What has Alberto apparently figured out that no other coaches have.

I've been around the sport awhile and know many people. Alberto and the Nike arrangement has brought upon some super results.

But it comes to this for me. Would I want my daughter/son training with Alberto? The answer is no. There are too many insiders that don't respect the process and methods being undertaken in Nikeville.

The only remotely convincing evidence in this thread has been that of Mary Slaney. I'm too young to know the specifics of that situation, so you guys may have different views of her.

If Ritz is only doing 85 miles a week, what speed is he

training at?

Ritz posted on his blog that he has been doing 100 mpw for several years, with lots of long race pace sessions. The kind of workouts that hudreds of talented young Americans should be doing but aren't.

I love how every Letsrun thread turns into an argument about drug cheats

saturdays at hayward wrote:

there's no proof of Salazar's athletes using PEDs.

Wrong, myopic apologist. It is common and open knowledge that he has many of them on cocktails of some combination of thyroid meds, altitude tents, asthma meds, etc.

on the runs wrote:

Avocados Number wrote:

I'd just rather root for athletes who achieve performances through low-tech training instead of high-tech assistance. It's not a matter of ethics. If I were still competing, I'm pretty sure that I'd have my own "altitude tent," "hypoxic chamber," or nitrogen-doping system, because I'm confident that it would enhance my performance and it's not currently a banned practice. But as a fan of the sport, I don't really want to see that kind of conduct succeed. Others may feel otherwise.

That sounds like hypocracy.

And that looks like illiteracy.

amw wrote:

I love how every Letsrun thread turns into an argument about drug cheats

You mean you hate how every letsrun thread turns into an argument about drug cheats?

So lets talk about the training. You are only as good as your training.

Ritz ran those times because he wanted it and went for it. He does the right training. He doesn't whine and post shit on message boards, like so many young wannabees do.

blowyerbrainsout wrote:

Well it's all settled then, might as well pack up and close the book on them. Doesn't matter that Rowburry PRs by half a minute for 3K today and was challenging to win a diamond league 3K, or that a high schooler set an AR and another high school girl ran 2:00 for 800 on a relay split or that Wheating and a Kenyan both had 4-5 second PB's for 1500 today.

USA drug testing is the highest in terms of scrutiny and yet know salazar athlete has so much as skipped a test (they have the option to do it actually up to 3 times) while other countries and U.S. sprinters have skipped tests and failed tests on the regular??? If Salazars athletes are cheating it would make them a combination of the luckiest, smartest and ironically dumbest athletes out there.

It sure is the highest, my illiterate friend, it sure is.

think it's obvious wrote:

slow down----of course you need talent to leverage the extra stuff---and of course Rupp is super talented--but do you seriously believe it was just a great coincidence that Rupp came from same small high school that Salazar coached--as someone else articulated, perhaps there are many HS'ers out there , if given same access to tents etc, would be running 13:20's----

I think the point here is that Salazar DID coach a lot of other high school runners and they were very good by most standards. I believe two of them (at least) ran for Oregon at a competitive level and made NCAAs in track. They were however nowhere in the same league as Rupp. Rupp is Rupp, one of those very few guys that comes around and sets records all over the place. All the rest are simply very good runners.

Are there runners out there that we are missing? Absolutely, that goes for every country including Ehtiopia and Kenya, though to a lesser degree there. A couple things that separate Rupp from the rest. His natural stride and his natural ability to have complete devotion and faith in a coach and system. Trust me, it is very lucky to find a runner with all those things AND a big tank.

Plenty of kids with big tanks out there who would never accomplish what Rupp did because without his effeciency and unwavering devotion every day of the year, year after year you just don't reach the heights that he has. There may be 1-2 potential Rupps out there (big Maybe) who are not discovered every year, but it's not very likely.

You have to remember, almost every kid tries running at some point, and if they have super natural talent it will be evident. They will win some race and some coach will notice. Most likely they will give it a half go and someone with super natural talent will stand out like Wheating and Fernandez and Ritz did, even without a coach like Alberto.

Not sure why I waste my time reading these types of posts or replying but sometimes I get so frustrated I have to. To say that Alberto or Jerry are not good coaches and aren't making their athletes better by training them is rediculous.

First-I'm going to take a guess here but most of you posting, especially the negative ones, have never met or talked to either of these guys. You may think you understand how or what they are doing to get these runners to run fast, but are most likely so far off it's laughable.

Second-I'm going to guess that you have never coached or participated at a Division I level or an Elite level that would warrant you making some of the comments you do. This leads me to believe you have read books or articles on physiology of the human body and or distance running. You've never attempted it yourself, or you have but may have failed in your attempt. This has turned you bitter, hence all your negative posting.

Third-You would not make ANY of these comments if all the people on this thread were in a room with the aforementioned coaches. Because if you did, you would get laughed at. So you post on Letsrun.com with your 2 cents.

I've always told myself I would never post anything that I wouldn't say to someone's face on a board. That doesn't mean i'm always right, but i'm not afraid to say it someone's face. I remember at one point when this board was fun, educational and a way to keep in contact with the running community and find out what people where doing to run fast. Now it seems like it has become so childish it's lost it's luster. To those of you on here who know something about running or have experienced what it's like to try to achieve what these coaches and runners have done, you know what i'm talking about.

I don't need to meet Obama, Dell, or Belichick or do their jobs to judge their methods and results, either. That's just a variant on the whole immature and tired "you've never run that fast so you can't criticize" idiocy. TOTAL FAIL, simpleton. These guys do what they do professionally in the public eye, in doing so they earn both positive and negative criticism. If they're not open to public criticism then they should get out of the public eye.

Big difference between criticism and trying to deal with your own shortcomings by tearing down another, big difference. Don't even try comparing a hardworking athlete with a corrupt politician either. That's apples and radishes.

Basic psychology, why you feel the need to rip those trying to achieve greatness comes down to what is wrong, missing or incompetent inside you. Any insult you want to lay out there is just further example of this. No need to expose yourself further, it's simple, fundemental psychology and not up for debate.

Try looking inside yourself and your past to determine the cause.

BOHICA wrote:

saturdays at hayward wrote:

there's no proof of Salazar's athletes using PEDs.

Wrong, myopic apologist. It is common and open knowledge that he has many of them on cocktails of some combination of thyroid meds, altitude tents, asthma meds, etc.

I can't believe we have idiots on here who think Alter G's and Altitude tents are in the realm of PEDs.

Clearly shows the huge separation between the wannabes and the players. I'm guessing these cats certainly don't know what goes on at the major D1 programs. Underwater treadmills and Alter G's are as common place as aqua jogging.

Dream on, kiddies. School can't start soon enough.

I too am familiar with the elite running world, and the circles of people that are currently competing in it.

This is a fan-board for the most part, let people have their say. This is not a room filled with friends of Alberto's and Jerry's, but it's not one full of enemies either. They are outside observers, and sometimes outside observers see things that aren't seen from the inside. Let them ask their questions and muse over "pushing the edge", wrongdoing, and new training/recovery methods.

I agree, this board can be childish at times, but the frustration and suspicion of PED's and unfair competition shouldn't be discarded completely. It's a serious problem in our sport, and it's good that folks at letsrun are not turning a blind eye to it, or pretending that successful American athletes and coaches are above the dirty doping side of athletics.

Assuming that everything is on the level at OTC, nothing ill will come of this thread, as the folks in Nikeville should have nothing to hide.

King Maker wrote:

Agreed, no medals yet, but having 3/4 white guys to ever break 13:00 and the only white guy to ever break 27:00 has to count for something, with probably much more to come in the next 5-10 years. I'm not even a Salazar fan really, but you can't argue that they've taken big steps closer to the next level.

Everything is wrong with this statement.

There have not been "4 white guys" that broke 13:00 in any way shape or form. Last I checked the following "white" guys broke 13:00 for 5000m:

Baumann

Kennedy

Mottram

Ritzenhein

Tegenkamp

Solinsky

QUESTION: Which of these have ever been coached by Salazar?

Just one.

info wrote:

...I'm going to take a guess here but most of you posting, especially the negative ones, have never met or talked to either of these guys. You may think you understand how or what they are doing to get these runners to run fast, but are most likely so far off it's laughable.

Second-I'm going to guess that you have never coached or participated at a Division I level or an Elite level ....blah blah blah

plenty of people who have cheated in professional athletics are undoubtedly otherwise good folks. your argument based on people being "nice" or "hard working" (or whatever you think would convince us with a face-to-face talk) doesn't hold water.

plenty of us who are very skeptical of all very high level performances today have run at a high level ourselves. I personally was just a decent D1 runner, but my two teammates who ran "pro" afterward (including several world cross appearances between them, a couple national championships at both NCAAs and US road levels) are also very skeptical about plenty of what goes on at the top now.

to not have some level of doubt about the methods world class athletes use to succeed these days is to be a blind sheep.

According to From Lance to Landis, they can differentiate between between reinfused blood and normal blood based on the population of normal red blood cells and their typical age differentiation, which may be coming back to haunt Lance. If you have evidence that it is still impossible to detect i would be interested in hearing it