Coach Terrence Mahon joins BAA to coach a high performance distance running initiative ?

pbugbee wrote:

Has there been any recent chatter about what athletes will be a part of this group?

Call me crazy but I would bet on Ryan Hall. He really likes Boston, there are a lot of skinny guys that live over there so he will blend right in.

There seems to be a general assumption that he'll aim for Boston 2014 after the New York DNS - so maybe I'll see him running repeats on Comm Ave, but I doubt it!

That being said, I would like to see that...however unlikely it may be.

If Ryan Hall makes any attempt to run Boston 2014, he should fire his agent.

Stop the madness. He needs a change in stimulus.

It's an Adidas group.

Old school rocks wrote:

winter sux.. wrote:

Why would anyone want to come to the boston area to train? There are so many better places to be a distance runner.

This attitude is why the US was so much better in the 70's and 80's. Training location has very little to do with success. Take a look at that thread about Maryland marathon in the 70's and see where people lived.

Which is more important running water or dirt roads? How about medical or altitude? Yet this silly board wants Ryan Hall to train in Kenya.

Shut up and run 120-140 miles a week and quit looking for something else to be the answer. Boston is great. Flagstaff is great. Michigan is great. Boulder is great. The location is meaningless.

Shows that you are not from a northern state. If you were, you would realize that running on the roads in the winter is extremely limiting and often leads to injuries. Rodgers was able to keep his fitness up by racing as much as possible indoors, multiple events per day, sometimes multiple meets per week. Not exactly optimal.

Petrovitch wrote:

Shows that you are not from a northern state. If you were, you would realize that running on the roads in the winter is extremely limiting and often leads to injuries. Rodgers was able to keep his fitness up by racing as much as possible indoors, multiple events per day, sometimes multiple meets per week. Not exactly optimal.

Your statements about Rodgers are demonstrably false. His logs are posted on the internet and do not reflect your assertions.

Likewise, your point about road-running in the winter is also false. I live in Boston, there are plenty of places to (safely) run in the winter. No, you won't get to hit up the Arboretum or one of the reservoirs if there's snow cover, but an elite group probably isn't limited to what's out their front door for runs. I'd suspect, much like the Hansons, they'd get in some warm-weather training in the winter anyway.

I doubt they will be training within the city limits much at all unless they want to run on an indoor track.

grizz wrote:

Likewise, your point about road-running in the winter is also false. I live in Boston, there are plenty of places to (safely) run in the winter.

Not after a snowstorm. Yes you can run in a foot of snow and it's great for mental toughness but you won't get the same effects as if you lived in AZ and were hammering a 20mi tempo.

Sometimes it's good to have something that holds you back from hammering.

Bostonian wrote:

Not after a snowstorm. Yes you can run in a foot of snow and it's great for mental toughness but you won't get the same effects as if you lived in AZ and were hammering a 20mi tempo.

After the huge storm last winter that shut down the whole state, I had a clear patch of road to run within two days. What did I do on the two days without clear roads? Treadmill. I even managed to plan it so I did a workout before the storm, had two easy days on the treadmill, then a workout on the now-cleared roads. And this was after we got what, 2+ feet of snow and the whole city shut down?

Boston isn't Buffalo, which gets tons of snow every year. Boston is an ANNOYING place to train in the winter, sure- the snow doesn't tend to stick around with any significant depth, but it does get slushy and gross and windy. A pro group, though, isn't trying to squeeze in a tempo run on whatever is available in the dark after a full day of work, though. The pro group is going to drive to the best venue and do the workout when it's nice and light. And, again, I'd imagine that during the worst of the winter, they'll be away anyway. Let's stop pretending Boston is some frozen tundra from November-March, though.

professional runners don't do their 100+ mile weeks on blacktop and not get hurt. yes, you and your recreational friends can feel good and tough roughing it in the winter when it is 5 degrees out and you are running on a cleared road just after it has snowed but that doesn't cut it for professional runners competing against other pros who are training in warm places during the winter. let's stop pretending that what is acceptable for running hobbyists is ideal for professionals. it's not and every time someone writes one of the "it makes you tougher" or "they plow the roads well here" posts doesn't change that fact. you now may carry on with your recreational activities.

Again, numerous sub 2:10 marathon runners have trained around Boston in the past. World class Finns trained in Finland during the winter. Some years back, Knut Kvalheim had a post here about Norweigan runners in the 70s, when they had some word class guys and how they did a lot of miles through the winter but at relatively slow paces because the footing wasn't all that good. That was probably the best era ever in Norweigan distance running. If the US as a nation had guys running what the GBTC marathoners were doing in the 70s and 80s we'd be better than we are now.

But, as grizz and a few others have pointed out, it's almost certainly a moot point because if adidas is behind this group and it's truly elite they will probably spend much of the winter somewhere else anyway.

math nerdster wrote:

professional runners don't do their 100+ mile weeks on blacktop and not get hurt. yes, you and your recreational friends can feel good and tough roughing it in the winter when it is 5 degrees out and you are running on a cleared road just after it has snowed but that doesn't cut it for professional runners competing against other pros who are training in warm places during the winter. let's stop pretending that what is acceptable for running hobbyists is ideal for professionals. it's not and every time someone writes one of the "it makes you tougher" or "they plow the roads well here" posts doesn't change that fact. you now may carry on with your recreational activities.

This thread has now become completely idiotic.

math nerdster wrote:

professional runners don't do their 100+ mile weeks on blacktop and not get hurt. yes, you and your recreational friends can feel good and tough roughing it in the winter when it is 5 degrees out and you are running on a cleared road just after it has snowed but that doesn't cut it for professional runners competing against other pros who are training in warm places during the winter. let's stop pretending that what is acceptable for running hobbyists is ideal for professionals. it's not and every time someone writes one of the "it makes you tougher" or "they plow the roads well here" posts doesn't change that fact. you now may carry on with your recreational activities.

I'm not trying to say Boston is an ideal place to train, or that the winter is nice here. It isn't. Nor am I trying to say running on bad roads makes you "tough."

I just don't think the winter in Boston is the huge disadvantage, either. It gets cold and snowy in lots of places in the winter- this includes most altitude locations in the US. Like I've said multiple times, my guess is the elite group won't be around during the very worst of the winter- which in Boston isn't that long. Boston isn't like Northern Maine or Upstate NY, where the winters are just awful for 4 or 5 months a year.

There aren't a lot of "perfect" weather locations in the US. In Oregon, it's chilly and rainy and depressing as all get-out during the winters. The Midwest, the Rockies, and the Northeast all have cold, snowy winters. The South is a humid hellhouse for the summer. Yes, Southern California has a great climate... but you don't need perfect weather every single day to be a good runner. Hell, in Kenya, during the monsoon season, the roads get churned to mud and training becomes very difficult.

Boston is fine to run in most of the year, especially when you're not trying to squeeze in a run in the dark after a day at work. Is it perfect? Of course not. On the other hand, it's a city with a good running community, lots of racing, and a major, easily accessible airport. When it isn't snowbound (that is, for about 10 months of the year) it's pretty easy to drive out to trails at Walden or Blue Hills or any number of places to get off the roads. There are a lot more part-time jobs (for the athletes elite enough to join the group, but who nonetheless need to work) in the Boston area than a remote mountain town, which is good.

If a group in California wants to hire an elite coach and get a group together, great! I wish there were more groups out there offering that kind of support. But while location and climate is important, neither is the last word. Besides, the premise that somehow Mahon's group will be forced to stay in Boston city limits during the worst of the winter is ridiculous anyway. Many pro groups get away in the winter for nicer weather. Hell, didn't Rowbury and Manzano go to Mexico in the winters, even though their training bases were in Texas and San Fransisco?

grizz wrote:

Yes, Southern California has a great climate... but you don't need perfect weather every single day to be a good runner.

Between California, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, you will find a place to train anytime of the year within relatively close proximity (like 2 flight hours), whether you want to run at altitude or not.

Can't say the same about the east/north east.

This isn't the 1980's anymore where 2:09 wins just about any marathon. You need a perfect buildup to be able to compete.

HRE wrote:

Again, numerous sub 2:10 marathon runners have trained around Boston in the past. World class Finns trained in Finland during the winter. Some years back, Knut Kvalheim had a post here about Norweigan runners in the 70s, when they had some word class guys and how they did a lot of miles through the winter but at relatively slow paces because the footing wasn't all that good. That was probably the best era ever in Norweigan distance running. If the US as a nation had guys running what the GBTC marathoners were doing in the 70s and 80s we'd be better than we are now.

But, as grizz and a few others have pointed out, it's almost certainly a moot point because if adidas is behind this group and it's truly elite they will probably spend much of the winter somewhere else anyway.

again, your poster boy for boston training, bill rodgers, has a PR of 2:09:27. considering the fact that only 17 (i think that is the most up-to-date number) american men have broken 2:10 and almost all of them were not training around boston, your claim is categorically false. even if it were true, who cares? 2:09 in today's world of marathoning is an afterthought. how many people have ever heard of jerry lawson or david morris and how much do you think they made in their careers? coming in 7th overall as the top american at boston or nyc isn't exactly killing it.

citing what fins and norwegians did in the past while training in the tundra likewise is preposterous. the finish marathon record is 2:10:46. the norwegian marathon record is 2:10:17. so, yeah, if training to run a 2:12 in the marathon and one day running 2:10 is your goal, then knock yourself out training in some cold weather place. everyone else looking to run faster (which is where the elites now are) is training in warmer places but i am sure you will make a lot of money running a bunch of 2:12s while maybe cracking the top 10 at the marathon majors. good luck with that and buy your shovels now before pricing go up next month!

Nutella1 wrote:

Between California, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, you will find a place to train anytime of the year within relatively close proximity (like 2 flight hours), whether you want to run at altitude or not.

Can't say the same about the east/north east.

Two hours FLYING is now the qualifier for good weather proximity? Ok, Boston is about 2 flight hours from North Carolina and maybe 3ish from Jacksonville, FL. If a "good" training spot has to be within a few hours FLIGHT from a nice winter weather, Boston qualifies easily. But since two hours flight is ridiculous, I'm going to assume we're not having a serious discussion.

Besides, if some group in the Southwest wants to hire a pro coach and get a group going, more power to them. First the board complains elite running gets no support, then when a well-established track club hires an elite coach to get something more serious and formal going, it's all wahh wahh, the city is wrong.

Team USA Monterrey Bay enjoyed perfect weather and a great coach in Bob Sevene, and yet produced no 2:06 guys or track medalists. The Farm Team in sunny, temperate Palo Alto had some success, but still no 2:06 guys or track medalists. Mahon had previously coached in Southern California and has had success- but I submit that it was the combination of coaching and the right athletes, not the Californian weather, that deserve the larger share of the credit.

What are the anti-Bostonian arguments here? That the BAA shouldn't have even bothered because Boston has a winter? And how come none of the anti-Bostonian arguments have touched on the fact that the athletes could GO SOMEWHERE ELSE for two months for warm-weather training? You know, like the Hansons group, or like when Shannon Rowbury left San Francisco for Mexico, or any number of other athletes.

Let's stop pretending they will be in Boston during the winter. It's a Boston-based group, that doesn't mean they are chained there 12 months a year - they probably won't even be there for than 6 months.

It's obviously all about the funding source and the BAA wants to support an elite group!

If being somewhere warm is necessary for being really fast, given that we have most of our top people in warm locations, why have so few run faster than guys Squires was coaching? Yeah, if we had armies of 2:08 or better guys all living in San Diego or Tucson you might be on to something. But we don't and anyway, it's a moot point. What part of "as an elite group with backing from adidas these guys will almost certainly be training someplace warmer than Boston during the winter" are you having a hard time understanding?