They see every aspect of cheating in the sport as "business". As the saying goes, only dopey dopers get caught, and there are a F load of them being caught. Tip of the iceberg of what is going on there.
So, Kipchoge is 47 and everyone dopes? And dope gives ya more energy? And the moon landings were faked?
Moon landings were real. Physiology of the majority of Kenyan marathon runners is achieved by doping practices. It's both athlete and agent driven.
If you want to believe that the guy CRUSHING everyone by minutes for over 10 years, including all the people who have actually been caught for doping is clean, you are welcome to. The sport needs people who keep the blinders on.
Eluid is definitely not 38. Or however old he is listed as. If you have met him in person, he would literally be the oldest looking person in your 30s you have ever met.
You are right. The Lydiard, Cerutty, and Bowerman eras were before I was born and they were indeed better. That is true. There were always "good eras" in training.
Sadly for me and my friend, we happened to be at our prime (mid to late 1990s) during an era when:
a) America sucked
b) we all ran low-mileage (50-70 miles a week in college)
c) we raced every workout "all-out" because we were usually hanging on for dear life
d) we didn't do any strength, core, or stretching at all
e) we did a ton of short intervals to train for the 5000m
f) our best nutrition was spaghetti feeds, Gatorade, and bagels (and zero protein)
g) we ran our easy days way, way too fast and never really recovered
and h) we didn't start running until we were in high school at the earliest.
I know that today, none of these eight factors is considered "smart training" anymore. That is what he and I were commenting on.
The kids of today are doing it the right way and I respect (and envy) that. Modern training is much better as reflected by the huge jump in performance at every level. The proof is in the pudding, the 1990s sucked compared to today. I am fine admitting that.
I find it strange that your story is repeated by many others about US training in the 90s, supposedly based on the 'Peter and Seb Coe' model of training.
Because here in the UK we didn't have elite athletes and coaches telling us that less is more or that quality beats quantity.
If I may be critical of American thinking, it seems to be very fad orientated. And the latest fad is 'double threshold' days, (because Jakob Ingebrigtsen does it) as if that is supposed to be some kind of panacea that will elevate one's fitness to new levels.
I've read a fair bit about people who adopted the Coe model but didn't understand it. A lot of people thought it was all quality over quantity, but that's because Coe didn't include warm-ups, cooldowns, and jogged rests in his training logs so it looked like a lot less mileage than it was. Canova posted on this a couple of years ago.
British elites have always emphasised mileage. Brendan Foster was once asked about his training and said: "run 12 hours a week, 1 hour hard, the rest moderate." Steve Jones was running triples. Both Coe and Ovett have said they were paranoid about the other doing more training so they'd run as much as possible. These were not low mileage guys.
So you just did a longish cool-down run with an ex-pro who trained like an idiot back in the 90s?
And this has convinced you that 'modern training' is so much better?
Have you been living under a rock? Good training has been around since before you were born.
You are right. The Lydiard, Cerutty, and Bowerman eras were before I was born and they were indeed better. That is true. There were always "good eras" in training.
Sadly for me and my friend, we happened to be at our prime (mid to late 1990s) during an era when:
a) America sucked
b) we all ran low-mileage (50-70 miles a week in college)
c) we raced every workout "all-out" because we were usually hanging on for dear life
d) we didn't do any strength, core, or stretching at all
e) we did a ton of short intervals to train for the 5000m
f) our best nutrition was spaghetti feeds, Gatorade, and bagels (and zero protein)
g) we ran our easy days way, way too fast and never really recovered
and h) we didn't start running until we were in high school at the earliest.
I know that today, none of these eight factors is considered "smart training" anymore. That is what he and I were commenting on.
The kids of today are doing it the right way and I respect (and envy) that. Modern training is much better as reflected by the huge jump in performance at every level. The proof is in the pudding, the 1990s sucked compared to today. I am fine admitting that.
Oh man, this post is so true. This was my training in HS and College during this period. And I always wondered why I would have my best races in September and then be fried by October. It was so frustrating thinking I was doing the right thing and just being fried. Literally did not know any better.
My best collegiate season was when I ran max 10mpw over the summer before senior year. I had an internship and girlfriend in a big city... Had better things to be doing than running. Slowly worked my way into fitness during the season (no all out intervals) and ended up performing really well at conf and regionals.
So, Kipchoge is 47 and everyone dopes? And dope gives ya more energy? And the moon landings were faked?
Moon landings were real. Physiology of the majority of Kenyan marathon runners is achieved by doping practices. It's both athlete and agent driven.
If you want to believe that the guy CRUSHING everyone by minutes for over 10 years, including all the people who have actually been caught for doping is clean, you are welcome to. The sport needs people who keep the blinders on.
Eluid is definitely not 38. Or however old he is listed as. If you have met him in person, he would literally be the oldest looking person in your 30s you have ever met.
He's a multiple-time Olympian, multiple-time National Record holder, and international medalist.
Do you need to be an Olympic medalist to make becoming a pro worth it? Jeez
I think the question was is it worth it to move to Kenya and train 100% and nothing else. I think he could have been just as successful or more going into the NCAA system for four years, getting a college degree, and then joining a post collegiate group after college. Does he have much for prospects now after his professional running career? Was he doing some sort of college or training in Kenya? Training doesn't take 15 hours a day. You can do some other productive things along with training. Cole Hocker was a full-time student and placed 6th at the olympics that summer in 2021, you can do both. Keira D'Amato is a realtor (possibly reduced workload, but still working) and set the American record in marathon. Gabby Thomas won olympic bronze in the 200 while getting a masters degree in epidemiology. It seems you can do more than just track and field, but so many people just focus on the athletics and seemingly waste time the rest of the day. If you're a top tier athlete making hundreds of thousands of dollars that's fine, as anything else isn't really making much of a difference, but most athletes are scrapping by and it's wild that they don't use their extra time to prepare for the future.
Looks like Zane was involved in a major accident (today? or earlier?) just on his insta story today. Wonder if that's also what drove retiring story - it looks horrific!
Looks like Zane was involved in a major accident (today? or earlier?) just on his insta story today. Wonder if that's also what drove retiring story - it looks horrific!
Wishing the best to his recovery.
Yikes! Looks horrific. Was it a motorbike? Despite what I posted wishing him a speedy recovery.
I would argue the joke is more on the guy who thinks a 50-year-old ran 2:01:09 last September.
Totally agree. The most probable ages to do what kipchoge did in 2003 and 2022 seem to be exactly the ages given.
I don't see what financial benefit he'd have gained anyway by lieing as a junior anyway. Winning world 5k ahead of guerrouj and bekele must have brought great income and I don't see that being perceived to be 18 or 28 or whatever at the time would have affected this.
So, Kipchoge is 47 and everyone dopes? And dope gives ya more energy? And the moon landings were faked?
Moon landings were real. Physiology of the majority of Kenyan marathon runners is achieved by doping practices. It's both athlete and agent driven.
If you want to believe that the guy CRUSHING everyone by minutes for over 10 years, including all the people who have actually been caught for doping is clean, you are welcome to. The sport needs people who keep the blinders on.
Eluid is definitely not 38. Or however old he is listed as. If you have met him in person, he would literally be the oldest looking person in your 30s you have ever met.
Taylor Jenkins, the coach of the Memphis Grizzlies, is 38. Google what he looks like and get back to us.
Looks like Zane was involved in a major accident (today? or earlier?) just on his insta story today. Wonder if that's also what drove retiring story - it looks horrific!
Wishing the best to his recovery.
Yikes! Looks horrific. Was it a motorbike? Despite what I posted wishing him a speedy recovery.
I think a matatu rolling over into a ditch. Wishing Zane and the others involved a quick recovery
He said, "the current training philosophy is so different and so much smarter. We ran so hard on every interval and now you see people using science and blood testing and double-thresholds and so many smarter approaches to the sport. In the low-mileage 90s, we just killed ourselves doing all-out repeats and never really developed our actual physiology the way the best trained young runners are doing today."
^^^ This ^^^
For anyone who doesn't think that the new training philosophies are having a massive difference on the times now days, you're fooling yourself.
For anyone over the age of 35, static stretching and high intensity interval after interval on lower mileage was the training methodology. That was basically all we did.
Yup. Jog 1 lap. Sit in a big circle and static stretch. Coach would come tell the group what sort of intervals you were running that day, even the day after a meet. 30mpw maybe. Some weeks I was so sore I could hardly walk.
He said, "the current training philosophy is so different and so much smarter. We ran so hard on every interval and now you see people using science and blood testing and double-thresholds and so many smarter approaches to the sport. In the low-mileage 90s, we just killed ourselves doing all-out repeats and never really developed our actual physiology the way the best trained young runners are doing today."
^^^ This ^^^
For anyone who doesn't think that the new training philosophies are having a massive difference on the times now days, you're fooling yourself.
For anyone over the age of 35, static stretching and high intensity interval after interval on lower mileage was the training methodology. That was basically all we did.
No it wasn’t. High school in 2006 and college in 2010. We trained like they do now minus the double threshold sessions.
I never said that he was 51. I said that he is not 38, nor was he 19 when he won the World Championships 5000m in 2003. He may early to mid 40's. Birth records aren't even kept in many parts of the world, especially in more rural areas. The population of Kenya has exploded in the last 50 years. Their population is listed at 12 million people in 1973 and now 53 million in 2023.
35 going on 36 and it’s not like in 2004 everyone just went from all out intervals all the time to modern training overnight. People knew what they doing back then. Not everyone but most.
Now I guess the difference now is everyone has the better knowledge thanks to the internet. Back then that was just starting with LetsRun and DyeStat spreading better training information. You still had many high school programs who did the strawman things. Focus on recovery is better today than it was 20 years ago.
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
I think both Robertsons would tell you the move was worth it. They went to Kenya with the goal of becoming two of the best in the world, and nobody can really say they weren't. They never flamed out young and disappeared and they never went back to New Zealand. They lived and died by the sword in a way that few of their peers were willing to. They lived their dreams and that's all you can ask for.
If you wanted to compare them to their American peers, going roughly by age we'd have to go with that group of Chris Derrick, Puskedra, and Fernandez. I think they did just fine.
They weren’t 2 of the best in the world. Ever!
I'm not saying they were world beaters by any means, but I would say they were definitely some of the best in the world. It depends on how you define that I guess. They both qualified for major championships in their career and each ran well on the roads. It's pretty cool that they're the fastest pair of twins in history over a half marathon. Again, I'd say they panned out better than most could ever hope, and to do it the way they did by moving to Kenya during their developmental years will always be a fascinating piece of running history.
