Why shouldn't a white American run as fast as the best Africans?

Don't forget Marius Bakken, 13:06 two time olympian, norwegian national record holder. He has probably trained in kenya as much as any mzungo out there.

Mottram hasn't tested any higher in VO2 etc. than lots of other runners out there, African and European. That's what he meant when he made that statement. Fact is, a lot of white guys have been brainwashed into giving up when going against an African in anything. Mottram obviously hasn't, and neither have all those boxing champs from Europe who have taken over all the weight divisions in boxing from 160 lbs on up. One population may have a higher number of talented individuals, but talent itself is all over, just in varying percentages. Marius doesn't want other white guys running faster than he does. Mottram is tough enough for him to take ; )

A lot of guys see the Africans and believe right off the bat they can't string together 61's, 62's. Mottram probably just decided to go out and hang with the E. Africans. I wonder what the N. Africans have going on upstairs, considering the fair number of guys they've had run quick 5's and 10's.

Skuj wrote:

talent is hard work wrote:

Talent is not hard work. Not at all. The two aren't even connected in any way whatsoever.

I'm confused with your name and your message! :)

The reason you are confused Skuj is because you didn't read the message properly. I didn't write that, you have misquoted me.

You will be hearing from my lawyer very soon.

benet wrote:

You know better than guys like Bakken and Schul? Jesus Christ, you´re suffering from severe megalomania!

So, by your rules I am not allowed to disagree with them?

I am not the one suffering from megalomania. Don't project your psychological issues onto me.

Steel Reserve wrote:

By denying that physical talent exists, you are also denying that genes exist. Are you trying to say that your biological makeup is not inherited from your parents, but from "hard work?"

Your logic makes no sense.

If an asian couple conceived and gave birth to an african baby, would you say "wow, that baby must have put in some hard work!" ??? "it must have taken a lot of mental toughness for his hair to be curly like that!"

You don't need to have parents who were good at running. Deena's family have no interest in phsyical activity.

Most people have the genetics to run World Class times. If you can move your legs quickly, then chances are, you have got the physical talent to run very fast.

talent is hard work wrote:

Most people have the genetics to run World Class times. If you can move your legs quickly, then chances are, you have got the physical talent to run very fast.

No, most people don't. That is your basic premise which is totally wrong.

I was a carthorse when I was a kid. Now I am a racehorse.

I just loved to race other kids, even though most of them were faster than me. I refused to accept no for an answer.

If you really don't believe you can run fast, then you are right, it won't happen. If you do believe, and you are prepared to do the phenomenal amount of work neccessary to succeed, and you listen to your body to avoid injury and over training, you will succeed.

What about all the kids who DO do all the work but never get past a certain plateau? You have a strawman argument here.

In your case you matured a lot when you were older. I was similar, my first 5:00 mile wasn't until I was 19 and I broke 15 in a 5k at 21. That doesn't mean I just worked harder than other people, the talent I had just manifested itself later. But I can absolutely guarantee there is no way I'd ever run 12:55 or even 13:55. It's not just about working hard, it's about working hard and your physical limitations.

I'm sure you love watching Prefontaine and get goosebumps when Pre talks about how he has less talent in his whole body than everyone else does in their little finger, but come on that is a bunch of nonsense.

No one is saying you will get fast without working hard, but hard work is a necessary not sufficient condition for success.

talent is hard work wrote:

Skuj wrote:

I'm confused with your name and your message! :)

The reason you are confused Skuj is because you didn't read the message properly. I didn't write that, you have misquoted me.

You will be hearing from my lawyer very soon.

Haha! I went back to the other post....it's so confusing! I think you quoted Flagpole, I think?? Anyway...sorry for the misquote.....

yep. That is ALL that keeps ANYONE from becoming a world class distance runner. They just need to want it more, and train property. Biology has zero effect.

idiot.

Exactly! The notion that hard work is all it takes is uttered by two different groups of people:

1) Those who have had success. SOME of these people utter this to show others that THEY have worked hard. It's an ego trip for them. These are actually the people who should know better. They've trained with other groups of people and were always better than most of the rest of them despite doing similar workouts.

2) Those who have not had success and want to. This is blind faith and hope that will likely never materialize...like the person who is told they have an incurable disease and have only a couple years to live; that's when they decide to drop everything and promote research for this disease. They SAY they know it's too late for them and that they just want to help others in the future, but in the back of their minds, they hope it will help them. Otherwise, why not promote the research of another disease that they don't have?

Every high school in the country has a kid or two in cross country or in track who is heads and shoulders better than everyone else on their team (I was that kid in high school). Yet, these kids all train the same. They run together on long days, do workouts together while the faster guys stay back with the slower guys for "team building". But when race day comes, the fast guys KILL the slower guys by several minutes sometimes in a 5,000 CC race. Why? They have talent and the others don't.

Simple as that.

The trick is to get the guys with talent out on the track. The way life is in the US and much of Europe, it's a crapshoot. You could have a team with a guy who really stands out, but the kid with the potential to be world class has never heard of track or cross country, and isn't involved in sports at all, or is involved in baseball or what have you. If he isn't addicted to the internet and PS and hasn't succumbed to the 'you can't do it' mantra so prevalent in many sports.

The talent in the US and Europe isn't as concentrated as it is in Kenya, Ethiopia or Morocco etc, that's a fact. But the West has talented people. Running has never really been that big in the US, in terms of real racing, hard running. Not even during the 'running boom' years back.

It is true that for many of the Africans there is no other way to rise up and make some real money, especially in terms to what is available otherwise. The different takes on things - Mottram shrugs his shoulders, while Marius tries to make everyone give up (maybe the guys are right in saying he's protecting his 'position') speak volumes. Hall is probably right when he says 'our guys' spend too much time thinking about lining up for a race and knowing they'll have to run 62's etc. to keep up. Talent is a huge component. Talent and the right outlook and beliefs are a huge element for success. Mottram may not have more talent than a 13:10 guy. He may have the ability to push himself harder, be mentally tougher.

In the end, talent is ingredient number 1. Everything else follows.

Simple question - After all what is training hard ?

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=223404&thread=220022

Post from Renato Canova (9/24/2003):

Bengt Saltin, that is my friend from a seminary in Austria in '98, tested many kenyan together Nicolas Terrados, a spanish scientist working with him, during a spedition in Kenya in 1995. They went to Kenya with some machine, practically a laboratory like they had in Denmark. The biggest problem was how to contact and to find the athletes. Terrados told that with them there was also Anders Garderud, former world record holder of 3000 SC and winner in OG '76, that at that time was the director of Stockholm meeting. Among the found athletes, all of top level, there was also a very fat man, that said to be Peter Koech (World Record Holder of steeple after Henry Rono with 8:05:39). Peter Koech was almost 100 kg heavy, and Garderud said "He's not Peter Koech, he improved the record in Stockholm 4 years ago, I well know him, is not possible...". Saltin and Terrados anyway tested this man (that really was Peter Koech) in order to investigate his VO2 max, and the result was THE HIGHEST VALUE EVER FOUND (about 92), in spite of 30 kg more than when he was in shape !

This can explain many things about the talent of many kenyans, and also that the VO2 max doesn't represent a value so fundamental among the qualities of an athlete.

What I do, and Saltin and Terrados couldn't do, is to TEST THEIR TRAINING, not only them.

For testing the training of an athlete, you need to have the athlete himself at your disposal for long time.

The athlete has to accept to be tested many times, but nobody accepts to be used like a guinea-pig, for the interest of some scientist but without interest for himself.

Athletes can accept to be tested if this is part of a program for understanding THEIR PERSONAL TRAINING in order to have more individual information and to improve it.

Instead, scientists want to test athletes following their protocols, asking them to do some test very far from their real activity.

If scientists were be able to test the real training, probably the knowledge about the physiology of a champion could be more advanced.

I don't think that Thys or Syster run only 50-60 miles per week, as don't think that Seb Coe could run only 35-40 miles per week, like also his father Peter said.

This discrepancy depend on a different way to consider the weekly mileage.

When I speak about 150 M per week (really I speak about 250 km, for me is easier), I put in the amount everything : warm up and warm down, very slow run, short sprints uphill, km. run with specific exercises, ecc.

Instead, for ex., Peter Coe consider only THE QUANTITY OF KM RUN AT SPECIFIC SPEED. Really, Coe was able running also 220 km a week, if we consider everything.

Once, in 1987, Seb was in Italian Centre of Tirrenia, and I followed him in a long run of 30 km with the car of the Centre, at 3'40" - 3'20" pace, and the day after he went for a very tough session of weights.

I think that S.African marathoner really run not less than 130 miles a week, considering also miles run at speed of regeneration (under 80% of Marathon Pace).

It's not possible running a fast marathon with a low mileage. In the past, there were athletes exceeding in the other side (for ex., Japaneses running also more than 400 km per week : Toshihiko Seko did before a marathon one session of 100 km called "mentalizazion", and really I think that nobody needs this type of work), but of sure nobody among the top specialists ran less than 180-200 km a week.

But the real problem is not only MILEAGE, but the percentage of intensity. If you run 200 miles per week, very far from Marathon Pace, your goal is to be tired and to destroy yourself, not to train.

Not always "Train hard" is also "Train well", and not always "Train hard" is "Train much" in mileage. Train well is something different.

In the research of Saltin and Terrados, with children from Scandinavia and Kenya, there is an identity of values when are very young, and a growing difference when are older.

Probably this fact is due to the difference in type of life between the two groups investigated.

I wrote before that Training is not only OFFICIAL TRAINING for a discipline, but is every human activity that can modify your physiology.

If you take two twin brothers, one seated 8 hours per day because employer in an office, the other working 8 hours in the country, and you train them with same workouts, their output during a race shall be very different, because really THEIR TRAINING IS NOT THE SAME, having the countryman a physical activity that must be added to the official training.

EFFECTIVELY, HE IS MORE TRAINED.

So, may be that the difference between white caucasian people and african people from highlands is not genetic (if not in little percentage), but mostly phenotypical (due to different activity).

For the same reason, old Italians were more talented that current Italians, and also old Kenyans were more talented than current Kenyans.

Kip Keino told me that never he trained more than 2 times per week, and his training was only on track. He could not run in the roads or in the forrest, because at that time it was not dignified running in shorts publicly !

Now, the main reason of african supremacy is that running is a profession, already good also for normal athletes. If you think that a normal kenyan salary is about 1.500 dollars per year, you understand how a not very strong athlete is able, in one season, to earn more than in 10 years of normal job at home.

This fact is a big motivation for a lot of kenyans, so today the common mentality changed, and runners are considered lucky people, not crazy men.

I suggest not to consider the differences between kenyans and white people, but between OLD WHITE PEOPLE and NEW WHITE PEOPLE. If genetically we are the same of 30 years ago, why our talent is now so much lower ? Because we have no more preparation enough thru our normal life, that excludes physical activity, expecially in the field of endurance.

So, it's true that now Britains have yet Jon Brown, Keska, Pavey and Tullett ; but once Coe, Ovett, Cram, and before Bannister, Chataway, Pirie and many other WERE THE BESTS, not among top ten.

Athletics can be measured, and now Europe is very less competitive than 20 years ago. So, our decline has the effect to light up the african results, that often are normal, and not so good.

Give me a f***ing break. I've always worked my ass off. I've always had so much confidence that I could run great times. I improved a lot, and then my improvement levelled off long before I even ran close to world class or even national class times. Why is it that I haven't achieved my lofty goals? I've had confidence, great training, and a ton of hardwork. According to you I should be competing with Bekele by now.

You have an extreme lack of talent. So it's doubtful you have any confidence at all.

Skuj wrote:

White Americans can do it all....we just have to get over some serious roadblocks, such as the ones Lancelot uses...The lists are not proof of genetic superiority, Lancelot. But we've been here before.

Oh skuj, you've come back to debate me on this subject. Oh joy! But you've gone from trying to demean my opinions on this subject to a half-hearted denial. I see the white-flag (no pun intended) coming any year now!

Skuj, I'd go all day with you on this topic, but lets ask you a simple series of questions: what are the cultural and psychological reasons why people of west african descent dominate the sprints so much?? Do you REALLY think whites have always been told they can't sprint fast, and thus don't try? At a young age, when we all sprint to see who is the fastest, the white kids immediately give up when facing a "black" (west african descended) runner ? Virtually NO white kids are mentally strong enough to sprint to their full potential (which according to many on this board, should be "world class times", and just as good as the black sprinters)? Or.......all the black sprinters just work harder than the whites? That's it, right? Virtually no hard-working white sprinters, and very few lazy black sprinters??? Or is it a PC conspiracy to the let blacks cheat with drugs, and not the whites, as some actually suggest?

If none of the above reasons I propose are true, then WHAT??? Could genetics play a strong role in the dominace we see of west african descended sprinters??? And if so, why would it be so shocking that some other people, say those of East African descent, might have a talent advantage in distance running events?

I can't wait to hear you come up with an answer to that question, but give it a shot. I know you are up to it.

malmo wrote:

Long term commitment, determination and hard work are the most important determinants to success at anything, especially running. ..... Very few people ever come anywhere near that level that would be their ultimate success. Everyone is born with the physical tools that will allow it. Few use them.

The goal of all athletes is the same; to prepare in a manner that will allow you to maximize your talent. The harder you work, the more talented you will become.

From a fortune cookie decades ago: "The greatest thrill in life is doing what others say cannot be done."

That's all well and good Malmo, and I agree with most of it. But that is not ultimately what this debate is about. The debate is: what is the main reason that East Africans (or people of East African descent, such as Meb and Abdi), and North Africans to some extent, have so utterly dominated distance running in the last 15 years, absolutely demolishing the rest of the world's all-stars combined?? Is it talent, hard-work, upbringing/evironment, coaching, or drugs?? It may be a combination of all these reasons, but is talent a major reason for their dominance? In other words: do you think that the East Africans' top runners tend to be born with some inherent talent/genetic advantage over non-East Africans? Does there tend to be more ultra-talented/genetically gifted East Africans born each year than their does non-East Africans in the world of distance running?

THAT is the question (and yes, I formed in many different ways, but it is all really the same question).

To others:

We will NEVER, and I repeat NEVER see a performance from a trio of runners from another country that is not of East African ancestry that compares to what Geb, Bekele, and Sihine did in the WC 2003 10,000 (we may see it again from another East African nation, or a group of East Africans say in Qatar, but not from a non-East African nation/group of runners). Absolutely destroying the field, running the second 5k under 13:00, and even blowing away the Kenyan athletes (who blew away all the non-East Africans). You've all watched that race, right??? I mean people talk about Ryan Hall and his 1/2 marathon, or Mottram and his 12:55 5k, and those are great feats, but those are far, far behind what the Ethiopian nation did that day. Ryan Hall could take EPO and steroids up the ying yang, and he could not emulate what Bekele has done at X-C: back to back to back to back to back DOUBLE world titles. Insane, absolutely insane. And he accomplished that because he works harder than everyone else??? C'mon people, c'mon!

To look at what the East Africans have done the last 15 years in distance running of ALL forms (track, X-C, roads) and deny that they must have some inherent talent advantage is to be blind. If people really, really think that a group of Euro-Americans could emulate what the Ethiopians did in the 2003 WC 10,000 in Paris if we just didn't have baseball, hockey, and football stealing all our distance runners, or if less kids played nintendo is taking denial to new levels. And you people REALLY think that East Africa loses no great distance running potential prodigies to AIDS, Malaria, mal-nutrition, 16 hour days on the farm, and other strife?? THAT is the ideal environment to create a sports powerhouse?? Don't be so quick to romanticize the East African environment as being a "paradise" to find/raise distance runners.

Luv ya, Lancy!

That's all I want to say right now, really! (It's Wine Wednesday.)