Why is Zerseney Tadese so bad at the marathon???

Perhaps he is not in 58:xx shape anymore.

Or perhaps he has abnormally strong lactate shuttling and buffering that allows him to sustain a steady-state at extraordinarily fast speeds for about an hour, but this shuttling/buffering compensates for an inability to sustain a truly aerobic steady state for 2+ hours.

Or perhaps he has very poor muscle glycogen storage.

What did he run yesterday? Did he even finish?

Rockgip wrote:

What did he run yesterday? Did he even finish?

dnf

Rockgip wrote:

What did he run yesterday? Did he even finish?

Looks like a DNF.

don't get it wrote:

How can a guy with the 10k and half-marathon credentials that Z. Tadese has be so bad at the marathon? You would think that with a HM PB of 58:xx, going through halfway of a marathon in 62-64 minutes would be a walk in the park for him, and that he should have plenty left for the second half of the race. Yet he's consistently under-performed in the full marathon distance.

Just seems so odd to me.

I'm not sure but I am sure of one thing, he and his coach have no idea what they're doing and all the informed at Let's Run can sort this problem out for him in a jiffy.

fdsafasdf wrote:

Perhaps he is not in 58:xx shape anymore.

Or perhaps he has abnormally strong lactate shuttling and buffering that allows him to sustain a steady-state at extraordinarily fast speeds for about an hour, but this shuttling/buffering compensates for an inability to sustain a truly aerobic steady state for 2+ hours.

Or perhaps he has very poor muscle glycogen storage.

This. For whatever different reason, some runners just don't translate to the marathon.

His coach posted on here a few years ago and generously gave details of their training.

Perhaps the training, aimed at high energy use through the half marathon distance, is not as appropriate for the marathon, where conservation of energy is much more important.

He doesn't want it.

Yup, you got it.All this blah blah blah poor glycogen etc cr@p others are spewing misses the whole point...

seriousIy wrote:

He doesn't want it.

Tadese needs to listen to the Nate Jenkins podcast put out the other day. Jenkins talks about how these high level runners at shorter distances do the marathon, bonk hard or DNF and then just blame it on "the marathon" when they really didn't do enough marathon specific workouts to train the body to conserve glycogen to make it through the greater part of the marathon distance with the inherently limited amount stored in the body. It just seems like Tadese loses it every time the bonk begins due to not training the applicable energy systems. Being a speed-based athlete he really needs to regularly do those workouts and runs that force the body to use fat for fuel. If I had to guess, this is what's missing from his training regimen and not much will change at the marathon distance until that is remedied.

ball zach wrote:

Tadese needs to listen to the Nate Jenkins podcast put out the other day. Jenkins talks about how these high level runners at shorter distances do the marathon, bonk hard or DNF and then just blame it on "the marathon" when they really didn't do enough marathon specific workouts to train the body to conserve glycogen to make it through the greater part of the marathon distance with the inherently limited amount stored in the body. It just seems like Tadese loses it every time the bonk begins due to not training the applicable energy systems. Being a speed-based athlete he really needs to regularly do those workouts and runs that force the body to use fat for fuel. If I had to guess, this is what's missing from his training regimen and not much will change at the marathon distance until that is remedied.

Do you really think Tadesse´s coach is a complete idiot? It´s not like modern marathon training techniques are a well kept secret. He has sucked in the marathon for years.

I can relate to this myself. I´ve run a 1,08 HM, but I´ve failed to break 2,30 in the marathon despite doing everything by the book: 170-180 km/week at an easy pace. Long tempos, lots of MP runs and no "anaerobic" training.

don't get it wrote:

How can a guy with the 10k and half-marathon credentials that Z. Tadese has be so bad at the marathon? You would think that with a HM PB of 58:xx, going through halfway of a marathon in 62-64 minutes would be a walk in the park for him, and that he should have plenty left for the second half of the race. Yet he's consistently under-performed in the full marathon distance.

Just seems so odd to me.

Is it any odder than the founder of this site running a 28:06 and not being able to run sub 2:15? History is littered with guys that run fast 10k/hm but never run anywhere close to that in the marathon. Some of it might be poor training but I am guessing most of it is that people just have ideal distances. If I had to guess the good shorter distance guys are aerobic monsters while the better marathoners are slightly more efficient.

Wouldn't "anaerobic" training help you as you get closer to the finish line? I don't understand why you would avoid it altogether. But whatever the case, it would be good if you could post one of your training logs of your 2:30+ efforts. I'd be really curious to see if anything jumps out at anyone here. Clearly you should have been good for 2:26-28.

Re: ZT, I think once and for all Geb proved that if you can excel at the shorter distances you can do well at the longer ones.

To run a marathon well, you need to have the physiological abilities to run well for the specific distance as well as the mentality.

Even if he burns fuel at a rapid rate, there's no reason for him not to at least run in the 2:06-2:08 range. Maybe he doesn't have a lot of patience or that persistent stubbornness you need for the marathon. Or he might not be able handle the slow but ever increasing burn the distance brings.

Tadese still runs a lot of halfs and still wins some pretty big ones. I wonder whether he ever really went all in with his marathon training. It has always seemed as though he just shows up at marathons to collect the appearance fees and then drops out in time to save his legs to race a half in a month or two.

MarathonMind wrote:

Wouldn't "anaerobic" training help you as you get closer to the finish line? I don't understand why you would avoid it altogether. But whatever the case, it would be good if you could post one of your training logs of your 2:30+ efforts. I'd be really curious to see if anything jumps out at anyone here. Clearly you should have been good for 2:26-28.

Re: ZT, I think once and for all Geb proved that if you can excel at the shorter distances you can do well at the longer ones.

I know that "anaerobic" training can mean a lot of things. I´m talking about "400s until you puke" type of workouts (generally faster than 3k pace).

I never run faster than 5k pace during marathon specific training (except for strides).

what is a half marathon?

Well said. For the inverse, just look at the career of Dick Beardsley. A sub 2:09 marathoner who NEVER broke 29:00 for 10,000. On paper, at least, with that kind of 10K performance there should've been NO WAY that he was able to run what he did in the marathon. But for that lack of speed in the 10K, he could translate that into phenomenal endurance on the back half of the marathon where other, faster runners would start to bonk.

He's better at shorter distances