Mr. Renato Canova: Could You Please Answer a Question About Effective Ways to Improve the Lactate Threshold?

jeanie wrote:

Does Canova coach the London winner?

Martin Lel is coached by Gabriele Rosa.

As an aside, I wonder if Antonio, Renato or Tinman could comment on the London results today, to me it was avery surprising result to see Tergat, Rutto and Baldini lose by so much in a relatively slow race ( I only mean slow compared to Tergat's world record of course ). Tergat and Baldini especially seemed to be in really good shape quite recently yet they had relatively poor races today. Does anyone have any theories as to why?

Antonio Cabral wrote:

Once Renato also comments about some of the kenyan runners that he coaches - that - instead of doing an easy recover run for some 40min after an hard workouts they like to do a long run for some 3 hours, and that he thinks that´s wrong.

Antonio,

I believe what Renato said was the runner/s did better with their preference for 3 hours of easy running.

JonD wrote:

dunes, evidently you failed to read the portion of the article I highlighted. Try again, this time reading what I said in the post.

About Ma Junren, this man is a cruel animal. That is not a coach; that is a butcher shop. Anyone can take 1,000 people, destroy 995 of them, and emerge with 5 champions. But that is surely not a good coach.

"Special Chinese medicines"? "Fresh blood of beheaded turtles"?

WAKE UP. IT'S DRUGS! He has no shame about introducing foreign substances into the runners' bodies.

Okay well so it is YOU admitting the drug use.

Thank you for clarifying.

Hello Dunes runner

I respect your opinon and your arguments about your admiration for Junxia. I also said that a runner like Junxia may be a top talent.

But let me ask you a first question ? In what situation, you guess that a runner did take a substance to produce a performance ? Only when is did a positive drug test?

Second question - knowing that the Chinese girls hadn´t done no drug test in that meeting, and since in 1993, some substances that we know now that are drugs and illicit, weer "new" and not illegal in 1993, consequently weren´t in the "drug list" - like EPO, some type of steroids etc, and since one of the relevant drugs - that´s the self blood doping - isn´t not yet detected in no drug test, how can we clear our minds that they did that clean - if lots of arguments and facts made us belive that don´t?

I ask the same question in another way - Do you believe that they are clean just because we don´t have a positive test and also because you have admiration for her, or because you think that they did that based on an hard programme that no one are able to follow except them?

In my opinion if i can´t prove - by the fact (the drug test) that they did use drugs - weren´t dione no control tests - to accuse her, but according actual WR validations -test analysis shall be done to consider a WR - for the same reason - you can´t prove too that they are clean by the law. But my point goes further up in my last post. I try to argue that 40kilos/day super high training/hard intensity - for a long period - no one is able to do that for a long period with positive results, only with substance help.

Dunes: Yes, you are right, Renato said that he gave the Kenyan runners a schedule of 40 minute easy runs between primary workouts, but they performed worse than when they went for 3 hours super slow runs between hard workouts. Basically he implied that jogging for a long time (like twice as slow as marathon pace) seemed to be helpful for them. I wondered exactly how much distance those guys covered. Did they stop and take a nap out there? Did they walk? Were they looking at scenery? Was the reason they did better because they went even slower than Renato prescribed and that was the reason they did better in their primary workouts?

For others, I still do not believe that the Chinese women ran legal times during the short period when they crushed the world records. Yes, I am sure they were talented, worked very hard, had a Spartan lifestyle, ya da ya da. Maybe a couple of the better Chinese runners were capable of the performances they showed, but I would bet the reason they ran even faster was because of a stimulant effect, sort of like caffeine does in high enough volume.

I agree with Antonio that many people have tried very high mileage and failed. It appears their failures were linked to running doing plenty of speed training at the same time. *There is a lot of difference between running and other endurance sports. As Jack Daniels points out, if you are a swimmer, cyclist, or cross-country skier, going too far in a workout isn't a big deal because you haven't pounded your muscles with shock. Muscles for runner have to deal with both duration and pounding; other endurance sports don't have that problem.

Please share your thoughts. Tinman

It is not my intention to convince nobody about the validity of the Chinese women performances or to convince you about something that I did not see or experience back in 1993. At that time I was also shocked like most of the distance coaches about those results. I just want to share the information that I got and the experience from this Chinese distance coach based right now in Mexico City, knowing that he had worked very closely with Ma Junren for several years. I am still a little skeptical like most of you, but if one focus only in the training program, the technical part and do not take into account the many other factors, then one misses the whole picture. There are many details that I did not write in my first post regarding this Chinese coach in Mexico.

The talent detection.

These Chinese athletes, the 1993 and 1997 groups were chosen among hundreds from endurance backgrounds in sports schools. Just like Renato have said in many posts about the talented Kenyan athletes, that they started from something, a % of endurance base, not from "0". One of the first tasks this Chinese coach tried to do once he joined my group of athletes, was to dismiss most of them! He tried to convince me to look for peasant young men and women, he used to believe that in a 20 million people city would be very difficult to find a talented athlete for distance events. So he did not care if I could help a young woman to improve her 5 k time from 21 min to 18:00 in one year. "Marco, forget all these people and look for a potential Olympic champion, you are wasting your time!" So, I kept the whole group, but opened my mind to new ideas and we went to the rural areas in Central Mexico, (states of Tlaxcala, Puebla, Estado de Mexico)where all the small cities and towns are located between 2000-2400 m altitude. We went to primary schools observing the P.E. classes and some local junior track meets. The offer was to provide them with food and housing in one of the two Training Sports Centers in Mexico City, no financial aid. But what happened? The Mexican young people is social-cultural quite different from the Chinese one. We found some very talented young men and women. I tested a 14 year old boy who never have competed in athletics, just played soccer and did 1:56 in 800 m and 2m 40 cm in standing long jump, very strong type boy. The big problem was to convince these people to leave their families and their towns and move to the big city, I always explained to them that they would have to train everyday, not like the Chinese of course!, but train at least 6 days a week. What happened is that they did not like Mexico City, were not interested in training, they preferred to stay with their families and friends, keep playing soccer, getting access to internet and watch the cable TV !!

I think we wasted about 6-7 months on these trips, it was tiring because I always had to drive. He tells me that in China in general they do not have a choice, but over here is quite different, one can suggest and invite them to train and compete but they always have the last word.

So, he got tired and forgot the idea of traveling to the rural areas. But I applied this idea right here, in the big city, and have found several talented athletes in local secondary schools. They still are with their families and school and have started to train with already an endurance base from other sports. This Chinese coach realized that he was wrong thinking that only in rural areas one could find a talented young boy/girl.

I also have asked him –in fact, several times- the same questions about the hard training loads done by the Ma Junren group, if they were injured often with so many km.

He told me that they used different types of recovery means, massages and acupressure as well acupuncture, besides Chinese herb medicine. That in China there are certain type of plants that there are not in any other place in the world, they grow in specific spots and during a short period during the year, he denies that these plants are doping substances.

Besides, here is what I have witnessed:

When one of my athletes gets injured, for example, a knee problem that any long distance runners might have, he has HEALED them with HIS HANDS only and their injuries have disappeared!! I know it is hard to believe and many of you will laugh at this, but it really works!!. It is hard to explain for me in this language, but what he does is to put one of his hands at the exact point of the injury, without touching the skin, breath deeply and sends a sort of energy that leaves him very tired after the session. Usually it takes several sessions to heal the injury, besides the athlete has to do a lot of exercises to strengthen the damaged zone, for example for knee injuries: one day 200 repetitions of both knees bending (90°),next day 300 reps and then increasing each day until 1000 consecutive non stop knee flexions! It has worked so far, he is against taking regular medicine prescribed by sports physicians. He has a map of the human body and has told me that everything is connected. When he is sick sometimes, he refuses to see a physician, only drinks water and fruits.

One year ago there was a small group a middle distance women athletes from Australia doing a training camp in Toluca (2700 m altitude), 50 km west of Mexico City. One of them got injured after 2 weeks of training, she felt very frustrated because had invested a lot in this camp and they were going to have their selection trials for the OG. I told their coach about this Chinese coach and suggested that he could help her with the injury. I remember very well his answer: "Marco, in the first world countries we use state of the art technology to heal injuries", I replied, "Here we have the same technology but it is holyday season and everything is closed". He replied "I have seen in 3rd. world countries they use only hot water and ice, but what is this?" I said, "I do not know either and I don’t care but it works for healing my athletes." So they –coach and athlete- were very skeptical and allowed the Chinese coach to apply his technique, she just recovered after 3 quick sessions and could finish her training camp. Lately his fame for healing athletes’ injuries has raised a lot that another athletes from other sports have just begun to look for him and is always busy healing people!! He tells me that this knowledge is common among the Chinese coaches.

I think that one can speak or write as far as his experience allows him. But the experience can not be bought or read in a book or library.

Marco Veledíaz

Mexico City

Marco,

Muchisimas gracias por su cuenta -- la información es invalorable.

Where is this guy? I have had 8 weeks of bad bone bruise pain. Is there some American practice incorporating these Chinese healing methods?

You must admit, this sounds quite outlandish. Touching someone and "breathing energy" into them? But if it works, where can we find these types of people?

Heel pain wrote:

...where can we find these types of people?

I take it you don't watch a lot of television between 2 and 5 a.m.

dunes runner wrote:

Okay well so it is YOU admitting the drug use.

Thank you for clarifying.

No dunes, thank YOU for clarifying that you are an ignorant idiot who cannot read. Was Olga Yegora innocent in the days before she was caught, just because you, some random message poster, didn't know she was on EPO? If a frozen urine sample from one of your beloved Chinese "WR holders" turns up positive sometime in the future, what do you do then? Cling to your fantasies?

Or admit you were dead wrong and you have no idea what the heck you are talking about?

Marco, please check your email

Albert Ellis wrote:

Heel pain wrote:

...where can we find these types of people?

I take it you don't watch a lot of television between 2 and 5 a.m.

Antonio,

My interest is athletics and performance, not drugs, thus such drug things are of no interest to me.

To give you a direct answer, I do not guess anything like this and, also, any result is of no interest to me. Whether someone takes a drug or sustance is a result of their own choice and mentality, whereas I have my own freedom of choices and mentality. A positive drug test has no meaning whatsoever to me, except in the sense that based on the protocols such results are highly questionable.

Now if someone has a positive test and then also says they took some drug then maybe they did. But again I don't care if they did this or not, as far as the athletics performance is concerned. However it would make me thing they have a weak or flawed system of beliefs if they did, and my feeling is also that such drugs would be more likely to harm them than to provide any real benefit.

I am satisfied that they did the performances clean.

If they didn't then that is of no consequense or importance to me. I am interested in the beneficial and successful things they did and accomplished, but not some drug that has no use or relation. If there was really some magical drug then why has no other athlete or country used the same, to take some 30 seconds off their time for 3000 meters and break the records set up by Ma's runners?

The answer is because there is no such drug.

Any drug test has no meaning to me. So that is no reason one way or another.

Yes I have admiration for Wang Junxia. Yes I believe their results came from their hard training and overall program. Yes I think that no one has been able to follow them, primarily because there have been some, but few, with the mentality to do so. Even with the mentality however, it is very difficult to complete such a problem on one's own.

[/quote]

Antonio, I think you are too wrapped up in thinking of the drugs and the drug tests.

Okay that is not true.

I am convinced that it is possible for a relatively good runner to cover more than 100 kilometers a day, and certainly to cover more than 40 km a day rather indefinitely, certainly for a year or two, and this is training on one's own.

So it does not surprise me that Ma's runners did this.

In fact when I first heard the stories of their training, my thoughts were, "aha!, someone has finally done what is POSSIBLE!".

Tinman,

I believe Renato estimated the 3 hours to be around 18 miles, for 800 meter runners of 1:43 or so speed.

This is 800 meter runners covering almost a half marathon on recovery days, then coming back and running super fast in between.

It is no surprise that well trained distance runners are able to cover twice that amount and do well.

dunes runner wrote:

thus such drug things are of no interest to me.

A positive drug test has no meaning whatsoever to me

Now if someone has a positive test and then also says they took some drug then ********MAYBE********* [my emphasis]maybe they did.

If there was really some magical drug then why has no other athlete or country used the same, to take some 30 seconds off their time for 3000 meters and break the records set up by Ma's runners?

The answer is because there is no such drug.

Dunes runner, can you SPELL naive?

Do not bother with this fool anymore.

Read his quote above. He says if someone HAS A POSITIVE TESt and ADMITS (re: SAYS THEY TOOK THE DRUG) then he MIGHT believe they did it.

What a ridiculous idiot!

Antonio,

How do you know any drug works to begin with? This is result of some test for the drug, which is invariably done by the companies who produce the drugs and then advertise them for a profit. Alternatively, sometimes tests are done at various universities.

Thus the drugs "work" only because the drug companies say that they do.

And the drug companies are motivated by only one thing, which is selling more drugs.

All of us are familiar with the daily stories of how the drug companies have fabricated some test results to say how a drug works and has no harmful effects, then later we find out THEIR OWN TESTS showed the drug was worthless and had HARMFUL results, even many deaths through the world, yet the companies knew this all the time and continued to market the drugs and to say how good and beneficial they were.

Thus all the drug testing and drug use is a drug issue.

It is not an athletics issue.

None of these things have any place in athletics.

JonD

When I am out running all day, there is no care for someone who chooses to have a crazy mentality.

I have better things to do.

If you think that I am naive then go ahead.

That is fine with me.

dunes, you are right, none of this has place in athletics.

This makes your willingness to overlook obvious drug use idiotic. As for knowing how drugs work, this is very simple. Chouki, Jacobs, Boulami, Chepchumba, Lombard, Mourhit, Said-Sief, Yegorova, the East Germans and other "male" women of the 1980's, Pippig, Johnson, all the U.S. sprinters recently busted, and all high profile drug cheats I cannot think of off the top of my head ALL (re: ALL) made it to that level or prolonged longevity because of drug use.

Cathal Lombard ran 27:32 after never having been anywhere close to that level.

Mourhit, 12:49 and 26:52, another drug cheat.

Said-Sief, OLYMPIC SILVER MEDALIST, 7:25 for 3K, CHEATED.

Boulami, ran a ridiculous 7:53 in the steeple, CHEATED.

Open your freaking eyes, or do not speak and dig yourself deeper into the hole of ignorance you have fallen into.

Dunes

We may discuss if that are the companies that create the sport drugs or if ionstead that are the result of private research investigation - that instead of turn that to the public use keep that in secrete until that´s discovered. If don´t then ask me: what company did promote self-blood doping? What company advertising fabrics that self blood doping, sells that, have profits with that? No one, but that exists and that´s a doping - as considered, and if you use you are violate the laws of the athletics law.

I think the opposite, that when they discover a new product they are very secretive about that.

Now ask me 2 more questions.

1/Ther´s a murder out there in the street, or simply a robbery. Depite we don´t know who did it, what´s the reason he did that, who he is - that means that you don´t condamne that act as crime ? That´s the same with drugs - despite i can´t prove where and when, i accuse the existence, and if i saw a man on the floor, despite i haven+´t seen the act i say i accuse that unknown man that did that, as i accuse the runner that did it.

2/Imagine that someone uses wheels in the shoes that enables runner to run faster, but no one knows or see it. Do you think that´s not an athletic issue. because running only concern to what´s tyhe performance and not the violation of the rules. Let´s remember you that despite you don´t pay attention to the drugs (you don´t considers that, and you think that´s doesn´t work, athletics that have rules that we need to respect - and the illegal substances etc. all that is against the rules. Now think that someone run a 10000m but with just 24 laps - also against the rules. As you don´t consider the drug rules why do you consider the 25 laps need ? may be he beats the WR but with 24 laps - one lap miss - but for you that´s ok. may be that you think that that wheels in the shoes, a lap less - or a drug use - all that´s is against the rule - but as you or someone thinks that doesn´t help the runner to be faster, so that´s ok, that´s a valid performance...?