What's WRONG with American Distance Running? THIS:

When you have support, comfort, sponsor, money be4 race, materials anytime.. never hungry.. WHY YOU GONNA WORK hard

if nobody have RUNNING things like a job.. in USA RUNNING it's a LIFE's PHASE no more then 4 years you GONE...

So when you're Afro or Spanish. or whatever you need to survive.. IF you was born in foot country.. you better RUN

it's SIMPLE.. when you training and to drink water you must wait for the Lions get of the river... COME ON, real runners never wakeup in Dunking Donuts.. they dont know where the burger kings are locate.. they dont get the subway and never have a car... They need to RUN.. they never buy next pair of sneakers.. just wash the OLD one

They know what to show to the Coach in the trial..PLUS they need to survive to the next step.. then they need to fight again with the family. to the country to the embassy he live by himself.. what life. I love this life

see you on the roads. dad's boy, dad's girl

Paul Tergat just fell off His Chair.

And I wasted 10 years thinking that I couldn't beat him because I was too slow.

The problem is about money.

Have prizemoney like the Golfers do then watch the Talent crawl out of the woodwork.

$100,000 for a major Marathon win and perhaps 2 cracks a year because of the toll the training takes = b/s.

If you have real sporting talent then you are going to do some other Sport and get some longevity and the real Cash.

Spot the Flaws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D56ZAvcxN0&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Stay in Africa (In camps) then you will know what's

training HARD...

NOT RECREATION with fruits and CELL PHONE

To know what is wrong with US running just read Coach mahon's excuses for Hall getting slammed by Bairu. "He isn't in shape....He is in a phase...he only gets intense for big races....etc. etc. It might not be what is wrong with US running but it is defintely what is wrong with Hall. P.S. get back to the track before you forget what tough running is like Ryan.

name of the game wrote:

aahhh what? wrote:

[quote]fizzy stuff wrote:

Line up two runners with the same V02max, heart, intrinsic motivation, etc. If one has poor, inefficient form and the other has good, efficient form, who is going to have better running economy at the same pace over the same distance? Who is going to win?

yup and line up one that spent time improving vo2max and the other who spent time improving form and the vo2max guy is going to blow the other out of the water.

America started focusing on form and speed over distance back in the 90's. nuff said

I agree with you on this. I do NOT believe that form is the MOST important factor in running fast, as this PT seems to say. I was responding to the posters who were going to the opposite extreme and saying that form does not play a role.

I think of form work as a huge benefit on top of the already crucial pieces of (physiologically based) training.

So I meant, two runners doing the exact same kind of prep (V02 work included)... one ALSO focuses on efficient form. He will have an advantage.

A few years ago I attended a HS running camp where Michael Garrison, former University of Arkansas assistant and former head cross country coach at Maryland, spoke about whether ultimate success in middle distance/distance running is more physiological or biomechanical. When he was at Arkansas working on his doctorate degree he would often have friendly arguments with an exercise physiology professor about the topic. Mike apparently was convinced that the physiological component is much more important until the professor convinced him to do his dissertation on the topic. Mike was surprised to find that the professor was correct - that the biomechanics will ultimate play a larger factor in a runner's success than the physiological. I do not know if Mike views this board, but, if so, maybe he can chime in.

See the link for a summary of Mike's study.

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=01-19-2015&FMT=7&DID=1068240991&RQT=309&attempt=1&cfc=1

some people just do not get it. a previous poster already mentioned that working on form and improving other areas of running are not mutually exclusive.

this means you can do your vo2 max intervals, hill repeats or whatever else AND work on form at the SAME TIME. why would you not want to do this?

you can practice your posture all day as you sit and walk. all of our poor posture habits carry over into our running. even if most runners focused on posture while sitting and walking they would probably seem some slight benefits in their running.

people really should read the ChiRunning book by Dreyer to understand how to make safe, gradual changes to running form.

it doesn't help that gay texan q.u.e.r.e.s are allow to run. it doesn't help that duface rightwing b.l.o.w.j.o.b.b.e.r.s like george w. bush are runners. that's for sure.

Thanks for the LIVELY DEBATE! Glad to see it inspired some discussion.

A response post:

http://eugenept.blogspot.com/2010/01/solution.html

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong...

Do you honestly believe that it's about mechanics and form and that crap? Do you honestly believe that is what the east Africans do to make themselves great?

1) Mechanics Crap - So then, the best female marathoner in the world has great mechanics, right? Um, no.

2) Talent pool goes to sprinting crap - Do you even realize that distance running in top tier countries is the top shelf sport? Our talent doesn't go to sprinting. It gets dispersed to soccer, basketball, baseball, wrestling, etc., etc. etc....

3) Dynamic nature of running crap - I don't even to waste my time here... Do you not see that running is NOT a skill sport? It's endurance and lactate threshold and VO2 max and cellular adaptation and simple time spent honing these systems.

4) Overemphasis of distance training crap - Are you kidding me? Try this, train a newbie from day one using your sytem. Heck, train 20 of them... You will get absolutely nowhere. I promise you.

It is about miles and focus and physiology and heart and interest and intrinsic motivation and desire and solemness and guts and blood lactate and mitochondria and fuel and core strength and miles and strides and love of running and learned maturity and reflection and miles ALL before your four lame attempts to try to understand our sport. EVERY SINGLE ONE before what you offer.

My next question is... What are you trying to sell, Mjtran? Whatever it is, I don't want it.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Also please tell me that runners having different symetrical bone lengths and thickness that there is an ideal way to run. Rodgers, Densimo, Geb, Radcliffe all have glitches and Bill Rodgers arm swing was because of a leg length discrepancy! The guy almost was never injured through very high mileage. I heard Paula is trying to change her stride which is kinda funny. Rupp supposely changed his this past season. So far not good.