Nothing new about distance training has been discovered since January 1, 1980.

Renato, Hodge, Antonio, anyone else, what do you think of the training of Ryan Vail & how it compares to what you know?

http://ryanvail.blogspot.com/

With his 27:44 10k PR and what I thought was great training for the marathon, peaking at 150 mpw, I was hoping for a 2:10 even given the conditions in NYC (I'm sure he was too). He ran 2:13.

There has to be something wrong with the way the Americans are training. Vail is only one in a long list of fast 10K Americans who haven't had equivalent success in the marathon - recently we have also had Bobby Curtis (27:24 / 2:13), Matt Tegenkamp (27:28 / 2:12), Tim Nelson (27:31 / 2:15), and even Ritzenhein (27:22) took 6 years to break 2:10. Far worse ratios than the Americans posted from ~30 years ago and the Africans today.

Hardloper wrote:

Nothing. Everything since then has been re-hashing of the same concepts already understood by runners in the late 70's / early 80's. All improvements since then have only come through better technology, faster courses, and a larger global talent pool of participation.

_________________________________

I beg to differ.

Case n point:

Jog bras

Women's capri tights

I've read most of the posts on this thread and would offer the folowing:

In my 61 years of coaching/competing with athletes at all levels and all ages, I have not seen anything done over the last 20 years that hasn't been done before. There are studies pointing to the benefits, or lack of benefit, to various types of training, but nothing substantially new. If one talks to the old timers, reads the history of the sport, stop trying to reinvent the wheel, you will see that this is true. For evidence, read the works of Pirie, Cerutty, Gerschler, Igloi, Van Aaken, Stampfl etc. Look at the workouts of Zatopek, Nurmi, Whitlock, Landy, Haag. It's all there.

Hardloper wrote:

Renato, Hodge, Antonio, anyone else, what do you think of the training of Ryan Vail & how it compares to what you know?

http://ryanvail.blogspot.com/

With his 27:44 10k PR and what I thought was great training for the marathon, peaking at 150 mpw, I was hoping for a 2:10 even given the conditions in NYC (I'm sure he was too). He ran 2:13.

There has to be something wrong with the way the Americans are training. Vail is only one in a long list of fast 10K Americans who haven't had equivalent success in the marathon - recently we have also had Bobby Curtis (27:24 / 2:13), Matt Tegenkamp (27:28 / 2:12), Tim Nelson (27:31 / 2:15), and even Ritzenhein (27:22) took 6 years to break 2:10. Far worse ratios than the Americans posted from ~30 years ago and the Africans today.

8 weeks of 200's and blocks of miles at MP inserted into

training runs.

Do you see any long hard sustained runs?

Vail's training might have been what was expected that he

could handle for this cycle.

Hall lived at altitude and trained at altitude running 4:50

"tempo" runs that he said had the effect of 4:40 pace.

Perhaps Vail will be upping the stress load 3 or 4 cycles

down the road.

António Cabral wrote:

Hodgie-san wrote

Something more about Mutai.

If we just consider that rich better training and "modern" is the training that the faster one of each period does, then we will follow what HRE said, that is that in 1972 period every marathon runner of world class will follow Frank Shorter training. However as HRE sates, that´s not the solution.

Something similar with Mutai or every other one. That is not the best or modern training methodology necessarily.

What are the top marathon racers in Spain doing? Also Bikila was a hero of epic proportions. That certainly had something to do with the African Revolution in athletics.

desculpe!, Antonio I meant to say Portugal.

Thank you for the insght Renato. You would know the athletes schedules the best, even those that you do not coach, being on the ground in Kenya or even China and so forth.

Run a lot of steady miles and become a cardiac monster. Then sharpen. Avoid overtraining. That is the sum total of Lydiard-era training theory. People's responses to training stimuli are idiosyncratic.

One thing that I've wondered about is whether or not westerners get to the marathon too late and then give up on it too soon. I don't know exactly where any of the guys you mention were in their careers when they ran their first marathon but it seems to me that they'd been doing well on the track for a while. Do you know if any of those track PRs came after they ran a marathon? My impression is that our guys now avoid the marathon until they think they've reached their potential at 5 and 10 km.

On the other hand, Shorter's track PRs all came after he'd won the Pan Am Games Marathon, Fukuoka and the '72 OT. So his best marathon running happened while he was at his running prime. It was pretty common at the time for guys to mix marathons with serious racing at shorter distances. Later that seemed to change. I always thought that Mark Nenow was a guy who should have been able to run really well at the marathon but who just let the event go until too late in his career.

It also seems to me that a lot of our faster guys now don't race enough, don't race marathons enough, and don't give themselves the years they may need to master the event. Yes, some people show immediate aptitude for the marathon, Salazar is a good example as is Shorter. But Rodgers struggled with his first 3-4. Ron Hill's debut gave him a 2:24. It took him eight years to get under 2:10. I wonder if some of the guys you mention with the good track times but comparatively slower marathons would eventually get under 2:10 if they just kept running a couple marathons a year until they got it "right."

Obviously the guys you mention have the speed to run faster marathons than they have and then some. Loads of Japanese with slower track times are faster marathon runners as were guys like Derek Clayton, Hill, Bill Adcocks, Dick Beardsley and Bob Kempanen.

It does seems that a lot of American kids only become runners after being rejected from other sports. Pre for instance (according to myth).

However, the real problem is that running pays less than Wal*Mart unless you are close to elite.

Randy Oldman wrote:

It does seems that a lot of American kids only become runners after being rejected from other sports. Pre for instance (according to myth).

However, the real problem is that running pays less than Wal*Mart unless you are close to elite.

Maybe. Theoretically running paid nothing at all when many US runners were near the top of the annual world lists. I was talking about this years ago with one of the better US guys from that era who said that basically most of them lived near the Poverty Line and really didn't care because they enjoyed their lives so much.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing but I don't know if we'd be better if there were piles more money in the sport.

If a top runner made $27 million and the sport was on network TV, more kids would take it up.

By the way, why does Universal Sports show minor overseas marathons but not major US marathons?

They broadcast the Yorkshire Marathon won by Edward Kourir in 2:13:35. A significant part of the coverage was dedicated to local TV personalities.

Hardloper wrote:

Renato, Hodge, Antonio, anyone else, what do you think of the training of Ryan Vail & how it compares to what you know?

http://ryanvail.blogspot.com/

With his 27:44 10k PR and what I thought was great training for the marathon, peaking at 150 mpw, I was hoping for a 2:10 even given the conditions in NYC (I'm sure he was too). He ran 2:13.

There has to be something wrong with the way the Americans are training. Vail is only one in a long list of fast 10K Americans who haven't had equivalent success in the marathon - recently we have also had Bobby Curtis (27:24 / 2:13), Matt Tegenkamp (27:28 / 2:12), Tim Nelson (27:31 / 2:15), and even Ritzenhein (27:22) took 6 years to break 2:10. Far worse ratios than the Americans posted from ~30 years ago and the Africans today.

His volume of work looks adequate. NYC had some tough conditions this year so 2:13 was a solid effort.

The marathon can be inscrutable. I ran more than 30 my first one at age 21 and I only ran a handful of good ones.

I also ran all of my PR's at shorter distances from 3k up after having begun to race marathons regularly. As HRE mentioned perhaps athletes wait to long to begin attempting them.

Ryan seems like a great guy and I think he will run much faster if he continues his efforts.

António Cabral wrote:

Toni Nett Der Lauf , 1972 edition does a few pages with Abebe Bikila training detail from 1960 up go 1968 when Bilka did gave up in marathon Mexico olympics and the kind of training it´s written there got nothing to do with your African Running Revolution Runner´s World editon source that i also did read.

Abebe planted the seed and 20 years later professionalism/money, agents/coaches and some would say PED's came and created the current scene.

HRE wrote:I don't know exactly where any of the guys you mention were in their careers when they ran their first marathon but it seems to me that they'd been doing well on the track for a while. Do you know if any of those track PRs came after they ran a marathon?

Dathan Ritzenhein.

12:56 (2009)AR.

27:22 (2009)6th at WC.

That's after four marathons (NYC 2006, Olympic Trial 2007, Beijing Olympics 2008, London 2009).

Interesting paper. But he seems to criticise Matveyev, more than "show Lydiard wrong".When I look at the 1962 book, Lydiard presents a yearly schedule of a hypothetical mature, but inexperienced athlete, training according to the New Zealand seasons:10 weeks of marathon training; 6 weeks of hill training; 12 weeks of track training; 16 weeks of harrier training; and 8 weeks of road racing training.Maybe some part of that annual schedule comes from Matveyev, but it is heavily influenced by Lydiard, to conform to the New Zealand racing calendar. Despite the 10 week "marathon training" phase, this inexperienced athlete can compete in races some 30-40 weeks of the year.Of course we know more today, and competition calendars are different today, as are the athletes.There is one paragraph I found interesting: "Many experts today consider that the theory of periodization does not meet the requirements of contemporary sport and can have a negative influence on performance development. It also appears that periodization does not present a model training system for elite athletes within the demands of modern competition calendars and other international development tendencies. Only some of the thesis of the periodization concepts can somehow be applied to the training phases of young athletes."I get how the periodisation might interfere with competition calendars of elite runners. I'd be interested in seeing more comments about how it "can have a negative influence on performance development", and how "only some of the thesis ... can somehow be applied to ... young athletes."

I fully agree with rekrunner. AL's 1962 book was based on what happens here in NZ. Periodisation to him back then was probably "Winter and Summer" .... If you know this country the seasons are "mixed" in terms of weather !!. Interestingly that book still mirrors pretty much the current Athletic / Harrier seasons in this country 50 years later. Part of the problem why AL is misinterpreted so much.

I believe the first "real" contact that AL had with the Russian's was in early 1965 when the famous Russian Coach ( Korobokov ??? spelling !!) came out here with Vladimir Kuts as "Assistant: ( A very LARGE man by that stage), the Press "sisters", Vladimir Kudinsky a good steeplechaser and a young 800m runner who's name escapes me at the present. They were here in January when the weather is usually fabulous and it was just the opposite .. cold and Wet. Not sure what information was "passed on". AL did not produce another book until 1978. Even then it was a modification of the original "Run to the Top".

Whoops that was early 1966 NOT 1965.. Apologies Team !