Ryan Hall eliminated JUNK MILEAGE

Strange question wrote:

What´s Seb Coe´s time for the marathon? How fast is David Rudisha running the marathon? They don´t care, we don´t care.

Lagat´s all quality miles are just perfect for him to run great middle distance races, not the perfect marathon.

Do you really care about a marathon while you train for a good 3k race?

He made that comment in reference to Antonio Cabral comparing lagat's training to ryan hall's training

Look

Each runner got different talent.

I named Geb, Bekele, Lagat because the re the world very best. But i also named Steve Moneghetti of a different low level of category as i can name some Joe a 15:00pb 5k runner that did perform many times over many seasons from 15:00pb to 15:15.

There´s a choice and a decision to be taken. Or you want to reach your personal best, you want to reach your top performance once or twice in a lifetime or you want to stay closer to your best as long as possible.

Then you need to train according to your short term or long term goal. The problem is when - like Ryan Hall - that when he moved to the track his training approach was to quickly brief success, and now he wants something he lost in the process.

Why did he moves from one coach to self coach to the attempt to try Renato, to be self coached once again ? Because his training formula doesn´t work no more to as did in the past. Nor his past training formula nor his actual neither his future training , be it what will be. And of course the questions is not about junk mileage versus rich training whatsoever.

This is the main point we need to understand about his training. All the rest is marketing, self promotion, propaganda, the attempt to make profits.

Did you ever consider that wikipedia might not be an accurate source of information ?

What is the defining difference in training long term or short term you are referring to?

How to reach quick success, how to reach long term success?

Is is just mileage, intensity or the general 'burnout' thing when you spend every hour of the day training in some way for a given period of time like 2 runs per day and then sone weights and then some stretching and then some core work...which leads to a point where your body had enough?

I assume that you understood (and you agree) that as we go back in history, the marathons were wrong measured, inaccurate measured, measured with a old method that did result in shorter to what was today.

This is the main reason why Ron marathon pb is from 69. However he did great marathon results after 72, and i insist, with less training to what he used to do from early career up to 72 olympics.

By "delay" i don´t want to mean simply extend. I want to mean to extend the career but also to extend the career by replicate, by repeat, by approach the high level of performance for a long period.

Someone can extend his career but late part is jut performance decline, but other one can extend his career maintaining the same level of high performances he reached once, or ever get better performances.

Just think about Carlos Lopes, the example i know by memory. He did progress his own 10000m pb every new season from 22years old , start with 29:12 and finish in 84 with 27:17. With 25 years (1972) old he was eliminated from the heats in the Olympics. 4 years later he did win the World Cross Country, and was 2nd in the 10000m in the 76 Olympics an did 27:42 pb in 10000m. In the year of 84, he did win the World Cross country once again, did beat the10000m world record of Henry Rono with 27:17, simply he did win that run, and late season did win the marathon in the Olympics. All this with 36 years old. One year later, in 1984, with 37 years old he did win the World Cross country once again, and the break the marathon world record in 2h07:12. This is what i name career extend by sustained performance progress that i name "delay" (sorry if that is not the right meaning of the word delay).

I keep with my idea be what you say or what i say about Ron Hill training. Ron Hill is one runner i admire, due to his character and run achievements, but i think he did train wrong. He did train the way it was in fashion at that period as marathon training, that is basically to run mileage mostly done by continuous runs but fast, most daily runs faster that the individual marathon pb, and might be some interval quarters as you say 10X400m. Clayton did that too, and some others from that period. I guess they would achieve better results with different training, better training in my opinion.

I did talk personally with Ron Hill in 75 precisely, and he told me at that point after 72 he gave up to run twice a day, because he got no time or interest.

I´m a testimony that during the period he was here in Lisbon-Portugal in 75, he did train just once per day, some 45min - again fast pace as his marathon pb.

The Africans will drop him at 25km.

Antonio. Geb first came to prominence in 1994, he ran his best times for both 5000m and 10000m way back in 1998. He never approached those times again until one single fast 10000m race in 03, still 7 secs off his best.

He later ran some fast times on the road but I'm sure you would agree 58.55 and 2.03.59 are very, very far behind 12.39 and 26.22 as performances.

Bekele first broke 13 and 27 in 2003. His fastest times were run in 04 and 05.

He too only once more got close to those times, a one off 10000m performance in 08 that was still 8 secs off his best.

Lagat ran 3.30 in 99, 3.28 in 2000, 3.26 in 2001, 3.27 in 2002 and again in 2004 but couldn't break 3.29 in 05 or 06. He has had a long career but has never approached that 2001 performance again.

My countryman Steve Moneghetti was patiently guided by Rab Wardlaw. He ran his first marathon in 1986, medalling at the CG. His next was a 4th at the WC in Rome in 87, then a 5th in the OG in 88, a 2d in 89 London then ran his all time best in 89 at Berlin. He continued to run good marathons right through until his 10th place at the 2000 Olympics but he never again ran as fast as he did in 1989.

All 4 of these guys ran their fastest performances early in their careers.

I agree that SOME marathon courses in the 60s and 70s were measured incorrectly. I don't believe all of them were. We could send a man to the moon back then. I don't think it was beyond our capability to measure a stretch of road accurately. And why is it that when people talk about mismeasured courses in the past they always decide the courses were short? If you measure something incorrectly there is as good a chance you'll make it too long as there is that you'll make it too short. The London Marathon began as the Highgate Marathon. It was measured incorrectly for its first running and ended up being three miles LONG. I remember a 10 mile race on an inaccurately measured course that was later found to be 10.6 miles and a five mile race on an inaccurate course that was later found to be 4.4 miles. Inaccuracy cuts both ways.

Lopes certainly had an amazing career and that's a good illustration of what you're saying. Thanks. As to Hill, I can only think that you misunderstood his comment about running once a day because he has been so clear in so many interviews and in two talks I've had with him that he ran twice a day EVERY day for 26.2 years.

Could he have trained better and been more successful? He's said that he didn't get it right for Munich so the obvious answer is yes. But he changed what he had done throughout his career for Munich. In general, when you say that someone trained incorrectly you're implying that you know more than that person does or did and have something to teach the person. If you're talking about someone who has had the success of a Hill or a Hall, etc., I think that's really arrogant unless you've either had comparable success yourself or coached others to that kind of success.

I think current runners and coaches would do better trying to learn from someone like Hill than thinking about what they could teach him. Assuming that today we really do know what was incorrect about his training we're left with the question of why his performances even after forty plus years are better than all but a handful of western runners.

HRE wrote:

I think current runners and coaches would do better trying to learn from someone like Hill than thinking about what they could teach him. Assuming that today we really do know what was incorrect about his training we're left with the question of why his performances even after forty plus years are better than all but a handful of western runners.

This is a good point. I personally look to the top athletes to see what they do, not to critique what they do. The top athletes are good because they have a good program and the genes the rest of us wish we had. We may not have the genes, but by learning from their program and adapting it to our own abilities and individuality we can reach our (genetically limited) potential.

i gotta chime in here.

from afar, when i heard solinsky talk about the way he trained daily i had to cringe. he was an AR and an injury waiting to happen.

and then there is wheating, he was brought along perfectly and then they went nuts in europe pushing the envelope. you know a full college season and a full european season back to back. WTF?

ritz training seems fine,his attitude seems fine, he's lucky to have come back and hit the 5k AR and then bounce back to the marathon. i think the guy is truely injury prone and he might thank his lucky stars that he's still a factor.

lopes should have had a gold in the 10k against the cheat viren. the next OG, lopes was suspicions not before, as were many europeans resorting to blood doping.

levins pushed the envelop running the long college season, then going to europe and the OG. then stupidly running both the 5 and 10k. while sick. you are asking for big trouble doing this.

webb, i am not sure, but there were reports about a haphazard diet, pizza galore, if true, well that's dumb.

but what was extra dumb, is not recovering and again pushing the envelop waaaaaaay too far. like with a 10k very hard while preparing for a high octane 800 and 1500m later on.

the guys past and present make the same mistakes over and over. they push it too hard, they don't study how to recover.

people should look at horse racing, the trainers know very well how to destroy a horse. run them too hard and too often.

the science now is to run as much as you can at your race pace while recovering sufficiently. you want to work as hard on recovering as you do training.

as far as training goes back in the day, guys would to so much crazy stuff. like a big diet of 40x200m when you are a 5k guy. or 100 miles at mostly 6 minute pace when you were a 800m guy. WTF? Then there were guys that took it to the other extreme, that ran a marathon every day in preparation for the marathon. Jeff Julian and others thought this was a good idea.

in training, maybe there should be a rule that you not run more than 65 percent of your distance at race pace in training.

Antonio Cabral wrote:

Did you ever consider that wikipedia might not be an accurate source of information ?

Yes, but I consider Ron Hill's autobiographies as accurate sources of information.

Orlando Souza wrote:

There;s lot of reasons..?

Change distance, race.. ALSO.. change JUICE.. .

So you have apple juice for breakfast instead of orange juice, and that works? Wow.

NotAustin18 wrote:

jjjjjjjjj wrote:

People bragging about performances on limited mileage would do far, far better on higher mileage in most cases. Why limit your potential?

What if someone has tried the high mileage(more than once) and it only made them slower(like it did for me)?

If you only ran 100 miles twice in your life, you never

ran high mileage.

It depends on the distance. Like if you're training for a 1500m, you're going to have plenty of sessions with more than race distance at race pace in training like the classic 10 x 400m workout. In a marathon though 12-15 mile marathon pace tempo is the most the pros tend to do.

And sure everyone makes mistakes, even the elites, but there is still a lot that can be learned from them. When you want to get good at something you look at what the best do, not what the mediocore do. I have a friend in Alabama, all the schools in his district during xc season do an all out 5 every day in training because its "Event specific" as his coach says. My friend asked why don't they save racing for race day and train smarter, and his coach said "everyone good from around here trains this way." That is the problem when you don't look at what the best do, you look at what the people around you do, and they're often times not elite. If you want to learn how to build a base during the summer for HS xc, do you look at average joe varsity 17 flat 5k, or do you look at what some of the elite sub 15 5k guys from last season did? You look at the elites.

longjack wrote:

lopes should have had a gold in the 10k against the "alleged" cheat viren.

I fixed your post.

Wrong. Ron Hill's PB is from 1970 at the Commonwealth Games marathon:

Although Ron ran well, he was no longer able to run at the same level as he was prior to 1972 when he was training harder in terms of intensity and volume. As you have brought up the issue of the innaccuracy of marathon courses we can look at the marathons that Ron Hill ran over the same course to make things more comparable. For example the Boston Marathon:

In 1970 Ron Hill won the race in 2 h 10 mins 30 secs. In the 1975 Boston Marathon Ron Hill finished 5th behind the winner Bill Rodgers in a time of 2 h 13 mins 28 secs, 3 mins slower than he was in 1970. Furthermore the weather conditions for the Boston marathon in 1975 were very favourable in 1975 with a tailwind most of the way. Ron Hill noted in his autobiography that it was a day to run 2h 07 mins if there ever was one.

As HRE has implied, it is one of the easiest things in the world to just say that any athlete's training is "wrong". However, coming up with or undertaking a training plan that actually produces better race results is infinitely harder. Ron Hill had a long career at the top and won medals in every major championship he could run in except for the Olympics. His marathon times run 40 years ago match up well with the best that European runners are able to produce today.

This is not consistent with what is written in Ron Hill's autobiography, "The Long Hard Road". Ron would still have been running twice per day except for Sundays in 1975. This webpage is a good detail of Ron Hill's career to keep you up to speed:

You got a incorrect understand what i say.

When i say high level of lenght performance "delay" (or extend) by operformnce i don´t mean just pb´s. I mean also titles, championships, the better classifications of his career.

On that my classification both Bekele and Gebre they were able to be in several olympics, W champs, Continental champs, indoor and outdoor, the case of Bekele don´t forget that he was unbeatable in the world cross country both short and long run version, for some 7 seasons, and also could combine that with strong perfromnces in 3000m, 5000m, 10000m, a few road runs wins, and later Gebre did move to the HM (where he beats the world record) and even later to the marathon where he did beat the marathon WR. All this isn some 15 years old distance. Gebre as well as Bekele did collect world records and wins in the major world competitions during some 10 years. Conclusion. They were at their best, or near they best more than one decade. this aren´t people of one single astonish result as Ryan Hall was.

Also when i say performance extend at the top, i consider the performances that the runner does moving up in the distance.

How many times Solinsky did run the 10000m and from that how many times he did closer to the 26:57 he did ? Hoe many times Ryan Hall did something closer to his HM sub 60mins ???? This are occasional performers related with Steve Monegetti or Carlos Lopes.

Thanks. If it´s true what you say this proves my comment that not everything that is writtent ion the intrenet is true. But i add, neither what is written in books or autobiographies whatsover is.

What really matters what Ron says in his 2 books. I´ve seen him training or 2 weeks and he just did 45min once a day.

He also told me that was his intention to do this, but of course this is no prove for you or the others but it´s for me.

HRE

Out of every opinion if you search the "old" legal process of measurement of road runs (that includes the marathon) and the actual one ( i can´t be precise but is from 80s when that was implemented with new criteria) there you will understand that by IAAF rules all past marathons (from the 70s back) where different measured and shorter than the actual ones.

I guess you did understood. I don´t say exceptions, i say that by the norm/rule all ast marathons were shorter.

Apart other details that is very extend to write here, the main reason is that in the past the rule says to measure 2 meters distance from the right side of the road and from the 80s to the actuality the rule says to measure along the short-best distance possible. This change makes all the marathons (and other road runs) with curves longer that they were on the past., by the old norm.

You say "I think that's really arrogant unless you've either had comparable success yourself or coached others to that kind of success".

Despite what you might think i guess is as arrogant to think that he did train wrong as someone that thinks he trains right.

This is in what i diverge from you.

In my sincere opinion it´s not the performance that judges the training, if it´s right or wrong. If i taught that your way i will consider that you ever did train wrong and Ron Hill wright, but i don´t, i open the chance that you, a poorest performer that Ron, you might train better than him. All it depends of what is the individual talent of someone, and how he could ( or don´t) maximise his own potential. I open the possibility, that you, a average performer you did train better that Ron Hill. There might be as arrogant to consider wrong the Ron Hill Training as consider your training right. Of course right or wrong are adjectives and as adjectives that is subjective. What for me can be right, for you can be wrong, and vice versa.

As everything is life and in democracy or in the comments, everything might pass by individual scrutiny. I speak my myself and i guess you also spek by your own head, and nothing and no one is immaculate to be out of individual judgement, and if you think deeply, you do the same that me. Simply we are in opposed poles, you say "it´s hard to admit that is wrong" and i say "despite the success i don´t think is so right as that".

Finally, nothing is perfect or closer to perfection, so everything is plausible to comment.