Good article except for repeating the myth that Kenyans gained their aerobic base by running to school. Many of the top Kenyan runners never ran to school and just had to walk a few hundred meters to the center of their village for class.
Definitely agree that miles makes the runner. Too many coaches make the focus of their athletes training what they see on a stop watch during a weekly track session. I once ran a long run with a kid who made it to Foot Locker regionals and was very close to the cut for nationals. He was redlining it at 6:30 pace after 10 miles. Strong kid who could rip it around the track doing 400s, but had no base. He pretty much maxed out as a Junior and never ran in college as a result of neglecting his aerobic base. Coaches need to get their kids out running base in the summer and not obsess with track sessions. More tempos and long efforts to maximize the aerobic conditioning and use the track to focus on specific endurance.
But many seem to have run to school...
My guess is that when they get identified as potential top runners, they may move into the school grounds.
My old boss spent a few weeks in Iten and saw a lot of kids walking and running to school.
didn't read the article
but I agree that aerobic development should be the primary long term goal of an athlete
high mileage is overrated though
slogging through slow miles is less efficient than cutting back the volume and focusing on running closer to the lactate threshold. many people don't understand that.
this is why someone like lagat has been good for a long time off of a relatively low mileage base
I wonder does anybody have any relvant numbers to this article?
ie how many runnuerseach of the three ereas had. Or better what is the percentage of sub 9 runners?
have shools that are at higher altitude a higher %of sub 9er
Nowadays how many sub 9 runners do not have an american passport?
How accurate would you think this article is ?
I wonder if their is more in depth research than this basic article posted.
cheers
The only major flaw in the article is the perpetuating of the myth that Coe didn't run mileage. It has been proved many times that he did indeed run mileage. What people heard at the time is low miles/high quality training. And that myth killed a decade or two of progress.
Aerobic development is absolutely necessary.
Another point is the measure of anaerobic development from tabata drills. We are limited in our anaerobic capacity and its peak only last for a few weeks and there is a myriad of ways to improve anaerobic capacity.
The key is, you will run faster with a capped anaerobic capacity once it sits upon a very large aerobic capacity.
Aerobic first and foremost.
thanks for your reply.
Since I dont know much about us high school training I would like to know more about the specifics of the 2 miler case. I find it hard to believe that every coach would have left a more Lydiard type system since Lydiard was quite popular in the US.
at the same time I really would be interested how many sub 9ners thise days have a non american passport.
Athleticsillustrated wrote:
We are limited in our anaerobic capacity
We are also limited in our aerobic capacity.
But don't let real science get in the way of you preaching bad science.
I think the best coaches are the ones who don't pretend to know the physisology, just what each individual runner they coach actually needs.
that would depend very much on the distance for a 100m runner you would be very right ;-) http://www.lactate.com/triathlon/lactate_triathlon_faster.htmlanyway your comment dosnt really answer the question scientifically so if you know what you talk about I would appreciate if you could answer the questions which are based on facts ie results and i would like to see how they came to the results.cheers
aiopsdf[aios wrote:
Athleticsillustrated wrote:We are limited in our anaerobic capacity
We are also limited in our aerobic capacity.
But don't let real science get in the way of you preaching bad science.
I think the best coaches are the ones who don't pretend to know the physisology, just what each individual runner they coach actually needs.
Aerobic capacity is limited, not something you can develop indefinitely. You are making the classic error of assuming that faster times in 'aerobic races' are due to improvements in aerobic capacity, when in fact they are due to improvements in endurance and speed endurance which are not aerobic developments but neural developments, i.e. learning how to apply ground force for longer and longer periods.
I'm not really interested in discussing how many high schoolers can run 2 miles under 9 minutes, because I believe that many many more could if they actually knew they could do it, and how to actually do it, which is a coaching problem rather than an actual ability problem or even a fitness problem.
i agree very much with the points you make in your last post.
Anyway my question has really nothing to do with training I am more interested how it was posible that their was such a drop in the 90s and if the new sub 9 runners are american and not. ie how many of the 30 sub 9 runners last year have an american passport.
And how correct would people think that article is
on which forum do high school coaches post ?
cheers
[quote]aiopsdf[aios wrote:
Aerobic capacity is limited, not something you can develop indefinitely. You are making the classic error of assuming that faster times in 'aerobic races' are due to improvements in aerobic capacity, when in fact they are due to improvements in endurance and speed endurance which are not aerobic developments but neural developments, i.e. learning how to apply ground force for longer and longer periods.
I'm assuming that by "aerobic capacity" you mean V02 max fitness not what you get from increasing mileage right?
'slogging through slow miles is less efficient than cutting back the volume and focusing on running closer to the lactate threshold. many people don't understand that.'
this is why someone like lagat has been good for a long time off of a relatively low mileage base[/quote]
The article also fails to mention that adult Kenyans do intensive work like you said nearly every day
Athleticsillustrated wrote:
The only major flaw in the article is the perpetuating of the myth that Coe didn't run mileage. It has been proved many times that he did indeed run mileage. What people heard at the time is low miles/high quality training. And that myth killed a decade or two of progress.
Aerobic development is absolutely necessary.
Another point is the measure of anaerobic development from tabata drills. We are limited in our anaerobic capacity and its peak only last for a few weeks and there is a myriad of ways to improve anaerobic capacity.
The key is, you will run faster with a capped anaerobic capacity once it sits upon a very large aerobic capacity.
Aerobic first and foremost.
It takes lots of things.
1) lifetime accumulated aerobic mileage. Yes there is a limit to aerobic development but not until you have at least 15,000 to 20,000 lifetime miles
2) must be constantly pushing out the threshold by doing lactace threshold training
3) must be constantly working on basic speed, your basic speed will limit how far you will go in the sport so you have to work on it year round.
4) speed endurance you must also be working on it year round
5) anaerobic training you have to do this too to race at your best.
a new book out I just read (youth running encyclopedia) explains all of this in detail, probably the most comprehensive training book ever about 300 pages. You mention Coe, this book talks about Coe and says he had 40,000 lifetime mile before he ran his mile PR. That is a a ton of running!