Dennis Kimetto - what are we Westerners still missing about Kenyan Marathoners?

Better PED's?

Less stringent testing??

Dr. Rosa???

He was walking around with superior genetics. Not hard to figure that one out.

Dude! wrote:

The question is - what was Dennis Kimetto doing between birth and when he broke onto the scene? Walking X miles weekly? Hard labor farming?

EPO micro doses

Long fast training runs. Western runners are still goofing

around on the their Sunday long runs in 7min/mile pace, while

the Kenyans go sub5.

This is the major difference these days.

The gap on the track is closing, while it is increasing

on the road.

Our system doesn't train marathoners. The longest distance kids race until they're 18 is the 5k. Then from 18-22 it's 10k. We're great at sprints and middle distance because that's what we train people for. Also most of our best athletes go to baseball, basketball, football, soccer,etc...

Who handles the out of competition drug testing in Kenya? Most doping is done during training periods, so it's much less likely for an athlete to get popped in a competition test. Do the East Africans have testers banging on their doors in the middle of the night for surprise controls like the top Western Europeans and Americans do?

No elite basketball player/footballer would ever perform at the top level

in marathon. Two completely disjoint talent pools.

yyy wrote:

No elite basketball player/footballer would ever perform at the top level

in marathon. Two completely disjoint talent pools.

Probably. The point is that our top talent is doing something else.

He must have been doing SOME kind of running, because he was noticed and recruited by Geoffrey Mutai. I don't think Geoffrey Mutai went up to a random farmer and told him to come be a WR marathon runner.

"Long fast training runs. Western runners are still goofing

around on the their Sunday long runs in 7min/mile pace, while

the Kenyans go sub5.

This is the major difference these days.

The gap on the track is closing, while it is increasing

on the road.

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6036003#ixzz3Ed1Dkkax

"

Who knows what the Americans are on but in order to train at that intensity you almost have to be on something. Doping is all about recovery. A clean athlete trying to do their long runs at race pace would burn all of their matches before the race.

TAA wrote:

yyy wrote:

No elite basketball player/footballer would ever perform at the top level

in marathon. Two completely disjoint talent pools.

Probably. The point is that our top talent is doing something else.

Not your marathon talent.

Marathon talent isn't really good at anything but marathons.

A1 Genetics wrote:

Not your marathon talent.

Marathon talent isn't really good at anything but marathons.

Wrong, marathon talent is great high school sports and/or veging on the couch.

There has to be something in how Dennis was raised that is the key to his recent performances. This goes beyond just talent. We gotta dissect it and find out.

For instance - the key to Daniel Komen's success was the "six miles to school in the morning and six miles back home at the end of the day, with a second round trip often squeezed into noontime." This was the aerobic base that he built for many, many years. Geb has a similar story.

I think Dennis must also have a story like this - perhaps he didn't run that much but walking and working in the farm for years might have had a positive net effect.

Please don't believe some groups of humans are superior and its just talent. There's always a back story to it all that helps explain the difference. Talent helps but not 0-3 years to 2:02.

Superior work ethic. Africans want it more. They work harder. Western athletes are soft, spoiled and lazy. They want to get rich by writing a running application for smart phones, not by training hard to be good runners.

Breathe in breathe out wrote:

A1 Genetics wrote:

Not your marathon talent.

Marathon talent isn't really good at anything but marathons.

Wrong, marathon talent is great high school sports and/or veging on the couch.

Marathon talent could DO high school sports but not excel at them.

It's hard to hide running talent.

Even if we are to assume that some talent is lost to being mediocre at other sports or to the couch at least some of it would slip through.

That hasn't happened.

yyy wrote:

No elite basketball player/footballer would ever perform at the top level

in marathon. Two completely disjoint talent pools.

No but the point is 99% of potential marathoners will go on to be mediocre at other sports instead of great at marathon running.

Even Ryan Hall was a perfectly solid basketball/baseball player (his dad played AAA baseball)... until he had a vision from God and decided to drop everything and start running.

That is how we've discovered our marathon talent in America. Random visions from God. Not a highly efficient process.

Exactly!! The nutrition part is a contributing factor as well.

The Robertson bros from NZ have this figured out. USA marathon wannabes need to move to kenya for several years as a starter. When you have 100 plus sub 210 marathoners showing up for the Tuesday afternoon fartlek run, this tells you something. And most of these guys will never have the chance to get into a 203 race field.

A1 Genetics wrote:

Marathon talent could DO high school sports but not excel at them.

It's hard to hide running talent.

Even if we are to assume that some talent is lost to being mediocre at other sports or to the couch at least some of it would slip through.

That hasn't happened.

It is VERY EASY to hide running talent and there are numbers to show it

In a typical year in the 1980's Great Britain would have nearly 200 people under 2:20... today that number would be ~5? and one is a 40 year old former fat guy

And when you get 200 guys at the elite level, the Steve Jones type talents actually show up

Even at America's peak I don't think they had as many top marathoners as Britain, and they are 5 times as big, which shows you how much worse it is possible to be at recruiting marathon talent...

PS, I see you're still changing your username to run away from your shitty reputation, Captain Obliviousness?

"Superior work ethic. Africans want it more. They work harder. Western athletes are soft, spoiled and lazy. They want to get rich by writing a running application for smart phones, not by training hard to be good runners."

That doesn't explain anything. Maybe society as a whole, but not the best athletes. You really think every single Kenyan just trains harder than Ritz, Yuki Kawauchi, Meb, or whomever and that's why none of them can break 2:07-2:08, while runner #20 in the Kenyan depth chart has a minutes faster PR? Or maybe they aren't tested as often because they live in Kenya where dope testing is likely unreliable and infrequent. Factor in sketchy western coaches looking for a paycheck and you've got yourself a pretty good setup.