Men's Marathon updates and discussion - Berlin 2009

Observation wrote:

Just a reminder that Hanson runners Mike Morgan ran 2:23:28 and Kyle O'Brien ran 2:28:28 at Worlds in 2007 - both times were slower than Browne (2:16:49) and Gabrielson (2:18:41) today.

You know damn well that the winning time at Osaka (2007 Worlds) was 2:16.48.

Observation wrote:

Just a reminder that Hanson runners Mike Morgan ran 2:23:28 and Kyle O'Brien ran 2:28:28 at Worlds in 2007 - both times were slower than Browne (2:16:49) and Gabrielson (2:18:41) today.

In FAR different conditions, FAR more hot and humid than in Berlin today. So a shitty comparison on your part. Placing tells a truer story in a field like the WC marathon.

Okay, I'll play your game according to placing. Given the conditions at both races, which I know were different, Morgan finished 23rd (Brown was 24th) and O'Brien was 32nd (Gabrielson was 36th place).

Tell me something I don't already know.

Luke Kibet's winning time in steamy Osaka was 9 minutes slower than the winning time today. Morgan and Humprey's performances in Osaka were superior to Browne's and Gabrielson today in Berlin. Please stop and think before posting.

I also believe we should have our best guys training together and don't believe all of them necessarily have to have su-27 10k credentials.

Coach Squires proved that a 30min 10ker can run sub-2:10 with the right marathon specific training. At one point he had, arguably, the best marathon group in the world and not one of them had broken 28 minutes for 10k.

piedmontcat wrote:

I also believe we should have our best guys training together and don't believe all of them necessarily have to have su-27 10k credentials.

Coach Squires proved that a 30min 10ker can run sub-2:10 with the right marathon specific training. At one point he had, arguably, the best marathon group in the world and not one of them had broken 28 minutes for 10k.

I agree with what you are saying, except no man who had a "best" of 30:00 in the track 10000 has ever run a sub-2:10 marathon.

Name one.

newname wrote:

piedmontcat wrote:

I also believe we should have our best guys training together and don't believe all of them necessarily have to have su-27 10k credentials.

Coach Squires proved that a 30min 10ker can run sub-2:10 with the right marathon specific training. At one point he had, arguably, the best marathon group in the world and not one of them had broken 28 minutes for 10k.

I agree with what you are saying, except no man who had a "best" of 30:00 in the track 10000 has ever run a sub-2:10 marathon.

Name one.

You're playing a dirty trick. The fitness to run a 2:10 marathon predicates a sub-30 10k. But you are asserting that you MUST ALREADY be a sub-30 10k runner to ever have hopes of being a 2:10 marathoner, which is simply not true. You can bet your balls that many great marathoners had modest 10k PRs when they began their training. Dick Beardsley had a very modest 29:12 10k PR when he took on (and, if not for motorcycle interference, would have beaten) Alberto Salazar, who had a 27:25 10k PR--nearly two minutes faster. Brian Sell was a 32:13 10k runner after his sophomore year of college. And even Bill Rodgers had a wholly unremarkable 4:16 mile PR in college.

Telling athletes that they can only succeed if they are a top-flight high school or even top-flight college runner is sending the wrong message. Remember the thread reviewing the careers of the past foot locker champions? It was unimpressive. Ron Daws, who admittedly never broke 2:20 (but DID make the Olympic team and place 22nd at the Games, something which many top-flight 10k runners have failed to do) had a three mile PR of 14:02. That converts to slower than 14:30 for the 5k. If a "slowpoke" like him can place 22nd at the Mexico games...what's your excuse? It's not talent. It's hard work.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. It is talent. Your example was a guy who NEVER broke 2:20!!! That is a world class woman's goal time.

We are talking about competing on a world class level not just showing up and eating USATF food and sleeping in USATF beds.

Find the best runners from highschool and college and the rest should all get real jobs.

the dude with the funny hat wrote:

Tough race for America.

I'll say. Canada beat them in the team standings! The U.S. runners will never live it down. I read that they're going to have a ticker-tape parade in Ottawa when the men's marathon squad gets back to Canada.

What many of you fail to understand is the effect of soul sucking energy vampires re: the ability to recover/follow dreams etc. All this religio-political jargon is just a tool to divide us into competing factions. Jenkins is a beast and would body slam you letsrun trolls through (threw) your (you're) (ur) monitor. Galen Rupp talks to girls irl whilst you do not. How do we expect a country in the midst of a health crisis to compete in an endurance foot race when we are so busy competing with ourselves. People thought the hansons brook team was some genius concept because they live and train together. Meanwhile there are entire nations with this unity that crash us in foot racing.

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

Go USA.

Melissa wrote:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

Go USA.

I hate this quote so much. I have complete respect for our marathons and will not criticize them, it's not their fault they were given a great opportunity to represent our nation and took it. That being said, a poor race is a poor race no matter if Teddy Roosevelt gives you props or not.