ventolin^3 wrote:
Mr. Obvious wrote:Yes! objective racial stereotyping...so scientific!
no
it is the truth, even if people don't like to hear it
guys like gray/duane aren't running 1'42+ off 3'30 endurance
they have great intrinsic 400 speed & put in just about enough endurance to hang onto 1'42+
if 800 was a "glamour" event for african americans, meaning lots of background endurance work, 1'42+ woud be as commonplace amongst african-americans as 44+ is for them for 400
if caballo was running 1'43+ off alleged 15 miles/week, it's a damn certainty that african-americans with 44+ speed if they put in 30 - 40miles/week woud be running 1'42+ as a standard & commonplace
Utter rubbish.
Firstly, there is no evidence at all that suggests a 44 'African-American' could run a 1:42 with endurance work, period.
It's not a case of 400 guys just working on endurance for a couple of years and then being capable of a 1:42. Don't you think people have tried this and realised that 99% of the time it won't work. If it were that easy everyone would do it. Everett and Borle tried it, one who fits your stereotypical model and one who doesn't. Did either run 'commonplace' 1:42's?
1:42's have never been commonplace, and aren't now. Suggesting that if all 44 400 guys did a few long runs a week would make it so, is quite frankly offensive to all 800m runners.
For a 44 second 400 runner to run 'commonplace' 1:42s they would also have to be that one in a million of their kind to also possess a large amount of natural/genetic endurance in the first place. They would then need to further develop their good natural endurance, which would be to the detriment of their 400 time.
In fact the only guy capable (no one has actually achieved it) of 44 and commonplace 1:42s simultaneously, has been Rudisha. That is why he is the World record holder.
You then base a statement on a 'fact' that you cannot corroborate concerning Juantorena's mileage. There is a big clue in the word, ALLEGED. If it is only alleged then your point falls apart.
In fact there is a lot of debate over Juantorena's mileage and training, as witnessed on these boards on various occasions. He is on record as saying that he often trained 25k a day and others that he only ran 1000km a year.
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2101100&page=1You have no idea what his exact mileage was.