information that he has to incorporate into his investments. There's also the performance benchmark, and it's rare that a money manager beats the overall market for an extended period of time. And when it does happen, it's often through luck.
People who make a lot of money generally work long hours and have high stress. They wouldn't do that to themselves were it not for the money. So when you're in retirement reflecting on how you spent your prime years, I'd imagine that the running career would bring fonder memories than a hedge fund career.
HRE wrote:
With that sort of mentality, it is very hard to imagine you'd have large numbers of people in their early 20s living six to an apartment delivering newspapers or pizzas to support themselves in hopes of running as fast as they possibly could for a mile or marathon unless they had some inkling that there would be some bottom line payoff. But by the end of college, most of us have decided whether or not we have the ability to get to that sort of level.
I agree with that. However, I think people in the '70's and 80's were obsessed with money too. Plus, there are more people running marathons than ever, just way, way fewer running sub 2:45. I remember meeting serious marathoners around Boston when I was a kid in the 1970's who ran like 2:25 and were never going to get any money from the sport. They were rail thin and seemed like holy maniacs to me, but they were lawyers, doctors, etc. In adulthood I've met zero lawyers running > 50/week. So I think it is arguable whether people are more interested in money, but no doubt our jobs demand more, and you rarely meet anyone on a spiritual quest.
It's cultural. At least one possibly great, unrealized 13:00/27:00/2:08 kid is sitting in front of a playstation right now.