Men's World XC Embarrassment #2

Silverback wrote:

You have no idea what you are talking about. Seriously, quit bringing this pathetic thread up.

-You can't force people to run the race.

-Having a "leader" for the team won't make them all 13:10 guys instantly.

-Milers running WCC is useless year after next because it will be only the 12K.

-Jonathan Riley knows what he is doing. If he doesn't then I guess he was a 13-flat guy last year and will one day figure out how to train "right."

-You will never be the LDR chair.

-You are just a troll.

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Silverback:

I'm not advocating forcing people to run the race. In fact, if its not taken seriously, I advocate giving the ball to the club guys. Additionally I don't care about any of our guys running 13:10...I just want them to focus on taking out each African countries 5th man in a TEAM sport. Milers have been great in XC...Steve Scott always finished high in Nationals, Jim Spivey a 4 x NCAA Cross All-American, Tim Hacker, and now Alan Webb. These guys can step-up & run 12K -- they're not useless. Jonathan Riley's way better than what he ran last year because all he wants to do is race other Americans.

Good to see that you have some solutions --- Not. Your probably right...I won't be elected as LDR because I don't rubber stamp the "we've always done it this way" or "this is what the athletes want" b.s. I'm results oriented.

I don't know the answer. Here's what I do know:

Steve Scott: Consistently competed in National Cross-Country...I do not have records o/h that far back. I'll EMAIL him down at University of SD....he coaches...you guessed it -- cross-country.

Jim Spivey: 4 time NCAA Cross-Country All-American. I'll EMAIL him at Vandy where he coaches ---- you guessed it -- cross country.

Sydney Maree: That's an interesting one....obviously he ran for Nova, but I'm not sure on World XC. Being a South African he couldn't compete & if I remember correctly...by the time he got his citizenship he ran for only a couple of years. Last I heard Sydney was in trouble...ethical dealings in his L.L.P. business back in South Africa.

Coach your making me work...I like it.

The Coach Who Cares wrote:

Californian wrote:

Good point. In fact, I'd be curious to know who was the last olympic 1500m champ to competete in world cross country during their prime.

El Gerroudj- no

Ngeny- no

Morceli- no

Cacho- no

Rono- no

Coe- no

Walker- maybe he did, but that would make 1 out of the last 7 olympic champs

Walker finished as high as 3rd. Steve Ovett regularly ran World XC also IIRC. El G as a junior did I think.

Morceli - Don't know if he ran for Algeria, but do know that he ran California JUCO.

Coe - Well documented that he ran for his local harrier club in XC throughout his career, but I don't know about whether he ran for UK. That would have been tough team to make back then -- Bedford, Moorcroft, Jones, Hugh Jones, Spedding, etc.

Old School wrote:

Coe - Well documented that he ran for his local harrier club in XC throughout his career, but I don't know about whether he ran for UK. That would have been tough team to make back then -- Bedford, Moorcroft, Jones, Hugh Jones, Spedding, etc.

Coe didnt run WXC.

Bedford et al were never on the same team.

Milers have always been great on a national level, I thought you wanted to improve our performance at WCC? Go look at the results and tell me if the top 4 long course teams had milers on their roster. They don't. I agree, milers should run cross as a pre-season thing. But asking them to run well in the 12K at WCC is not a smart thing.

And in regards to "I just want them to focus on taking out each African countries 5th man in a TEAM sport." Just because it's a team scored sport doesn't make it a team sport. These guys that go over there are just our of their league. Concentrating on the African's fifth man (note: only 4 score at WCC) isn't going to magically pull our guys up to their level. You can't just stay with someone at WCC because your team needs you to. I don't think you understand this race and how hard it is to do well in it. Maybe next year you should take a vacation to Japan and just watch the horde of guys going out at 4:10 effort over the first mile of the 12K. Then perhaps you'll have a clue about this race. And by the way, my solution to our current malaise at WCC? There is none. U.S.A. will not win a team medal at men's WCC in the next 30-40 years, barring any type of plane crash/boycott. There are four countries right now that can throw 8 guys at us that are better than our best living runner over 12K. We ain't catching that, no matter what the plan...

Actually I do read and comprehend and am a coach. Frankly, if you have trouble understanding what I am saying then address what is exactly confusing and maybe I can clear things up. I don't see anyone correcting my arguments or points on here.

I am just going to let this drop. I really don't think you are someone who knows what is going on. Time and time again you have shown a lack of knowledge of what our elites are doing. Damn, you don't even know that Morceli was from Algeria. Come on. Or you even know how the fields in Boston are London are definitely different. Depth means too different things for those races. And your definitions of leadership and team have changed considerably over the course of the threads, that tells me you don't have a coherent strategy but something you're making up as you go along.

Anyway I am going stop here. I am not going to shoot you my email because I am just going to spend half my time straightening you out on all these meets and athletes that you claim to know something about but clearly you do. If you're going to put up some "Manifesto", then just do it. BUt make sure you have your facts and history straight this time around.

'no no...hes got it figured out...

i mean he came to this board to call the elites out and tell them whats up.

were all just being unpatriotic or whatever.

your right old school no blue blooded american, just take getting beat by abunch of underfed third world countires.

that are predominantly NOT WHITE!!!!!!!

lead the charge buddy'

One of the big debates on this thread seems to be if a lot of milers actually run World XC. I don't have results of 80s and 70s meets on hand but the IAAF does have complete results for all World XC's from 1997-2005. My intuition said that milers really didn't run world XC but wanted to check and make sure. I went through both long and short course races for all 9 years and wrote down all the people that were currently standout milers at that year or were up-and-coming standout milers. By standout I mean, somehow along the lines of their career they would post a top25-30 time for the year, this usually means sub3:34. You'll have to cut me some slack since I was doing this by hand and kind of quickly but if I missed a few, I apologize, but I don't think it would change the trend that much: which basically confirmed my guess - that very very few milers actually run world cross. The ones that do, run the short course. You'll see from the names I listed that very very few top level milers run cross, a lot of the guys there are in the developing stage of their career.

The interesting thing is that the countries that usually send milers are the Western ones - Canada (well basically Sullivan), New Zealand, US and a European one every now and then. Algeria is the only country from Africa that consistenly sends team, but even that's the same bunch of guys. I leave John Kibowen off because when he started doing cross he was making the transition to 5000 so you really can't count him. Isaac Songok is really the only good who is a top-ten type guy who has done World Cross and done well. Adil Kaouch is the guy who has been ElG's rabbit in championship races, he is a 3:33ish guy.

Note that hardly any milers ran in the long course, it should be interesting to see what will happen when the long course is the only race. My guess is we will see the number of milers drop in half at World Cross, which from this starting point, means probably 3 guys a year will run it.

I don't have data off-hand for 80s and before on milers and World XC, but just vaguely remembering past results and leafing through the book "the Milers" (old TFN book that outlines every signficant miler and their season and participation and major races from 1880s - 1985) most milers did not run world xc. In the "old days" they would probably do a few local/national xc races since they would be in the strength phase and also indoor races, then focus on outdoors. Basically, the guys who did world cross and actually did perform well in outdoors were the exception to the rule. I'm not going to get dragged into this debate, but based on the above and the data from the last ten years, I think Old School is really stretching the correlation between miling success and World Cross participation. Can the two work out? Yes. But it seems a majority of the world's milers don't seem to think that this is the case. Well just my opinion.

Anyway here is the data for the last 9 years:

2005:

'05 LONG

none

'05 SHORT

Isaac Songok 3rd

Adil Kaouch 11th

Kevin Sullivan 21st

Rashid Ramzi 32nd

Juan Carlos Higuero 39th

John Mayock 53rd (more of 5k at this time?)

Phillipe Bandi 65th

Adrian Blincoe 69th

Rui Pedro Silva (?) 71st

Luke Watson 83rd

2004

----------------------------------------------------

'04 LONG:

none

'04 SHORT:

Isaac Songok 7th

Adil Kaouch 10th

Tarek Boukensa 12th

Kevin Sullivan 17th

Luke Watson 36th

Mohamed Khaldi 38th

Nick Willis 32nd

Rui Pedro Silva (not sure if this is the same as bronze medalist) 66th

2003

----------------------------------------------------

'03 LONG:

none

'03 SHORT:

Driss Maazouzi 14th (though supposedly moving up to 5k at this time)

Kevin Sullivan 25th

Adrian Blincoe 41st

Rui Pedro Silva 76th

Julius Achon 87th (though moving up or just rabbiting at this time?)

Nick Willis 90th

2002

----------------------------------------------------

'02 LONG:

none

'02 Short

Driss Maazouzi 10th

John Mayock 23rd

Graham Hood 35th

Mohamed Khaldi 55th

2001

----------------------------------------------------

'01 LONG:

none

'01 SHORT:

Adil Kaouch 11th

Andy Downin 19th

Kevin Sullivan 29th

Adrian Blincoe 57th

Ali Hakimi DNF

2000

----------------------------------------------------

'00 LONG:

Mohamed Suleiman (at this point may have been focusing on 3k/5k) 119th

Tim Hacker (mile or 5000?) DNF

'00 SHORT:

Ali Saidi-Sief 16th

Rui Silva 24th

Kevin Sullivan 25th

Miloud Aboub 26th

Gert-Jan Liefers 41st

Andy Downin 79th

1999

----------------------------------------------------

'99 LONG:

none

'99 SHORT:

Adil Kaouch 11th

Kevin Sullivan 42nd

Mohamed Khaldi 62nd

Marko Koers 99th

1998

----------------------------------------------------

'98 LONG:

Tim Hacker (?) 62nd

'98 SHORT:

Eric Dubus (making transition from 1500 to 5k this year i think) 63rd

Reyes Estevez 64th

Anthony Whiteman 70th

1997

----------------------------------------------------

'97 LONG:

Tim Hacker (miler or 5k?) 110th

Gennaro di Napoli (might have moved up to 5k at this point) DNF

(no short course this year)

lol

i find interesting that you think you know my 10k PR.

anyway i dont run the 10k much, so i am a bit surpriced to find your guess somewhat close.

kinda funny anyway, i relize that im not great(and have no intentions of becomeing so).

the differances i dont try and tell people who are great whats up.

i enjoy running, so i run to the best of my ability.

what ANYONE else does , is not my concern.

ESPECIALY so for our elites, who yes i will grant you are not stellar on the world scene.

but they are enough better than me OR YOU, or most anybody else on the boards. that they really dont have to take shit from people over a message board.

Here's a good site that outlines all the team and individual medals that Britain won in world cross:

http://www.gbrathletics.com/bm/xc.htm

Note that this does not say who was on each time, but it does kind of fill in half of the blanks since one of the arguments is that a lot of British milers ran it in the 1980s. Look at the medals won by individuals and look who were on the teams that medalled - very few milers were on these teams or medalled. Most of the guys were 5k/10k types. Of course this doesn't mean some of Brit's miling studs didn't run it in a year that England didn't medal....

He doesn't have a plan. He badmouths the elites and "calls them out" but the people he calls out are the ones that have been on several xc teams and just didn't go on this one. He needs to stop crying. Not once has he said how he would get the elites to run world cross. He just said he would get club people to run. How is having a bunch of 25min 8k guys going to change US placing in World Cross? Exactly. This whole thread is ridiculous and is an insult to people who actually work in this sport and take it seriously. I think things can be changed but I think you do more damage than good when you don't keep things in perspective. I do think we can do better but bashing people with legitimate reasons for not competing isn't the way to go about that. I'll be interested if this so called manifesto gets posted or he actually runs for LDR. Ten bucks says he is some random guy trumping up his point.

Silverback:

1. On Milers in WCC: If we have a miler, like Webb, who can beat our 5K/10k/Marathoners on a 12K then he needs to be on the team. I don't think Alan Webb trains for WCC, but his range is to such degree that he can contribute without adjusting his training. I also think there are a lot of other milers out there who can/could do the same thing: Gabe Jennings ...before he went off the deep end, Hacker, Joe Falcon, Seneca Lassister, Don Sage, etc. Guys who have placed great in NCAAs or other Nationals. NOTE: For the strict constructionist out there...the last few names are not all inclusive. I will say this...our milers are weak...aerobically. Many don't have the strength to use their speed. The World XC season is conducive with giving them something to gage their training, international experience, opportunity to represent their country, and something to shoot for.

2. I completely understand that the WCC is the toughest race in the world & I disagree that the solution is to ignore it because we're not good enough. Set goals...next year, beat all the Europeans...year after, beat Rwanda...year after, beat 2 x Africans, etc. We run as a TEAM and target their jersies versus trying to win the darn thing as a bunch of individuals.

Good...I'm glad your out of the discussion because you offer nothing but excuses, constructionist responses, and playing the victim card. You have offered nothing with respect to furthering our improvement in WCC.

funny because neither have you....

Great Stuff:

My position is that the majority of the Commonwealth milers ran in their club x-country leading up to the UK version of its national championships...and as expected...did not make the team because the 5K/10K were better. I assert that we have/had many Ovett/Walker/Dixon/Coghlan/Treacy type milers -- Hacker, Falcon, Webb, Holman, Sage, Jennings, etc. --- that could contribute to the team.

Great work.

Just think of the art of the possible if Fam could have helped us out in World XC versus the River Run....granted he'd be a $1,000 poorer. If you inserted WCC for River Run the I would absolutely agree with his priorities. This also should be a wakeup call for USATF...where is your priority for WCC? where is a similar purse?

"On a different approach in 2005, including running the USA 15K, his longest race ever: "I was really patient in building up to the Olympics and kind of sticking to the usual routine because you don't want to be injured in an Olympic year and I had been injured in 2003. I built up slow and gradually. But after the Olympics, you can experiment and do what you want to do and really test yourself in a lot of different ways. And this year, as far as my base training and strength training, I've done so much more than I've ever done before and I just kind of wanted to test and see what it had done for me. I wasn't necessarily happy with the outcome of that (15K) race. I knew I had a lot more in me, but to run a 15K for the first time and be competitive like I was and feel as relaxed and smooth as I did, it was fun. At least I was still happy after the race. I had a smile on my face. So I was seeing what that training had done for me, where I was at with that, and determining off of that what I wanted to do with the rest of the year as far as running some 5Ks before I do some steeples --because my ultimate goal this year is to try and medal at the World Championships. It's got to be the goal for American distance runners, to do something at the World Championships."

I'm not going to read this entire thread or get into the arguments here, but Old School you have to be careful what you assert and how you use statistics. If you want milers to run nationals and clubs, that is a perfectly valid claim and I think one that has been picked up by milers for awhile. A lot of farm team guys and other milers do run club nationals and winter nationals. Webb is a perfect example of that. If your standpoint is you think more milers should be running national level cross meets, that's fine, it just doesn't hold a lot of weight since it's already happening.

However if your standpoint is that milers should run world cross as a developmental strategy, that is entirely different and you have to be careful because the results I posted above don't prove your point really. Nevermind there is the training and timing aspect of things but there is the fact most get beaten off by 5k/10k types in trials (which happens in the US as well as 80s England), so it's a little confusing how someone who doesn't finish in the top 6 can contribute at the world level if they didn't make the team in the first place.

I'm glad you liked the post, but just use the figures in a responsible manner.

I think a big point about milers and cross country is being missed. What makes for a great miler in the summer racing season is a strong base during the fall and winter, not doing cross country races or world cross country for that matter. If you are getting in your 100 miles a week of training, doing the right mix of endurance, strength, and speed workouts, you do not need to race cross country to become a better miler.

El Gerroudj has been the best miler in the world for almost a decade. I can't recall him ever running World XC during that time; in fact, I can't even recall him running a cross country race during that time. I pointed out earlier that none of last six olympic champions in the 1500m did world cross country when they were world beaters. If we want to look for examples on how to produce great milers, look to the best in the world, not people like Steve Scott, Jim Spivey, etc who were the best Americans but didn't win on the world scene when it counted.

Doing a few 4k or 10k or 12k cross country races isn't going make you a better miler come July; building an effective base will do that. If you need races during your base period to stay competitive and mentally sharp, road races and indoor track are just as effective as cross country races for doing that.

I can buy some of the arguments you've made on this thread, but there is no real world evidence that shows racing cross country produces better milers than not racing cross country.

Vermonster & Californian:

Your right & I'm wrong in several respects...the majority of our best milers ran the 4K at nationals. (I'd also be interested in where Lunn, Meyer, & Stember were but that's a separate issue. I know where Fam was & we could have used his aggressive spirit & range.) Its unfortunate that those that did qualify didn't feel that representing there country in another 4K a month later against the best was worth their time. The following no-shows pertain:

Tim Broe

Alan Webb

Jonathon Riley

Broe & Riley were running other races during this time period. Last year Webb did the same thing last year when he qualified in the 12K....yet he continued to run 5Ks in the early part of the season. You can't convince me that he couldn't have contributed significantly off his base & what he was doing for the 5K/3Ks he was running. This is one of the reasons I don't buy the "timing" issue.

What I hope doesn't happen next year, is that the encouraging number of milers that participated in the 4K continue to participate when its just the 12K. They are some of our best XC runners & the meet comes at a good time of the year before they ratchet down to their specialities in track.

"Californian" I totally disagree with you that domestic road races & indoor track are just as effective as an experience of having to travel abroad, deal with jet lag, eat weird food, struggle with communication, and then run the toughest race in the world wearing the USA jersey.