Cabral never broke 35 in the 10k, or 4:20 in the 1500.
And he certainly never coached a top level athlete like he claimed.
Ghost1, at least two weeks ago he was alive. He has put on a lot of weight but he continues to coach. You can check it on his hobbyjogger team page, URT - Urban Run Team.
I won’t attempt to defend the entirety of Cabral’s record or what he may or may not have claimed, I will just offer one anecdote. When I visited Lisbon some years ago, he got me an elite masters entry (which I surely did not deserve) for the Lisbon Half and arranged to have some of his athletes accompany me to the starting area. One of his athletes was a blind runner who finished in 1:11, or thereabouts. I can’t find a link to actual results to defend the claim, but can state that he finished ahead of me by about the same proportion as I usually trailed my friend who has won several Paralympic medals at 1500. So at least that one blind runner who I met casually that day was a world class vision-impaired runner. Perhaps that won’t meet the standard you’re after, which is ok.
The blind runner you are talking about is either Nuno Alves or Jorge Pina. Neither has run 1:11 No Portuguse blind runner has.
Tell me the year you ran and I will find the results.
Oh, and they are not coached by Cabral even though they sometimes train at the same time at the track. Cabral's fastest half marathon runner is an M60 who some 10 years ago ran 1:17
1:17 for M50 is a better result than 1:11 for an open runner, which would make that result world class for a blind masters runner, no?
If you don’t mind, I’ll just respectfully disagree with you but leave your assertions for other readers to evaluate. I can see that my impressions of Cabral are not universally shared and that’s ok.
1:17 for M50 is a better result than 1:11 for an open runner, which would make that result world class for a blind masters runner, no?
If you don’t mind, I’ll just respectfully disagree with you but leave your assertions for other readers to evaluate. I can see that my impressions of Cabral are not universally shared and that’s ok.
The M50, José Lopes, is not blind.
You see, Jan and António are almost the same. Big claims with zero evidence, decent results with recreational runners.
I am giving you names, times, a facebook page where things can be verified. You are telling me Cabral's stories.
I say "almost" because Jan did coach a faster runner, Sammy Nyokaye.
Having met the man and having discussed his background I know he was a very good regional / national class runner, but not international class. I read that quote as him saying, in broken an English, that he coached someone to that level.
Is that what he told you? Lol
Cabral never broke 35 in the 10k, or 4:20 in the 1500.
And he certainly never coached a top level athlete like he claimed.
Ghost1, at least two weeks ago he was alive. He has put on a lot of weight but he continues to coach. You can check it on his hobbyjogger team page, URT - Urban Run Team.
Good to hear Cabral is still kicking.
I don't know anything about his (Cabral's) claim to have ran 3:39/1500, but I don't believe it for one minute especially as he claims that he had achieved that performance decades ago, but I will say that he has a great knowledge of distance running and I'm sure that he's a very good coach in his own right. From what I remember also is that he was a good regional sub elite runner with similar times to JS that is to say around 14:30 (5000) and 30:00 minutes for 10,000 m - slightly slower than JS but in that ballpark.
We should focus on people's virtues and not their shortcomings because everybody has virtues and shortcomings at varying degrees.
From what I remember I believe, a few years ago, was that he stopped posting here because he got fed up with the inane comments that some posters habitually posted here unfortunately.
Most Portuguese people are highly honorable people and I like to call them "the Nordics of southern Europe" because they are so discreet and quiet compared to Spaniards and Italians, for example, and I know this is a sweeping generalization but there's no smoke without fire.
Cabral never broke 35 in the 10k, or 4:20 in the 1500.
From what I remember also is that he was a good regional sub elite runner with similar times to JS that is to say around 14:30 (5000) and 30:00 minutes for 10,000 m - slightly slower than JS but in that ballpark.
I ran in the same races countless times over 4 decades.
Cabral's team here. Mostly joggers it seems. Nothing wrong with that, just saying. Not sure if he coaches any elites.
Elites: 14:30/30:00/1:05:00/2:20:00.
By the way, Portuguese people in general have a very high English level compared to other Southern neighbors like Spain, Italy and France as well - and the reason for that is that English is taught in all the schools from a very young age at a very high level and all English and American TV programs are never dubbed but rather subtitled so Portuguese people are exposed to the English language from infancy and I just checked their English level overall and they come in at around number 7 in the world as foreign speakers of English so you may communicate with them easily - with most of them at least.
Stop press Portugal's minimum wage went up to €920 Euros per month few days ago. Things are improving on the wage front even though it's a challenge to live there for many or most. Foreign expats have changed the playbook with regards to rent and purchasing property in Portugal as everything has gone up because the foreigners who moved in have more purchasing power leaving native Portuguese people in a very precarious economic situation with no change in sight.
I've just spent a week in neighboring country Spain in the city of Salamanca and the situation is pretty much the same there with dire economic situation on the horizon for most Spaniards. Imagine your salary is €1,500 per month but you need to pay €1,000 for your small apartment - it just doesn't add up.
I took a day off from running yesterday and had a good time with my closest people. Today I will soon have a run and it will be an easy aerob one. Will report later how it went. Then after it's time to celebrate the new year 2026 coming up with some tasty food and sparkling wine.
Wish you all a very Happy and successful new year!! 🎆✨️🎊🥂🙏🎊
Cabral's team here. Mostly joggers it seems. Nothing wrong with that, just saying. Not sure if he coaches any elites.
Elites: 14:30/30:00/1:05:00/2:20:00.
By the way, Portuguese people in general have a very high English level compared to other Southern neighbors like Spain, Italy and France as well - and the reason for that is that English is taught in all the schools from a very young age at a very high level and all English and American TV programs are never dubbed but rather subtitled so Portuguese people are exposed to the English language from infancy and I just checked their English level overall and they come in at around number 7 in the world as foreign speakers of English so you may communicate with them easily - with most of them at least.
Stop press Portugal's minimum wage went up to €920 Euros per month few days ago. Things are improving on the wage front even though it's a challenge to live there for many or most. Foreign expats have changed the playbook with regards to rent and purchasing property in Portugal as everything has gone up because the foreigners who moved in have more purchasing power leaving native Portuguese people in a very precarious economic situation with no change in sight.
I've just spent a week in neighboring country Spain in the city of Salamanca and the situation is pretty much the same there with dire economic situation on the horizon for most Spaniards. Imagine your salary is €1,500 per month but you need to pay €1,000 for your small apartment - it just doesn't add up.
Thanks for that, the photos show proof of life for Antonio Cabral. 😀 Very glad to know he is still among us. He was unreasonably generous with his time when I was in Lisbon, spending three days with my family showing us around, getting us all to and from the races (HM for me, 5 mile for the rest of my family) and helping us find a place to repair a rental car window smashed by thieves. He has also been very generous on LRC with his thoughts about training.
Cabral's team here. Mostly joggers it seems. Nothing wrong with that, just saying. Not sure if he coaches any elites.
Elites: 14:30/30:00/1:05:00/2:20:00.
By the way, Portuguese people in general have a very high English level compared to other Southern neighbors like Spain, Italy and France as well - and the reason for that is that English is taught in all the schools from a very young age at a very high level and all English and American TV programs are never dubbed but rather subtitled so Portuguese people are exposed to the English language from infancy and I just checked their English level overall and they come in at around number 7 in the world as foreign speakers of English so you may communicate with them easily - with most of them at least.
Stop press Portugal's minimum wage went up to €920 Euros per month few days ago. Things are improving on the wage front even though it's a challenge to live there for many or most. Foreign expats have changed the playbook with regards to rent and purchasing property in Portugal as everything has gone up because the foreigners who moved in have more purchasing power leaving native Portuguese people in a very precarious economic situation with no change in sight.
I've just spent a week in neighboring country Spain in the city of Salamanca and the situation is pretty much the same there with dire economic situation on the horizon for most Spaniards. Imagine your salary is €1,500 per month but you need to pay €1,000 for your small apartment - it just doesn't add up.
Thanks for that, the photos show proof of life for Antonio Cabral. 😀 Very glad to know he is still among us. He was unreasonably generous with his time when I was in Lisbon, spending three days with my family showing us around, getting us all to and from the races (HM for me, 5 mile for the rest of my family) and helping us find a place to repair a rental car window smashed by thieves. He has also been very generous on LRC with his thoughts about training.
And it's a great pity that he no longer posts on let's run as he was a quality information person about running in Portugal and in general at a high level.
Now enjoying the New Year Eve after an easy very good 40 min sustained run . The longest sustained run for me in many years. My ' muscle memory' is very good and it's easy for me to quite fast get back in good shape again. And of course it's much easier now to train when I have all days to myself and don't have to go to job anymore as a pensioner. Feels now my mission to a sub 20 will be quite easy.
I’m not personally interested in an internet yelling match, and you can assign as little or as much weight to my views as you like.
This is hilarious. You are not interested in accepting the truth. If someone goes around telling literally every runner they meet that they once ran a 3'39" 1500m and in reonline and starts
I’m not personally interested in an internet yelling match, and you can assign as little or as much weight to my views as you like.
This is hilarious. You are not interested in accepting the truth even when it's clearly pointed out to you. You are entitled to believing in lies but don't tell everyone here that the person telling all of these lies is some sort of "real deal" or authentic type of person.
If someone goes around telling literally every runner they meet (in person or online) for years that they once ran a 3'39" 1500m and in reality they never ran anything remotely close to that sort of time then they obviously have some unresolved issues. That's ok but what they say should never be taken seriously and they certainly should not be entrusted with coaching anybody. We are not talking about just one lie here, there have been several absolutely rididuculous claims in terms of athletic and coaching accomplishments from Antonio Cabral including coaching Olympic athletes etc.
Cabral never broke 35 in the 10k, or 4:20 in the 1500.
And he certainly never coached a top level athlete like he claimed.
Ghost1, at least two weeks ago he was alive. He has put on a lot of weight but he continues to coach. You can check it on his hobbyjogger team page, URT - Urban Run Team.
Good to hear Cabral is still kicking.
I don't know anything about his (Cabral's) claim to have ran 3:39/1500, but I don't believe it for one minute especially as he claims that he had achieved that performance decades ago, but I will say that he has a great knowledge of distance running and I'm sure that he's a very good coach in his own right. From what I remember also is that he was a good regional sub elite runner with similar times to JS that is to say around 14:30 (5000) and 30:00 minutes for 10,000 m - slightly slower than JS but in that ballpark.
We should focus on people's virtues and not their shortcomings because everybody has virtues and shortcomings at varying degrees.
From what I remember I believe, a few years ago, was that he stopped posting here because he got fed up with the inane comments that some posters habitually posted here unfortunately.
Most Portuguese people are highly honorable people and I like to call them "the Nordics of southern Europe" because they are so discreet and quiet compared to Spaniards and Italians, for example, and I know this is a sweeping generalization but there's no smoke without fire.
You are absolutely wrong and it is not right that you are trying to make someone who has told countless numbers of lies to others appear credible.
Cabral told me himself that he ran 3'39" for 1500m and he posted on Marius Bakken's message boards that he was a former Portuguese national record holder. Again from Hodgie San's guest page:
"António Cabral: Excuse me my poor english. I´m very busy at the moment but i don´t want to lose this opportunity to thanks you – nothing in special – but a “little bit” of each your running details, your posts, your comments. .... My running story is also a road running devoted story, but with more success than you in the tracks – I did 3:39,8 in 1975 (Portuguese rec. at that time) but soon I did a very serious injury (sciatic) and when I come back in the late 70´s I did decide to run for my passion road runs. That my decision did trouble a lot of people and coaches indeed but I did my path – road runs exclusively from short road runs 5kilos to half marathons."
In what world are you going to now tell us that you don't believe Antonio Cabral claimed to have run 3'39" for 1500m?
Unless you are going to give us a source, I also don't believe for one second that Cabral ran anything remotely close (think minutes) to 14'30" for 5000m or any similar sort of performance. Cabral has told too many whopping great lies to be considered trustworthy.
It's all well and good saying that we should focus on people's virtues but people who constantly lie have to be called out so that others are not unwittingly harmed by them.
1:17 for M50 is a better result than 1:11 for an open runner, which would make that result world class for a blind masters runner, no?
If you don’t mind, I’ll just respectfully disagree with you but leave your assertions for other readers to evaluate. I can see that my impressions of Cabral are not universally shared and that’s ok.
The M50, José Lopes, is not blind.
You see, Jan and António are almost the same. Big claims with zero evidence, decent results with recreational runners.
I am giving you names, times, a facebook page where things can be verified. You are telling me Cabral's stories.
I say "almost" because Jan did coach a faster runner, Sammy Nyokaye.
Thanks, this does not surprise me as Cabral has constantly lied about his running and coaching performances: it is a clear and constant pattern of behavior. He is on another level of lying compared with coach Jan. My guess is that the more serious runners in Portugal will avoid Cabral as they will be aware of his untrustworthy reputation and there will be several much better coaches with verifiable results to turn to for advice.
Today it has been a winter in my Sweden we used to have when I was a child with lots of snow and cold. Took an easy run 42 min + 3x 5 min , so a total of 57 min easy in the snow with my ice bugs.
Impossible to run faster workouts outside so now from tomorrow I will move indoors at a gym and run at the treadmill until snow has gone away.
Saw that Rosa Mota, now age 67 , ran a 38:25 10 k agegroup masters world record . 38:25 10 k is compatible with around a 18:30 5 k , so I guess my 5 k goal of sub 20 min will land about 18:30 or better if we compare Mota's best 10 k of 31:25 to my best 10 k 29:51, so theoretically my time will land at sub 18 min. But of course it has to be done....interesting mission.
You will need to get back to racing weight, rebuild an aerobic base and train steadily and smartly for a year or two if you hope to get anywhere close to the potential your younger self may have had.
For my part, I plan to tweak my training a bit before my next 5k race to include slowly growing numbers of 500s at around 5k pace with 200 m jog rest. I did 8 of them today and next time I run 500s (I will do a longer tempo and some 1000s before coming back to 500s) I think I will do 10, then 12, then …? Why 500s? Well, the river path where I run has 500m markers and I don’t have access to a track. I’m going to try this because I like the idea and think it’s worth a try, being a bit unfamiliar but not too much of a stretch from what I’d already intended (I would be typically doing 8 x 500 hard with 200 m jog, aiming to make the reps faster over time rather than adding more reps at the same pace).
You will need to get back to racing weight, rebuild an aerobic base and train steadily and smartly for a year or two if you hope to get anywhere close to the potential your younger self may have had.
For my part, I plan to tweak my training a bit before my next 5k race to include slowly growing numbers of 500s at around 5k pace with 200 m jog rest. I did 8 of them today and next time I run 500s (I will do a longer tempo and some 1000s before coming back to 500s) I think I will do 10, then 12, then …? Why 500s? Well, the river path where I run has 500m markers and I don’t have access to a track. I’m going to try this because I like the idea and think it’s worth a try, being a bit unfamiliar but not too much of a stretch from what I’d already intended (I would be typically doing 8 x 500 hard with 200 m jog, aiming to make the reps faster over time rather than adding more reps at the same pace).
Interesting indeed. Good luck with your plan and training! 🖐🙏😃
Well, my the Dancan system has another way of approach . The system builds relatively fast aerob and anaerob capacity parallell.... the volume stays quite the same all year round and what improves the runner is more of running the exact best individual paces, not too fast and nor too slow. This way triggers the so called supercompensation perfectly and the runner advance relatively fast to a better level . Of course it's not about magic , a word I often use just to promote my online coaching , but in all coaching cases I have done the fast improvement really looked as there was some kind of magic behind them. 🧙♂️