How did the USA make such a leap in distance running?

How did the US make this fantastic leap in such a short time?

Drugs.

people started actually running mileage again. Seriously, go back and look at some of the training books and articles from the 80s, 90s, early 00s. It's all low-volume rubbish. The flow of 9:00/4:10 HS runners closely mirrors the flow of top-level US runners. There were SEVERAL years when no HS kid broke 9min for 2mi. And that's squarely on bad training.

Lets Run Dot Com

US record at 3000/5000 is held by a guy who runs moderate mileage, roughly 1h/day training or just a bit less and 7 weeks rest/year.

1000/2000 records also achieved with moderate mileage, all remain untouched by high mileage runners.

the correct answer here is more US runners with 50 400m / 1:48 800m speed now racing the 5000 and 10000m. ie the general recognition that in distance races they hold a stopwatch not a sundial.

next and related factor is the abandonment of long slow mileage as a training approach.

third big factor is tons of east africans to set the pace and do the bulk of the work. no US records without Africans helping w pacing since Centrowitz crushed Salazar 30 years ago to run 13:10

demographics are another consideration, particularly the second baby boom. we've seen a doubling of US population since the racing days of Mills and Schul.

Fisher dominated HS distance running on 40 miles per week. most HS stars are doing moderate mileage.

A big factor in this discussion is the fall of the Europeans. Track has had a bigger fall from popularity there than even here in the states. It wasn't that many years ago when the world contenders included runners from Belgium, Portugal, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Czechs, Brits, as well as Moroccans, Algerians, many Aussies & New Zealanders, and I am missing many others. The world level is now pretty much Ethiopians, Kenyans, Americans, and just a handful of the others I mentioned.

The world stage is much different than 20 years ago.

Webb and Ritz should get a little credit.

Interesting. The western Europeans have simply given up. Drug enforcement seems to have taken the eastern Europeans down several notches.

Ohio guy wrote:

A big factor in this discussion is the fall of the Europeans. Track has had a bigger fall from popularity there than even here in the states. It wasn't that many years ago when the world contenders included runners from Belgium, Portugal, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Czechs, Brits, as well as Moroccans, Algerians, many Aussies & New Zealanders, and I am missing many others. The world level is now pretty much Ethiopians, Kenyans, Americans, and just a handful of the others I mentioned.

The world stage is much different than 20 years ago.

dsrunner wrote:

US record at 3000/5000 is held by a guy who runs moderate mileage, roughly 1h/day training or just a bit less and 7 weeks rest/year.

His times at those distances are also inferior to those set by two Ethiopians who runs high mileage...

Ohio guy wrote:

A big factor in this discussion is the fall of the Europeans. Track has had a bigger fall from popularity there than even here in the states. It wasn't that many years ago when the world contenders included runners from Belgium, Portugal, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Czechs, Brits, as well as Moroccans, Algerians, many Aussies & New Zealanders, and I am missing many others. The world level is now pretty much Ethiopians, Kenyans, Americans, and just a handful of the others I mentioned.

The world stage is much different than 20 years ago.

That is a very good observation that I hadn't considered.

Try my obviously unofficial name test.

Without taking time to think, pick a European country and quickly throw out the name of one or two of the top current male runners.

1) Ireland?

2) Italy?

3) Portugal?

As sad as it is, my answers were:

1) Coghlan, O'Sullivan, Treacy

2) Cova, Baldini

3) Lopes, Castro brothers

All these guys are from 20 years ago or more. Maybe I am just that out of touch, but it seems that Europeans now provide a guy or two to fill out a field instead of being a medal or champion contender. Europeans seem to have failed to continue to progress as distance running countries leaving a big gap in quality depth, making the big two and even the U.S. looking better.

When Webb began & ran so fast & aggressively, Americans realized the ignorantly-called "real racing" in 3:43 wouldn't win titles anymore. This was the beginning catalyst. Then Salazar was huge.

To me the really bad period was mid 80s [end of the line for guys like Sydney Maree, Craig Virgin, Pat Porter, AlSal, etc] until Kennedy emerged. And Kennedy was really a one-off - when he broke 13, no other American was under 13:10 and there were only a couple of guys under 13:20.

Kennedy breaking 13 seemed to make the statement that yes, American distance runners could be competitive with the East Africans. Doesn't mean his sub 13 exactly "caused" Webb-Ritz-Hall to happen, but I think it set a tone that got coaches setting more ambitious goals for their best athletes than they might have otherwise.

Anyway, I'll put that claim out there.

I don't have an explanation for why Western European distance running just kind of feel off a cliff. It's not just worse in relative terms than it was 25-35 years ago, it's worse in absolute terms, which seems bizarre.

One obvious claim to make is that all the top Western European distance runners were blood doping, but if it was just that, why would they have stopped [it was still pretty much undetectable when it was first banned] and why wouldn't they have switched to EPO in the early 90s?

How did the Moroccans make such a leap? How did the Spanish make such a leap? How did the Chinese women make such a leap? How did the Italians make such a leap? How did US Cycling make such a leap?

Occums' razor applied to all, except of course, our American exceptionalists.

blue sky wrote:

How did the Moroccans make such a leap? How did the Spanish make such a leap? How did the Chinese women make such a leap? How did the Italians make such a leap? How did US Cycling make such a leap?

Occums' razor applied to all, except of course, our American exceptionalists.

Yes, that is the elephant in the room. Are you suggesting the U.S. was the only country NOT doing what you are implying?

Now, they are, and look at the results when everyone is on even ground?

blue sky wrote:

How did the Moroccans make such a leap? How did the Spanish make such a leap? How did the Chinese women make such a leap? How did the Italians make such a leap? How did US Cycling make such a leap?

Occums' razor applied to all, except of course, our American exceptionalists.

If we look at US mid-d and distance running from, say, 1964 - 1976, we see a lot of success. Some of those runners posted times - Pre at 5k, Shorter and Rodgers in the marathon, Ryun in the mile - that would have put them on national teams in the 1990s. That indicates to me a significant drop off. My claim is that the US has gotten back to its trend line in distance running. Could some of the improvement be due to doping? Of course, but there's no evidence I'm aware of that Ryun, Shorter, Rodgers or Pre doped, so I don't find it suspicious that there are now American athletes who can run a bit faster than those guys did.

More talented guys entered the sport, maybe thanks to the internet. 15 years ago there was a dearth of talent (yes, Kennedy was talented, but there weren't many like him). It isn't training, because training doesn't make that much difference. It's the genetics.

dkny64 wrote:

If we look at US mid-d and distance running from, say, 1964 - 1976, we see a lot of success. Some of those runners posted times - Pre at 5k, Shorter and Rodgers in the marathon, Ryun in the mile - that would have put them on national teams in the 1990s. That indicates to me a significant drop off. My claim is that the US has gotten back to its trend line in distance running. Could some of the improvement be due to doping? Of course, but there's no evidence I'm aware of that Ryun, Shorter, Rodgers or Pre doped, so I don't find it suspicious that there are now American athletes who can run a bit faster than those guys did.

I agree with everything except "there's no evidence." I believe there is a LOT of evidence, just no public positive test results.

Your observation concerning comparison of 64-76 versus current is insightful and goes a long way in addressing the topic.

There's a lot of evidence that Ryun, Shorter, Rodgers and Pre doped? More info, please.

I think some credit goes to websites such as this one, dyestat, milesplit, flotrack, etc. Teenagers, for many years now, have the advantage of seeing real-time race results. This, in turn, provides them goals to shoot for in their training and racing, as well as their coaches improving/honing their own craft.