Matt Centrowitz beats Alberto Salazar

Salazar Nation wrote:

ThrowbackCentrowitz wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_SkBU09maA

A throwback video of Matt Centrowitz Sr. beating his son's future coach AL SALADBAR while setting the 5K American Record at the time in 1982.

But AlSal ranked No. 1 by T&FN for 1982, Centro, Sr., No. 2 . . . the last laugh.

Salazar set a new AR of 13:11.93 later that year.

Both competed in the age of impuniously doping dopers who doped with impunity.

Who would be the best in such an age?

This video is a classic piece of evidence of why I thought it is reasonable what American distance running achieved the past 8 years.

this video is over 30 years ago. Salazar is still young in this video. Just a year out of college. He wasn't that talented. Bill Bowerman himself said so. Yet he is front running most of the race and clocking a 13:15.

Knowing this. Fast forward about 25 years when Dathan Ritzenheim runs 12:56. Should we really have been blown away by that? Ritz is a more talented runner. He trained smarter. He was older. He gave it all on the track, and of course he was being paced almost all the way by the best East African runners. You could just as well ask what took so long for Americans to run in the mid 12:50s range.

Ryan,

I ran competively in the period of 1965-1976, and coached distance runners in the period of 1976-1996. My experience was Americans trained very hard in the period of 1960s thru the early 1980s. It seemed to me, that from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s there was a philosophy of less volume and less intensity would yield better results. Coaches like Joe Vigil or Bob Larsen stood out while others looked for a simple solution for hard work.

Igy

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Ryan,

I ran competively in the period of 1965-1976, and coached distance runners in the period of 1976-1996. My experience was Americans trained very hard in the period of 1960s thru the early 1980s. It seemed to me, that from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s there was a philosophy of less volume and less intensity would yield better results. Coaches like Joe Vigil or Bob Larsen stood out while others looked for a simple solution for hard work.

Igy

^^ This is dead on

Network,

Glad I am not alone in my thoughts. I remember speaking at a couple of coaching conferences during the "low" period and being challenged on my views. It seemed obvious to me what was working and what was not. Perhaps some societal issues at the time. Too much coddling. I interviewed for a job I really wanted my last year in coaching. Even though I was the most qualified applicant by far, I was viewed as being "too militaristic." In the end they did me a favor.

Igy

Interesting you bring that up when the results during that era were rather self-evident.

I think Pre would have enjoyed the fact that Matt Centro held the AR at one point. I suspect he would have liked the way that Alberto raced as well.

http://europa.com/~bence/pre/images/pd07.jpg

A good era when manliness meant something.

Igy

I was at that race, it was fantastic.

Also, just a couple months earlier, Henry Rono and Al dueled at Hayward over 10,000, Rono winning by .1

New York '81 to Summer '82 was Salazar's career peak, and I was delighted to see pieces of it.

Steve Scott talked about this in his book. He thought he was a strength runner and tried to move up to the 5000. As we know, he did ok but he thought he under-performed at 5000 because he couldn't keep focused for 13 minutes. AlSal and Centro Sr have no problem with focus. While Jr certainly should be able to transfer his race instincts, the 5000s he has run so far might suggest the best 5000 runners will be able to run away from him if/when he loses focus.

"Centro is a strength runner that may be geared towards running exceptional 5ks in the future."

God, Chris Derrick and Alberto Salazar are form-twins.

You missed mom... wrote:

You missed mom, geez.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpgOYG6WAAEOLIf.jpg

WHAT??? Centroz Mom is a BANNISTER????!!!!!

It's funny that there in 1982, Larry Rawson was telling us about going down to our local track and running a lap in 64 to understand how fast these guys are going. And then also that Salazar was a frontrunner because he had no kick, and now as a coach he tries to make sure that his runners never lead except the last lap, unless the race is remarkably slow.

Also, Centro looks to be running very easy in that race and obviously crushes Salazar with the kick, so that it would not have surprised me to see Centro running ten seconds faster in that era behind a faster pacer. Salazar looks practically like death at the end. His reputation for toughness is well-earned.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your comments, but coaches of elite level athletes (with aspirations of global medals) most definitely train their athletes to run fast late. That doesn't mean that they aren't also trained to be strong as well, but pretty much every global medal, on the track, requires a very fast last lap.

^$#^TFT(*&nbh23 wrote:

Steve Scott talked about this in his book. He thought he was a strength runner and tried to move up to the 5000. As we know, he did ok but he thought he under-performed at 5000 because he couldn't keep focused for 13 minutes. AlSal and Centro Sr have no problem with focus. While Jr certainly should be able to transfer his race instincts, the 5000s he has run so far might suggest the best 5000 runners will be able to run away from him if/when he loses focus.

"Centro is a strength runner that may be geared towards running exceptional 5ks in the future."

You guys keep thinking Centro Sr. is who Jr. should follow after. But it is his mom he should. She was a top notch 800m runner. Centro is really more of a 800m/1500m runner. He could run comparably faster 800s than 5ks--compared to top international runners.

So.....

"Like Mother, Like Son"

anon. wrote:

Yup, on oldie but a goodie, forgot Sr. looks like Frank Zappa.

More like Freddie Mercury. Or Borat.

ryan foreman wrote:

This video is a classic piece of evidence of why I thought it is reasonable what American distance running achieved the past 8 years.

this video is over 30 years ago. Salazar is still young in this video. Just a year out of college. He wasn't that talented. Bill Bowerman himself said so. Yet he is front running most of the race and clocking a 13:15.

Knowing this. Fast forward about 25 years when Dathan Ritzenheim runs 12:56. Should we really have been blown away by that? Ritz is a more talented runner. He trained smarter. He was older. He gave it all on the track, and of course he was being paced almost all the way by the best East African runners. You could just as well ask what took so long for Americans to run in the mid 12:50s range.

Salazar was incredibly talented. It is true that he was mentally tough, tremendously so, but he was also enormously physically gifted.