history lesson wrote:
I once again feel obligated to educate the ignorance that continually takes place with this boards lack of understanding when it comes to the marathon.
1. It takes approximately 3 months for a World Class Marathoner to train for a marathon.
2. It takes approximately 1 month to recover from a Marathon before any serious training should resume.
3. If a marathoner runs more than 4 marathons in a 2 year period, they will increase their chance of injury 10 fold. This is why Deena and Meb and even Hall to a lesser degree has pulled out of Marathons over the last few years.
You can not talk about time between Chicago and Houston without including what was done in the 12 monts prior to Chicago as well as the 12 months following Houston.
1. If World Class Marathoner can be defined as one which wins gold at the Olympic Games, Emil Zatopek was World Class. He decided to run his first marathon, the Olympic Games, on the spur of the moment, after winning the 5,000 and 10,000. That is a lot less the approximately 3 months you claim. Yes, the pace has quickend since 1952 but that was OB at the time.
2. True, marathoning for the masses is different than elite marathoning. However, there are guys and gals out there that can "race" 26.2 miles every weekend. They do not use a month to recover before they resume training.
3. There was a time in history when guys would bone up and race. Often. They did this because they were hungry. Now there is a soft fluffy corporate dollar involvement which takes away the hunger. Because the data is readily available, I offer Bill Rodgers competitive marathon career. True, BR never medaled and had a crappy '76 Games. But he was out there, up front, in more than the 4 races per 2 years you suggest.
http://www.billrodgersrunningcenter.com/privacypolicy.htmlThe lesson is always the same...each runner is different.
Please do not attempt to force people to conform to your way of thinking when there are examples of others achieving success in other ways.