Sobering stats on depth of US distance running / Kenya vs. the World

Americans ~never run road races overseas. There are basically no fast half marathons in the U.S. There are fast marathons in the U.S. and the top U.S. track runners do go overseas to run. The relative strength of the U.S. in the half marathon is exacerbated by the above.

Interesting theory. I did the same analysis on the marathon and 10,000m track to see:

Marathon: 719 individuals in 2009 2:18 or faster

Kenya: 335

Ethiopia: 92

Japan: 65

USA: 25

10,000m: 124 individuals in 2009 28:25.0 or faster

Kenya: 42

Ethiopia: 13

Japan: 17

USA: 9

So while these do look a little better than the half-marathon, it still looks like USA is underperforming relative to where it could/should be.

A better question to ask is why is Japan better than the US in terms of overall depth?

shoe guy wrote:

A better question to ask is why is Japan better than the US in terms of overall depth?

More runners take it seriously. Even "recreational" runners are logging lots of miles, doing harder workouts, and training to compete, not just to finish.

3. Kenya with 184 !?! Are you serious? That's almost half the list!

Any insights from the LRC faithful?[/quote]

Yeah, 184 of 337 is more than half, not almost half.

In the US, our HS kids gotta choice of Football, Basketball, Soccer, baseball, Hockey, Tennis, Lacrosse... All of which the pro's are paid more than distance guys. Plus Scholarship $ - Telling you a so-so football player can get money, where you gotta be a super star runner to get any. In the US - follow the money trail, can you blame most kids for choosing sports other than XC? Most of the kids I get are non-athletes that could do no other sport. I need to build them into an athlete. On the rare occasion I get an athlete, they have a lot of success very quickly.

If I had the entire football, soccer, and basketball team running XC, I am fairly confident my JV under 17min.

Where is the money trail in the countries ahead of us?

sgh wrote:

In the US, our HS kids gotta choice of Football, Basketball, Soccer, baseball, Hockey, Tennis, Lacrosse... All of which the pro's are paid more than distance guys. Plus Scholarship $ - Telling you a so-so football player can get money, where you gotta be a super star runner to get any. In the US - follow the money trail, can you blame most kids for choosing sports other than XC? Most of the kids I get are non-athletes that could do no other sport. I need to build them into an athlete. On the rare occasion I get an athlete, they have a lot of success very quickly.

If I had the entire football, soccer, and basketball team running XC, I am fairly confident my JV under 17min.

Where is the money trail in the countries ahead of us?

we have over 300 million ..(probably more if you count illegals) so your argument doesn't hold water

Yeah and the vast majority of that 300 million chose to do ball sports as teenagers. L2logic

health advocate wrote:

huh? wrote:

we have over 300 million ..(probably more if you count illegals) so your argument doesn't hold water

Yeah and the vast majority of that 300 million chose to do ball sports as teenagers. L2logic

go back to school little boy

Japan has 128 million people so the argument does hold water. If there are 4 or 5 more popular sports then the number of kids going out for running would be much lower.

huh? wrote:

we have over 300 million ..(probably more if you count illegals) so your argument doesn't hold water

Animal Pharm wrote:

Japan has 128 million people so the argument does hold water. If there are 4 or 5 more popular sports then the number of kids going out for running would be much lower.

huh? wrote:

we have over 300 million ..(probably more if you count illegals) so your argument doesn't hold water

ah nope

What do these other countries have to offer athletically?

The 300 million Americans have spread their interests more evenly.

U.S. depth at 1/2 marathon and marathon is much weaker than Japan because most of our good runners are in college, and unlike in Japan, most college distance runners in this country don't run those events. The better runners in track skip the 10000m as well, and then American collegians generally do not run competitively after college because the money is not there for most of them, even the 24:00 8k guys, who could certainly run sub 2:20.

look don't make it complicated

we simply do not have the talent pool as we did back in the 60's and 70's.

scottdye wrote:

3. Kenya with 184 !?! Are you serious? That's almost half the list!

Any insights from the LRC faithful?

Yeah, 184 of 337 is more than half, not almost half.[/quote]

It's still "almost" half. You must not know what "almost" means.

Bullshit. More kids are under 4:10/9:00 than ever. Also WAY more pros under 13:15/27:40

huh? wrote:

look don't make it complicated

we simply do not have the talent pool as we did back in the 60's and 70's.

Your eyelids are getting heavy wrote:

Bullshit. More kids are under 4:10/9:00 than ever. Also WAY more pros under 13:15/27:40

huh? wrote:

look don't make it complicated

we simply do not have the talent pool as we did back in the 60's and 70's.

right and our population has grown geometrically since the 60-70's

and we still can't put up the numbers kenya does,

Your eyelids are getting heavy wrote:

Bullshit. More kids are under 4:10/9:00 than ever. Also WAY more pros under 13:15/27:40

huh? wrote:

look don't make it complicated

we simply do not have the talent pool as we did back in the 60's and 70's.

13:15 is a joke btw. with over 300 million people we should be busting 12:30's all over the fooking place

GOML wrote:

2. Japan had 41 on the list, yet largely has been unable to translate this depth to any kind of success at the very top tier (Worlds/Olympics, Marathon Majors, etc.) It seems almost the opposite of the USA with it's top athletes but lack of depth.

So all of a sudden Lagat, Meb, and Plaatjas are American.