David Torrence Stands by His Bernard Lagat Comments

normalcy wrote:

Lagat did not test positive for EPO and there were many more experts that came to the conclusion documented in the report besides just Saugy.

Don't feed "smile." He's a troll.

EAJck wrote:

one word all uppercase wrote:

Exactly. goin craaazy is just a pathetic troll.

WE ARE TELLING YOU what we know and heard. You won't take it. Time will tell. DT is not the main person with evidence on Lagat. He just opened the publics eyes a little with a small dose of what the elite world already knows.

You aren't providing any support, just claiming he failed a test in 2008 and it was covered up. That's practically no information at all. Lagat could very well be cheating, and if it is I hope he is caught, but that doesn't make David's comments wise or gutsy.

new here? wrote:

normalcy wrote:

Lagat did not test positive for EPO and there were many more experts that came to the conclusion documented in the report besides just Saugy.

Don't feed "smile." He's a troll.

Hilarious. You must be new here.

The only trolls in this thread are the few dweebs posting under multiple handles in a circle jerk of David Torrence bashing.

Now quick, reply to this post under yet another sock puppet account.

smile wrote:

new here? wrote:

Don't feed "smile." He's a troll.

Hilarious. You must be new here.

The only trolls in this thread are the few dweebs posting under multiple handles in a circle jerk of David Torrence bashing.

Now quick, reply to this post under yet another sock puppet account.

I'll take the bait. I'm not new here, and I very much agree with the people "bashing Torrence." I'm sure there are people posting under multiple usernames, but I think it's fair to say that's happening on both sides of the issue. It's also likely that there are more than a handful of people who think Torrence is wrong, and therefore more than a handful of usernames "bashing Torrence."

Also, when you say "now go ahead and post again under a different name," that means anyone who subsequently disagrees with you is automatically a fake username fool, right? You're so smart.

Finally, just so I'm contributing something of substance here -- I already shared my thoughts on this issue in a different thread (right when it happened). I'll just copy and paste it below:

I get where Torrence is coming from here, but I still think it is foolish and irresponsible to act the way he is acting.

Sure, he is suspicious of Lagat's failed A sample 13 years ago. I think there is reason to be suspicious. Sure, he likes Ben True and wishes he had made the team. Totally fair.

But as a professional T&F athlete, you have to know that your words and accusations have a reverberative effect that is much larger than the words and accusations of your typical anonymous LRC poster. What you say has a direct impact on the way T&F fans view other runners. By saying things like this, David is ensuring that a certain percentage of fans will now view Lagat in a different way, and certainly a less positive way. No way around this. And unless you have really solid evidence to support your accusations, I don't think that is a fair thing to do to another athlete.

T&F athletes are not millionaires. The respect and admiration of fans is one of the primary reasons they do what they do. And for David to compromise that is totally irresponsible unless he has information that the rest of us don't have.

David lost a fan today.

I gave objective information in the post about the false positive test for Bernard Lagat in 2003, and why it should not be used as evidence of doping by Bernard Lagat.

I understand the legitimate suspicions of "Lagat is too fast at age 41" and "too good to be true". The exact same argument can also be made for Bernard Lagat at age 26 when he ran 3:26.34.

The problem is that Bernard Lagat has been "too fast and too good to be true" for a really long time now. I do not think anyone can prove he has been doping this entire time or that he has been clean this entire time. There is no objective evidence of doping. Coach James Li has never been implicated in anything regarding doping. In contrast, David Torrence has had Jama Aden as his coach in the past. That coach is now implicated in doping.

Here is some subjective information from me on Bernard Lagat:

I have seen many world class runners in person doing workouts on the track or that go by me on the trails here. I have never seen Kenenisa Bekele run in person. If he ever comes to Flagstaff…I will be there to watch him run in person.

I have seen Bernard Lagat close races with a 25 second 200m for 17 years. I have seen Bernard Lagat finish workouts with 25 second 200m repeats. Bernard Lagat practices finishing with a 25 second last 200m.

I have also run (slowly) with Bernard. I have seen his son Miika at some of his workouts. Nobody has ever run by my house at a faster pace than Bernard Lagat. He is absolutely incredible. (I may also be biased.)

The only thing that stood out to me physically was that his calves were more muscular than other great runners I have seen. When I watched him run he seemed more like a beautiful wild animal than a human running. He has the best running form I have ever seen in person in my entire life.

Bernard Lagat is the greatest runner I have ever seen in person in my entire life.

I first heard of Bernard Lagat when he ran at Washington State University around 1997 to 2000, and followed his running career. Then one day in 2006, I looked out the window... and he literally was running by my house and up the street faster than any runner I have ever seen run around here.

The other posters here have covered his training well, with an emphasis on quality, like 5:15 to 5:30 pace for 8 miles. The last time I talked to him a few years ago he told me he was doing 70 to 80 miles a week. Maybe he is doing a little more now for 10k? I do not know. He also does some hill rep workouts near my house.

I will now tell you about the workout I saw Bernard do on a 2 mile gravel dirt path at Buffalo Park, with ruts and a short steep hill at the end (not a fast surface) at 7100 ft. altitude in 2007, before he won 2 gold medals in the 1500M and 5000M at the 2007 World Championships.

(I had previously told Bernard in early 2006 that I thought he should also run the 5K, instead of just the 1500m. Bernard asked me why I thought that was a good idea. I told him it was a good idea because I wanted to see him race against Kenenisa Bekele and that races with both Kenenisa and Bernard in them would be fun to watch.) I was correct:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2rHmSKqs2w

In early 2007, Bernard also told me that my idea was correct... and that he would be running both the 1500m and 5k at the World Championships in Osaka, Japan. I then told Bernard that this meant that I was right again about adding the 5K and racing against Kenenisa Bekele.

The 2007 workout was: 15 min warmup, 2 miles in 9:12, 3min jog, 2 miles in 9:18, 3min jog, 1 mile in 4:24, then 15 min warmdown. Simple and high quality. The entire workout was done in less than an hour with warmup and warmdown included. Even Bernard Lagat finished his reps bent over, hands on knees, and unable to speak for a period of time. He is still human…sort of. Because of this...he could not answer all the training questions I had for him during what Bernard called these "rest periods with no answers to training questions" time periods.

He is also a really nice guy and even let me run the first mile of his warmup with him, which of course was very exciting for me. I was the only person there watching his workout.

There was an older Native American woman sitting on a bench that I went up to after he finished his workout. I asked her what she thought of his running. She said..."Yea. He runs pretty fast."

I thought that was maybe a bit of an understatement for the best runner on the planet for 1500M and 5000M in 2007.

.......Go Bernard Lagat!!!......

What about Lagat's agent? Hasn't he been with Templeton his whole career? Is there any red flag there? I haven't posted on this topic and I'm not as close as others might be but am of the group who believes Lagat is close to the perfect runner. I knew well a few elites some years back, never heard any of them express doubts. I think Torrence is way out of line......but am interested to hear if anything negative about Templeton (and Li).....or anyone else he's been associated with?

Torrence may be wrong but what a shame it is, in this day and age, how freaky bent out of shape people get over someone's internet comment. It is one of the many things proving that technology doesn't make life better, rather many people have no life at all anymore.

I don't give a barrel of pig snot who calls who a doper or where. I don't use the internet as a tool to find things I don't like to flip out about. Too many people are sick inside, living on daily news about terrorists, Trump, whatever pisses them off and gives them the chance to blow their stack. It's the Two Minutes Hate but it lasts all day for some.

Look for GOOD things in life, not bad things. You'll be much healthier.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Torrence may be wrong but what a shame it is, in this day and age, how freaky bent out of shape people get over someone's internet comment. It is one of the many things proving that technology doesn't make life better, rather many people have no life at all anymore.

I don't give a barrel of pig snot who calls who a doper or where. I don't use the internet as a tool to find things I don't like to flip out about. Too many people are sick inside, living on daily news about terrorists, Trump, whatever pisses them off and gives them the chance to blow their stack. It's the Two Minutes Hate but it lasts all day for some.

Look for GOOD things in life, not bad things. You'll be much healthier.

It's hilarious that this board is now getting a lecture about the internet and happiness, courtesy of the resident troll.

For David Torrence, a 17 year old in his bedroom with a lot of teenage anger. Obviously, flags of Peru decorating his walls.

1500m & 5000m chronological landscape view. Just pure appreciation of the GOAT American distance runner.

7 years shown running under Kenyan citizenship; 12 years shown running as an American.

// end of story

1907 03:34.5 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 6 Stuttgart 19.07.1998

3447 03:35.8 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1 Leverkusen 09.08.1998

1030 03:33.3 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 3 Saint-Denis 03.07.1999

5242 03:36.8 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1 Cuxhaven 23.07.1999

163 03:30.6 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Monaco 04.08.1999

158 03:30.6 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Zürich 11.08.1999

6505 03:37.4 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 13 Bruxelles 03.09.1999

573 03:32.3 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 München 11.09.1999

1690 03:34.2 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Osaka 13.05.2000

2008 03:34.6 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1r1 Kassel 07.06.2000

3559 03:35.9 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Rehlingen 12.06.2000

938 03:33.1 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Saint-Denis 23.06.2000

188 03:30.8 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Roma 30.06.2000

1204 03:33.6 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 3 Stockholm 01.08.2000

25 03:28.5 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Zürich 11.08.2000

1705 3:34.26+ Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 3 Bruxelles 25.08.2000

7484 03:37.8 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2s2 Sydney 27.09.2000

622 03:32.4 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 3 Sydney 29.09.2000

5322 03:36.9 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Ad-Dawhah 05.10.2000

5221 3:36.83+ Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Eugene 27.05.2001

3180 03:35.6 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1 Hengelo 04.06.2001

1338 03:33.8 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1 Sevilla 08.06.2001

231 3:31.01+ Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Roma 29.06.2001

196 03:30.8 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Saint-Denis 06.07.2001

961 03:33.2 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Oslo 13.07.2001

378 03:31.7 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Stockholm 17.07.2001

244 03:31.1 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 3 Monaco 20.07.2001

4576 03:36.5 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2h2 Edmonton 09.08.2001

3447 03:35.8 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1s1 Edmonton 10.08.2001

249 03:31.1 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Edmonton 12.08.2001

163 03:30.6 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Zürich 17.08.2001

3 03:26.3 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Bruxelles 24.08.2001

511 03:32.1 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Melbourne 09.09.2001

4634 03:36.5 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1 Sevilla 08.06.2002

562 03:32.2 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1rA Lausanne 02.07.2002

355 03:31.6 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Saint-Denis 05.07.2002

306 03:31.4 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1rA Stockholm 16.07.2002

17 03:27.9 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Monaco 19.07.2002

333 03:31.5 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Zürich 16.08.2002

138 03:30.4 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Bruxelles 30.08.2002

819 03:32.9 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Berlin 06.09.2002

154 03:30.5 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Paris 14.09.2002

275 03:31.2 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1 Madrid 20.09.2002

225 03:37.1 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 3 Athínai 06.03.2003

1602 03:34.1 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1 Portland 17.05.2003

1690 03:34.2 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 5 Ostrava 12.06.2003

1713 03:34.3 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Lausanne 01.07.2003

310 03:31.4 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Saint-Denis 04.07.2003

864 03:33.0 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Stockholm 05.08.2003

156 03:30.5 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Zürich 15.08.2003

Breaking News of Lagat A sample testing positive 03.09.2003

Breaking News of Lagat cleared / false positive 01.10.2003

1157 03:33.5 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 3 Hengelo 31.05.2004

1204 03:33.6 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 4r1 Ostrava 08.06.2004

1550 03:34.1 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1 Bergen 11.06.2004

3256 3:35.7A Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Nairobi 26.06.2004

193 03:30.8 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Roma 02.07.2004

54 03:29.2 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Saint-Denis 23.07.2004

11 03:27.4 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Zürich 06.08.2004

3485 03:35.8 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2s1 Athínai 22.08.2004

1735 03:34.3 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 2 Athínai 24.08.2004

179 03:30.7 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 Bruxelles 03.09.2004

132 3:36.1+ Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 New York City 04.02.2005

13 3:33.34+ Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 Fayetteville 11.02.2005

80 03:35.3 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Birmingham 18.02.2005

1773 03:34.3 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Carson 22.05.2005

2379 3:34.95+ Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Eugene 04.06.2005

1375 3:33.85+ Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Eugene 10.06.2007

5025 03:36.7 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3rA Zaragoza 24.06.2005

171 03:30.6 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 Saint-Denis 01.07.2005

247 03:31.1 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3 Roma 08.07.2005

926 03:33.1 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 London 22.07.2005

1171 03:33.5 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2rA Stockholm 26.07.2005

554 03:32.2 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 4 Oslo 29.07.2005

239 03:31.0 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Zürich 19.08.2005

58 03:29.3 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 Rieti 28.08.2005

1171 03:33.5 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Monaco 10.09.2005

834 03:32.9 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Carson 21.05.2006

2147 03:34.7 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Gateshead 11.06.2006

322 03:31.5 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 Saint-Denis 08.07.2006

550 03:32.2 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3rA Lausanne 11.07.2006

2126 03:34.7 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 7rA Zürich 18.08.2006

78 03:29.7 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 Rieti 27.08.2006

823 03:32.9 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Stuttgart 10.09.2006

2401 03:35.0 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 4 Shanghai 23.09.2006

1375 3:33.85+ Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Eugene 10.06.2007

3060 03:35.5 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3 Indianapolis 24.06.2007

2513 03:35.1 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 7 Saint-Denis 06.07.2007

4132 03:36.2 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3 Sheffield 15.07.2007

3280 03:35.7 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 London 03.08.2007

2200 03:34.8 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Osaka 29.08.2007

2222 03:34.8 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Berlin 16.09.2007

71 03:35.2 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Birmingham 16.02.2008

2564 03:35.1 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Carson 18.05.2008

7327 03:37.8 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 5s2 Beijing 17.08.2008

736 03:32.7 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Rieti 07.09.2008

198 3:36.82+ Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Liévin 10.02.2009

4362 03:36.4 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Carson 16.05.2009

7104 3:37.7+ Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 London 25.07.2009

5282 03:36.9 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3s1 Berlin 17.08.2009

4038 03:36.2 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3 Berlin 19.08.2009

93 03:35.5 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 4 Birmingham 20.02.2010

1788 03:34.4 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 5 New York City 12.06.2010

5344 03:36.9 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Tangiers 18.07.2010

644 03:32.5 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 7 Monaco 22.07.2010

921 03:33.1 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3 Saint-Denis 08.07.2011

138 03:36.2 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 4 Birmingham 18.02.2012

2063 03:34.6 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 New York City 09.06.2012

4331 03:36.4 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 13r Saint-Denis 06.07.2013

6932 03:37.6 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 6 Berlin 01.09.2013

5000m progression below

4103 13:23.5 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1 Walnut 14.04.2000

2861 13:19.1 Bernard Lagat KEN 12.12.74 1r2 Walnut 19.04.2002

Breaking News of Lagat A sample testing positive 03.09.2003

Breaking News of Lagat cleared / false positive 01.10.2003

1976 13:14.7 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1r3 Walnut 15.04.2005

292 12:59.3 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Berlin 04.09.2005

1905 13:14.3 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Indianapolis 23.06.2006

283 12:59.2 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 London 28.07.2006

1607 13:12.4 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 9 Berlin 03.09.2006

2268 13:16.3 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1r1 Palo Alto 04.05.2008

5695 13:27.5 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Eugene 30.06.2008

5454 13:26.9 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 9 Beijing 23.08.2008

565 13:03.1 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 New York City 30.05.2009

4204 13:23.7 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 4h2 Berlin 20.08.2009

2464 13:17.3 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Berlin 23.08.2009

29 13:11.5 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Boston 06.02.2010

85 12:54.1 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3 Oslo 04.06.2010

1087 13:08.4 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Melbourne 03.03.2011

771 13:05.5 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 New York City 11.06.2011

3964 13:23.1 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 Eugene 24.06.2011

73 12:53.6 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Monaco 22.07.2011

4166 13:23.6 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Daegu 04.09.2011

17 13:07.2 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 1 New York City 11.02.2012

3888 13:22.8 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Eugene 28.06.2012

2109 13:15.5 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 4h2 London 08.08.2012

330 12:59.9 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3 Zürich 30.08.2012

1007 13:07.8 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 5 Eugene 01.06.2013

4149 13:23.6 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3h1 Moskva 13.08.2013

6509 13:29.2 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 6 Moskva 16.08.2013

265 12:59.0 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Bruxelles 06.09.2013

5530 13:27.1 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 12 Glasgow 11.07.2014

891 13:06.7 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 2 Berlin 31.08.2014

2015 13:15.0 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 Eugene 29.05.2015

2515 13:17.6 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 3 Berlin 06.09.2015

2014 13:15.0 Bernard Lagat USA 12.12.74 London 23.07.2016

Wow, no kidding. That Wigins fellow is about as angry, grumpy, and rude as they get over the last few years here. Definitely not a nice person judging from his posts and comments over the years.

im going to look this over and see what interesting things i can find.....but you are missing what i consider super important info...his progression while in college then you will see the drop from NCAA to "oh guess what im a world beater"

no one else has gone from college to his level, and most dont have their coach who was a national level runner in china who also has a PhD in sports physiology...guarantee he is smarter than saladbar not just in workouts but in micro dosing and grey area and blood doping.

YOUR idea was correct? Let me explain something buddy boy. When you make claims like you have, implying that YOU influenced Lagat's racing decisions and that YOU were right and that YOU were right again is... the most arrogant bullshit post that I've ever read on this site. You are a really insecure person who craves attention and the approval of others. Does it make you feel good to type all the good ideas that you shared with Lagat and he agreed with YOU? Your whole post is a joke, you've never met the guy and he never agreed with you about anything. Good luck and when you post your real name, come back and talk to us. What a loser.

i agree with spencer wrote:

im going to look this over and see what interesting things i can find.....but you are missing what i consider super important info...his progression while in college then you will see the drop from NCAA to "oh guess what im a world beater"

no one else has gone from college to his level, and most dont have their coach who was a national level runner in china who also has a PhD in sports physiology...guarantee he is smarter than saladbar not just in workouts but in micro dosing and grey area and blood doping.

But he didn't make the crazy jump you and others are implying.......in 1996 he was 6th in Kenyan Olympic Trials in 3:36.6!!! If he had gone to Europe then he would have run 3:33/3:34 don't you think?? So he goes instead to USA, finds it takes a year or more to settle down to a new life. Why is that so hard to understand? Why you look at his 1997 PR of 3:42 or whatever and then jump on the big progression to 3:34.48 in 1998?

bkrunner wrote:

I'm sure there are people posting under multiple usernames

Sounds like we're in agreement.

bkrunner wrote:

Also, when you say "now go ahead and post again under a different name," that means anyone who subsequently disagrees with you is automatically a fake username fool, right? You're so smart.

I was talking to the guy who was clearly posting under a sock puppet account.

If you're not a sock puppet, move along.

i agree with spencer wrote:

im going to look this over and see what interesting things i can find.....but you are missing what i consider super important info...his progression while in college then you will see the drop from NCAA to "oh guess what im a world beater"

no one else has gone from college to his level, and most dont have their coach who was a national level runner in china who also has a PhD in sports physiology...guarantee he is smarter than saladbar not just in workouts but in micro dosing and grey area and blood doping.

In 1996, he showed he had a true future in running. Training with Ngata, Lagat ran a sparkling 3:37.7 1500 meters to make the final of the Kenyan Olympic Trials, but didn't win a place on the team going to Atlanta. Still, a 3:37 will get you ushered into any college in the United States, so now he had options. Ngata began telling him of an American university, Washington State, where Rono had blossomed. That fall, Lagat accepted a scholarship there—and then soon found himself 15,000 miles from home, in the farmland of eastern Washington state, and in the hands of a mystical Chinese coach with revolutionary ideas on how to turn a wide-eyed Kenyan into a world-class miler.

Whether at the end of a private run through the woods of Tubingen or bolting ahead of the pack on the track, Bernard Lagat is unmistakable. The movements that combine to form his light, quick stride are supremely efficient, letting him husband optimal energy for his finish. But he wasn't born that way. His stride took honing. It was the work of a master technician.

James Li was born in China in 1961, son of a metallurgical engineer. He grew up in the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, Mao's purging society of intellectuals. His mother was detained briefly, accused of being counterrevolutionary. Li ran the 800 meters very well in college, at Beijing Institute of Physical Education. In 1984, he was working at Sichuan Sports Institute when John Chaplin, the track-and-field coach at Washington State, paid a visit. When Chaplin's interpreter couldn't translate "starting blocks," Li stepped in and made a powerful impression. Chaplin offered him a graduate assistant post at WSU while he got his masters and Ph.D.

In 1989, Li was about to head back to China with his degrees when the Chinese government showed the world in Tiananmen Square that it wasn't ready for political freedom. Li, knowing he couldn't celebrate individuality the way he wanted to in that environment, stayed in the States, doing a stint as head track coach at Mankato State, before returning to WSU in 1994.

Li had never trained a world-class miler, but he had been preparing for years, in part because he had been enthralled by Roger Bannister's account of breaking four minutes in 1954. "It hit me as a genuinely spiritual thing," Li says. "I've always coached with the understanding that what we do is a coming together of mind, spirit, and body." With Lagat's arrival in Pullman, Washington, in August 1996, though, Li encountered a 21-year-old man in conflict, transitioning between climate and culture, between a familiar, beloved home and a cold, alien place. "He had never experienced a temperature below 40 degrees in his life," says Li. "And he had to adjust to strictly scheduling school work and a new training system. He had to form a whole new set of relationships." But he was a Nandi. He didn't just suffer. He sought solutions. "He did great," crows Li. "He made new friends, he made good grades, and it was him who did that. It was that unflappable character from the start."

By the end of his first cross-country season, Lagat was already showing his skills. He placed seventh in the PAC-10 championships, and Li knew he had a rare gift: a runner able to race much faster than he trained. "I saw he has that kind of head," Li says. "When the big meets come, he delivers."

Fortunately for Lagat, he was being coached by someone who had learned the lesson that every athlete is different, with varying metabolic and structural gifts. Li knew from what he had seen in China, where unrelenting coaches assigned huge mileages and stunning volumes of intervals, and in the process damaged their runners to no end. It took a certain bravery to uphold the idea that if you just keep a runner healthy, he or she will naturally improve.

The mutual education of Li and Lagat took a while. "I soon figured out what kind of running benefits him most," Li says, "which is not too many miles, plenty of recovery. But he didn't run close to his 3:37 PR that first year. [He had to adjust] to running a lot of races in the collegiate year, the big relay carnivals, the indoor nationals, the outdoor nationals..."

In 1997, Lagat's best 1500 was only 3:41.19. But in the winter of 1998, he ran a decisive leg on WSU's winning distance medley relay in the NCAA indoor championships. That summer, he entered a world-class 1500 in Stuttgart, Germany. "Most painful race of my life," Lagat recalls. "They took off so hard it felt like sprinting all out. It hit me. This is what 3:30 pace is." He fell to the back and staggered across the finish in 3:34.48, a three-second PR.

Lagat called Li: "Guess what I ran?"

"3:34!"

"How'd you know?"

"I know what you can do!"

When he got home, Lagat was a changed runner. "Kip talked about that 3:30 pace, and how he knew the difference now," Li says. "That's the runner's own tenacity. What you build on."

It must be observed, too, that 3:30 pace is sprinting. That is 14 seconds for every 100 meters, meaning splits of 56 at 400, 1:52 at 800, 2:48 at 1200, and 42 for the last agonizing 300. And that's not even world-record pace. Hicham El Guerrouj's 3:26.00 is 55-second 400s all the way.

In refining Lagat's training, Li conferred with his mentors. "I've had several," he says. "Coach Chaplin, of course. Bill Dellinger at Oregon was very generous with me. I have a monthly lunch with coach Joe Vigil (the former coach of Olympic bronze medalist Deena Kastor). I sat with Bob Larsen of UCLA at the Mt. SAC Relays and shared my puzzlement with athletes in general. My question was, where is the correlation between great interval workouts and racing well? Because a lot of guys do one but not the other. He said he had found tempo runs helping his guys. I tried it, and it helped mine." It sure helped Lagat. Tempo running is sustaining a pace near the edge of one's aerobic capacity, not as hard as racing, in a zone around 90 percent of maximum heart rate. Lagat would become famous for doing tempo runs of 5000 meters or longer on the trails.

After winning both the mile and 3000 at the 1999 NCAA indoor meet and then the NCAA 5000 outdoors, Lagat forfeited his final year of college eligibility. He asked Templeton, a successful agent for other Kenyans, to take him on. Templeton balked at first because Lagat was still a few seconds slower than his big guns. He let him in because of his radiant calm. "He thought I'd be a good influence on the other Kenyans," Lagat says, laughing, "but he didn't think I was going to really be good."

He was really good. That summer, at a meet in Zurich, Switzerland, he set a U.S. collegiate record of 3:30.56 for the 1500, and by the end of 1999 he was ranked fourth in the world by Track & Field News. He earned a shoe sponsorship from Puma (which he used to build a house for his parents in the Rift Valley) and unprecedented options. He could have returned to Kenya a celebrity or stayed in Europe. Instead, he went back to WSU, sticking with what had gotten him to the top. He would earn degrees in management information systems and decision science.

article here

Anybody who knows anything about track immediately suspects anybody with a 3:26 is a doper. DT is an archeologist, digging up this old claim.

nice so Li micro doses a 3:37 kenyan which are a dime a dozen over there and his agent says he will protect him "because of his radiant calm" and how he would keep them other kenyans in check cause he was such a goooood influence.

3:37 is good but when you get on the sauce you improve, when you are allowed to get down to 3:26 thats 10 second improvement, and mak gets shit all the time and lets see if he is still crushing times into his 40's

smile wrote:

I was talking to the guy who was clearly posting under a sock puppet account.

Sock puppet, eh? Ahhh, originality. May you someday be more than a man who tucks his shirt into his undies.

I think it apropos to bring up Bernard Lagat's scholastic background in comparison to his accuser, Peru's David Torrence. The article mr. sock puppet just slung reports that Lagat was accepted into Kenya's MIT equivalent. Somebody's fancy.

My favorite historical contrast comes in the note that Lagat earned two degrees from WSU; on the other hand, Torrence missed two seasons due to academic reasons (Cal booted him). But Cal did take David Torrence back 2 years later. Just like the motherland, Peru.

Viva Peru!

Personally, I give everyone the benefit of the doubt unless I am shown hard data that indicates otherwise..........not conjecture, innuendo or opinions not based on established data. After all, opinions are like a$$h0les........everyone has one and most (except for mine), stink :)