Renato Canova slamming American marathoners?

I'm amazed that nobody picked out the line about him saying Ryan Vail has sub 2:07 potential and should focus on Rio. I recall seeing him in a flotrack video leading up to the trials, anyone know if he is training with a group?

Thanks a lot for the replies, Renato. I actually find them inspiring, not just informative.

PS - Ritzenhein has stated he has some interest in running the World Championships marathon in 2015. Money doesn't rule, especially when you already have good sponsors. (And there IS prize money at WC's, just not appearance money.) We'll see what happens.

Not a Coach wrote:

domestic pro wrote:

having lived and trained at sea-level and altitude for years at a time i feel very strongly that it's not possible to compete at the top in the marathon without living around 6500'-8000'.

There was a Danish study in 2000 that summized that while there was an advantage to living at altitude in the short-term, there was no advantage to living at altitude year round.

There's a documentary about in on youtube. Thhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTQVHZU4WzE

Do you happen to have a link to the actual study? It'd be interesting to read, versus watching a documentary that is dumbed down so that more people can understand it.

Also, that assessment does not fit in with my experience at all. It takes me about 3-4 weeks to adjust to living at about 6500' while also training at 2000' - 9000'. The first few weeks I'm a wreck and my training is horrible. I don't know if this is a common train of super-responders to altitude, or if everybody is different. Once adapted though, the gains start coming on quick and tend to tail off after about 6 months.

In my actual experience, at the end of that six months not only does my lactate clearance become superhuman compared to the lowlander version of myself, but my VO2 max increases by about 8%, AND even more importantly the percentage of my VO2 max I can sustain for longer durations increases.

At that point I am a completely different animal, like an elite woman who suddenly has the capacities of an elite man 6 months later.

The problem I run into is that there is only about a six month period where I can live and train at altitude before it's just too damn cold to train up there, and driving down the mountain every single day isn't realistic, so the training suffers significantly. And when it gets really cold I have a lot more trouble staying lean, so I end up putting on 5 pounds that I then have to end up losing at some point when the next season rolls around. Having to lose that 5 pounds might be easy for someone that is 19, but it gets harder every year and it does cut into the quality of training when I'm losing that weight again.

What ends up happening is I move back down the mountain for the cold months and end up losing those gains in lactate clearance, VO2 max, and the percentage of VO2 max I can sustain goes down. That all adds up to me training at significantly slower paces.

It's a vicious cycle, and it typically allows me to only be super fit, relative to what I now know I can do, for about 1 month of the year. And if I get sick during that one month of the year...

Again, maybe I'm a rare super-responder to altitude, but somehow I doubt there aren't many more in the US, who through good fortune of genetics, respond similarly to altitude and really transform. But when you constantly take 2 steps forward and 2 steps back, you never come even with those who were 3 steps ahead to begin with. That means the fitness is never there to be able to take part in the tactics that go into winning major races; you are just trying to minimize the gap, like the US runners did in the Marathon at these World Championships.

yyz wrote:

I'm amazed that nobody picked out the line about him saying Ryan Vail has sub 2:07 potential and should focus on Rio. I recall seeing him in a flotrack video leading up to the trials, anyone know if he is training with a group?

I agree. Also, Rupp should look to move to the marathon after next year. He could gun for 5,000 and 10,000 PRs next year, maybe dabble with the marathon, but really gear up for it so that he's ready to go by 2016.

It's hard to believe the Japanese guy Yuki has run 2:08 high, with 10k times a lap back from some of our best track guys. Canova says how we need to first remove that thought of the 10k to marathon relation. Very interesting perspective.

yyz wrote:

It's hard to believe the Japanese guy Yuki has run 2:08 high, with 10k times a lap back from some of our best track guys. Canova says how we need to first remove that thought of the 10k to marathon relation. Very interesting perspective.

Indeed, and one I find inspiring. Heck, what kind of 5k/10k speed do you really need to run the 2:18 Olympic Trials standard? 31:00 enough? 32:00?

Don't mess with 'Merica..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnUgAaea4M

Bump because someone else was asking about this in the "What are Americans missing in marathon training" thread and Renato has posts on that topic on pages 2 and 3.