Lack of 10k success in the 70's

Sorry but I'll answer this idiotic question first.

In those days road racing was mainly a regional New England sport. No I'm not old enough to remember but do remember when either Thom Hunt or Slazar had the American record and it was around 28:10. People did not focus on running 10k road races, they focused on either the marathon or the track and there wasn't the prize money hence the lack of competiton. Winning was the only thing that or they were workouts you ran to prepare yourself for the marathon. THe top 5 and 10 guys on the track rarely ever competed in a road race and if they did it was in an out of shape condition.

There were not large groups of runners going out in 4:19 to chase thousands of dollars. That would come later.

The world records on the roads were far apart from the same distances on the track. Nobody cared about records on the roads because they were meaningless. Just the same as the point you are trying to make.

But I do admit that things at the very top are better today, as they should be. But not by much. But using road 10k records are useless to support this.

I think we've had more Americans under 28 in the 10,000 on the track this year than since 1984. And college guys are breaking 13:30 once again.

didn't shorter place pretty well in the 10000 at the '72 OLYMPICS???

Don't forget that meters were not used as race distances that often on the roads in the 70's. 10k's got big with the Peachtree race and the Pepsi 10,000 meter road race Challange in the early 80's.

Just for fun some of you college guys ought to look up your schools old three mile indoor records and conference meet records. I bet they're better than the current 5000 meter records.

Shouldn't they be better? 3 miles is less than 3.1.

Back in the late 70's their was a lot more 6mile races than 10000's.The AAU champs and a lot of college conferences were not using metric distances.Then it was 1mile,3mile,6mile.Now it is 1500,5000,10000.

steeple94 wrote:

didn't shorter place pretty well in the 10000 at the '72 OLYMPICS???

And didn't Rodgers win the WCCC? Who cares about his 10km road time. Any serious marathon runner just used them as tempo runs. Look at siome of the training Meyers and Rodgers uesd to do the weeks of those races. Why blow a whole week of training for a silly little 10km?

Silly 10k? Hell, that's a long way for me to drive!!

If you try to fight the old guard with logic they are only going to defend with bull shit. The old timers start with We were better than you. If you point out that it is not so then they will dismiss your argument even though they can't argue the numbers. Nice job Dirt.

Why are we always comparing ourselves to twenty or thirty years ago instead of against the current world best or at least this year's world leading time? There are many other runners outside the US and you know what, they are very fast.

I don't know what the best time in the world for 10k in 1978 was but I bet (based on the track world record then on 27:22) that Bill Rodger's 28:35 was pretty darn competitive on the road.

Let's see, Ryan Kirkpatrick ran a 28:28, compared to 2002's world leading road time of 27:11 by Sammy Kipketer, making Kirkpatrick 1:17 slower than the standard.

Based on my odd logic, for Kirkpatrick and Rodgers to be equal in their respective eras, Rodgers' would have had to run about 1:17 off of the world road best of 1978. This would equate to 28:35-1:17 or 27:18. I know for a fact it wasn't this fast as Mark Nenow set a record of 27:22 in 1984 at Crescent City. Thus Rodger's time is superior for his era. Nenow's times from the mid-80s were even better. Somewhere between Nenow and Todd Williams we lost our ability or motivation to compete.

By the way, the United States has 8x the population of Kenya, 8x the population of Morocco, and 4x the population of Ethiopia.

This is too easy. Tell me how many in the race you refer to had this kind of week. From Meyer's traing log. Rough formatting but a few highlights:

124 miles

29:00 10km after doing an 8 mile warm-up in the morning

A very solid workout both the day before and the day after

spare me the comparisons. A month later he went sub 2:11. What do you think his focus was?

Aug. 23 ? Mon.P.M. 21 ? in 2:20

Aug 24 -Tues. A.M. 8

P.M. 8

Aug 25- Wed. A.M. 3 up, 6 x Hills in Weymouth

:69 :66

:70 :67

:68 :60

3 miles down

P.M. 5 easy

Aug 26 Thur A.M. 10

P.M. 7

Aug 27 ? Fri A.M. 8

P.M. 3 up , 3 x 1 ¼ @ 4:28 + 68, 66, 64

2 x ¼ @ 62

3 miles down

Aug 28 ? Sat A.M. 8

P.M. 2 up, 10km race , 1st in 29:00

2 down

Aug 29 - Sun. A.M. 21 ? 1 warmup

2 mi @ 9:58 ? 2 minute surge every six minutes until one hour, then 1x 5:00

surge, then a 1 min. surge every six minutes, until end at track with 1 mile in

4:55.

Total time for 20.3 mi = 1:58

(1 x 2 mile in 9:58, 7 x 2:00, 1 x 5:00, 7 x 1:00, 1 x Mile in 4:55)

Week = 124 Very Good Week!!!

This is too easy is right. Greg Meyer's 29:00 would have placed him 12th. THAT IS A FACT. The training log is interesting but simply an excuse for his 29:00. It is so hard to swallow that your legends were only legends because of the level of competition.

I agree that that Bill Rodgers and Greg Meyer were more competitive on a World level due to the fact that the africans were not coming over here to dominate like today. The point that dirt was trying to make is that they were not all that much better in the 70's it is just that the level of compettion was way worse. By the way Meb has run faster on the track than Nenow and Culpepper who is a new comer to the marathon is already faster than Rodgers. We are no longer competitive on the World level because the World has passed us up but we are better now than we were in the 70's. The next 10 years will prove that we will then be better than we were in the 80's. Whether or not that is competitive on the world level is a whole different issue. WE ARE DEFINITLY BETTER IN 2002 THAN WE WERE IN 1978.

[quote]Skippy Shitulski wrote:

It is so hard to swallow that your legends were only legends because of the level of competition.

How else can a legend be a legend other than against their own level of competition? So Zatopek is an unworthy legend because he only ran 28:54?

Until the late 70s, no one bothered with the 10k on the roads. It was really during the 80s and the arrival of money that turned the road 10k into a "major" distance event. The 10k guys stuck to the track and xc and I'd say fared better than US runners of any other decade at those venues. Shorter was fifth at the Munich Olympics, Craig Virgin was the silver medalist at the World Cup in 1977 (I think that's the year). He also won a couple of World XC championships and Bill Rodgers finished third at the 1975 World XCs.

Guys like Virgin, Shorter and Prefontaine were running 10k on the track in sub 27:50 when the WR was in the 27:30s. And these guys did race the Africans. Not the current crop of Kenyans but the Kenyans and Ethiopians of the time. So I can't see how someone could argue that today's US runners are faring better than their predecessors from the 70s did by saying the success was only do to the level of competition they were racing against. Who else were they supposed to race against?

I think you make my point. You are judging success based on how we fare on a world level. In that case the 70's were better. The bar has been raised and we have not responded. The point is that old timers want to claim that we produced success in the 70's because of a different work ethic. I claim that what we produced was no better than today just a different playing field. Our sport is measured in time and it is easy to compare times from yesterday to today. How many 2:05 or 2:06 or 2:07 marathoners did Shorter or Rodgers ever have to run against? The average american doesn't know that Culpepper is faster than Rodgers or Sorter for every distance. The average american doesn't know that Meb and Abdi are faster than anyone for 10k in 70's. I have no problem admitting that we were more competitive in the 70's. I also have a hard time getting advise shoved down our throats by guys that ran slower than we are today.

When todays US athletes consistently turn out 2:10's and sub 28's they will be on par with the guys from the 70's and early '80's.

Considering there has been 25 years to improve that is not something to be all happy about.

Dirt duuuuude, in 1978 road-racing was a New England thing. No one ran road races. About that time, with under-the-table money flowing freely and the creation of ARRA, a professional road racing circuit, the track runners started to jump in. By 1980 ten American were running under 28:35 every weekend.

One only has to peruse the all-time road lists to discover the obvious: 2002 is not even close the week-after-week road wars that were common in the day.

Malmo,

I apologize. You are right. In the 70's there would have been a lot of people racing faster they just didn't want to. I got it now.

FACT: Lindgren runs 13:44 as a high schooler and is an olympian. Ritz runs 13:44 and finishes 10th at the u.s. championships.

You guys memories become skewed because it is convenient. Numbers tend to prove you wrong. Thanks for the advice grandpa but no thanks.

No, you don't have it right. There was NO road-racing to speak of until the late 70s/early 80s. Lindgren was in high school in 1964. Listen and learn kid.

I think I got it now grandpa. We are better now than the 60's just not the 70's or 80's. Coincidentally Grandpa, you were competing during that time. Didn't you score 5 touchdowns in one game at Polk High. Gimme a break. You and Hodge can't stand the fact that things are on an upswing, it makes you feel less important. You guys have a hard time even admitting that they are on an upswing. Meb is faster than any 10k runner during your time. KK is faster than any marathoner in your time. So you guys then scream about depth. Culpepper runs faster than anyone of you clowns. You would carry much more respect if you could just say great job guys. Instead your responses are "you guys still aren't as good as we were". Its tired and NOW its not even true.