Americans both 3rd, what does this mean?

it shows we can compete (on the medal stand)with the rest of the world. We have moved from the "getting dominated" to the "competing" stage.

I think she ran a great race. Im sure she's frustrated because it was there for the taking, but I can't fault her racing one bit.

hall did well to come back and finish 3rd. You can't complain when you run well and it come up short.

It probably means there were 2 women in front of Goucher in her race and two in front of Hall in his race. Maybe there were more though. In the future, there will probably be more people in front of each of them. They will probably be Africans.

I guess "competing" is the word, but the US is still far from being competitive against Kenya and Ethiopia.

How many Kenyans/Eth. were in the top 10?

Its a step in the right direction, but still a ways to go for competing against the best in the world.

thefuturist wrote:

It probably means there were 2 women in front of Goucher in her race and two in front of Hall in his race. Maybe there were more though. In the future, there will probably be more people in front of each of them. They will probably be Africans.

Thanks, I had no clue. Now get off the computer and take your quiz in social studies class.

I'm in English class, and we're not taking a quiz.

Get back to me when your life develops.

It just shows neither Hall nor Goucher are the Great White Hopes. Have to wait for someone else....

the duder wrote:

I guess "competing" is the word, but the US is still far from being competitive against Kenya and Ethiopia.

How many Kenyans/Eth. were in the top 10?

Its a step in the right direction, but still a ways to go for competing against the best in the world.

if you got as many young americans to at least be active (play soccer, swim and / or run) and THEN actually give running a serious chance competitively when they start to mature (I'm talking the masses of runners that ethiopia and kenya have) and take the top 50 men and women and have them train as hard and focussed as kara and ryan, then you'd see us with that depth.

this is no slam to our elites, but the guys who are out there right now finishing 5th at our olympic trials in the 5k, 10k, marathon or whatever are not anywhere near our 5th best men, they are likely our 30th, 40th, or 50th. but they are the select few who have tried running, found an interest and stayed with it. with the abscence of all the other unknown (even to themselves) talent these are the once who wind up to be our "5th" best runners.

in Kenya and Ethiopia your 5th best is much more likely to be your 5th best or possibly 10th best (at worst) if every damn person was trying only for running.

how strange is it that one of our greatest distance runners ever came from a tiny logging town off the coast of oregon, and that a more current one happened to go to the high school coached by alberto salazar? these are just two examples of talent and extremeley hard workers who fell into good situations, but there are hundreds of these types of talents who have never given running a serious try for any number of reasons.

imagine if we could get all the kids who grow up in colorado, and the higher elevations of montana, utah and arizona to get excited about running. the kids who were born at alitude like hall.

duder...great post!

US distance running is certainly doing better than the US auto industry.

I remember that class. I think it was right between recess, and lunch.

Great pictures:

http://www.boston.com/sports/marathon/gallery/0420_eliterunners/

next year.

virz wrote:

if you got as many young americans to at least be active (play soccer, swim and / or run) and THEN actually give running a serious chance competitively when they start to mature, then you'd see us with that depth.

imagine if we could get all the kids who grow up in colorado, and the higher elevations of montana, utah and arizona to get excited about running. the kids who were born at alitude like hall.

Ah yes, that would be great if American kids would be brought up like Africans to compete at the highest levels in running. But guess what, that will never happen. You might be able to get a few to follow in those footsteps, but never the amounts that Africans produce.

Why???? Well, what kind of job/salary can you make/have as a professional runner in America? Even the most elites make less than an average football or basketball player.

In Africa, these people are running for their lives and family. What are your options of sustaining an income in Africa? The US "business" world has no cap on what you can achieve.

I know I stopped running because the risk-reward was not there. I could bust my ass to run a 3:58 mile, but what would it get me...a 25k/yr contract? Wow, I think I'll take my chances working my boring job for 60k and be able pay my bills. I would be doing it all for self satisfaction and pride. Too bad I can't write checks out of my pride account.

Broken record, but true about the risk-reward. In the '70's I used to train with a marathon guy who was 7th in the Olys and 6th in the Commonwealths. With the exception of one 2:14, he was basically a 2:16-2:17 guy, and for that talent level he got lots of race trips (eg Fukuoka) plus free gear and a lot of hero worship from the admittedly small running crowd. Do you wonder local XC and road races were packed with 29-30 min 10K guys looking for international recognition.

These days if you dream of fame you'd better think you can run 2:08 some day (and sacrifice your life) otherwise just run for fun.

K Goucher is a fine looking woman, even after running for 2.5hours..

...it means America's Marathon Underdog era is over.

How old is Colleen De Reuck?! Why is nobody complimenting her fabulous run? i hope i can sub6 pace for the thon' as a master gggggeeez