Writer Matt Fitzgerald ran 2:39:30 at Chicago after running with NAZ Elite for a couple of months

socrateez wrote:

MFitz needs someone to teach him elementary logic. Actually, could someone help him with his grammar too?

How does this stuff get past his editor?

"but if I were racing a 5k on the road I would prefer the Asics PURANAS. You have to know what your legs can handle. If I were to race a marathon in PURANAS I can�t imagine how wrecked my legs would be"

"instead of wearing the regular trainers they WERE most of the time?"

(http://running.competitor.com/2010/05/features/but-is-it-faster_9784#ixzz0qHNHwsUr)

Are you kidding me? This isn't a Letsrun post. It's an article published on his website. Isn't he supposed to be a writer?

If you haven't, take a look at his new article on barefoot running: (http://running.competitor.com/2010/05/features/the-barefoot-running-injury-epidemic_10118). Now I'm no barefooter/hippie-man, but it looks like he's trying to make up for the death of scientific evidence on the subject with some laughably weak logic.

�If we can say that everyone is built to run barefoot we can say that everyone is built to fly a fighter jet without glasses"

Please tell me I don't need to explain why this is ludicrous.

"Some of us are strong, others weak. Some of us have great hand-eye coordination, others don�t. Some of us can be great marathon runners, others can�t run a step."

Does he not realize that there is a HUGE difference in being "weaker" than someone else and not being able to run period? Wouldn't this be the correct analogy? "Some of us are strong, others weak. Some of us are fast, others slow."

Or the other way around: "Some of us can be great marathon runners, others can't run a step. Some of us are strong, others can't lift anything period."

Now, surely there are those outliers who by genetic defects or accidents or disease certainly cannot run (think Christopher Walken, polio, etc.). The same would be true for eyesight (some people are blind, obviously) and many other functions that used to be necessarily for survival. But Fitzgerald makes a huge, unwarranted leap when he talks about running and skips from the equivalent of a "weak" runner to someone who can't run "a step." And I don't get the sense that he's talking about Christopher Walken or kids born without legs or Siamese twins. Am I wrong? Where is his evidence?

Then he jumps to this conclusion:

"Endurance running was very likely only ever a specialization of the few, exactly as it is today."

So does he also believe that there were a few specialized strong people and no one else could lift anything period? A special group of people with great hand-eye coordination while no one else had that ability? Don't be silly. Some people are BETTER at these things than other people, for sure. Not some people can do them well and the rest can't do them at all.

"Evolutionary biologists other than Daniel Lieberman will tell you that humans are born generalists more than we are born specialists in endurance running or anything else."

This is disingenuous at best and downright malicious at worst. Does anyone actually believe Fitzgerald's argument that when Lieberman says humans evolved to be good distance runners he means that that's the ONLY thing we evolved to be able to do? He's a Harvard professor, not a third grader. Stop it.

Am I wrong?