What is wrong with American male marathoners? Or, how long will 2:12 be impressive?

Whats wrong with Kenyan swimmers?

Well, lots of tiny, skinny Kenyans. You'll never see a Kenyan Gold medalist in a power event like weighlifting or an explosive power event like wrestling. They just don't have the muscle. Imagine seeing a Kenyan world champ in boxing? Impossible!

Anyway, it didn't look like Kenyans did well in Frankfurt. Only one barely managed to beat Dewi.

Bamn wrote:

Whats wrong with Kenyan swimmers?

They do not exist. American marathoners exist.

Yes but it's not like there aren't enough skinny people in the USA.

I guess what also blows my mind is the lack of improvement in American marathoning over the past 50-60 years or so.

Truf be told wrote:

Well, lots of tiny, skinny Kenyans. You'll never see a Kenyan Gold medalist in a power event like weighlifting or an explosive power event like wrestling. They just don't have the muscle. Imagine seeing a Kenyan world champ in boxing? Impossible!

Idiot.

Yego? Not quite numbnutz. The Javelin caters to a more slithe body type. Not necessarily true power or true power coupled with explosiveness. Much more wrist action/technique involved. Check out Thomas Rohler's physique. Yeah, the Thomas Rohler who's thrown farther than Yego.

Did you know Yego is a 5' 8" midget?

Now if Yego medaled in the Shot put, discus, or hammer, that would be a different story.

Truf be told wrote:

Yego? Not quite numbnutz. The Javelin caters to a more slithe body type. Not necessarily true power or true power coupled with explosiveness. Much more wrist action/technique involved. Check out Thomas Rohler's physique. Yeah, the Thomas Rohler who's thrown farther than Yego.

Did you know Yego is a 5' 8" midget?

Now if Yego medaled in the Shot put, discus, or hammer, that would be a different story.

Stop it. He's close to 190 at that height. He's not lithe at all.

I have been turning this issue over in my mind more and more as we see one after another male marathoner celebrated for middling full and half marathon results.

The fact of the matter is that 2:12 just isn’t that impressive, and our male marathoners are weak compared to their female marathoning counterparts and when compared to American men at any track distance.

The depth at the marathon distance simply isn’t there. It’s reasonable to assume that the performance value of a 2:12 race is about equal to 13:30 for 5000m and 28:10 for 10.000m. While decent, neither of those track times are relevant on the world level and do not even qualify an athlete for a US Championship.

Someone with more initiative can show us the % differences across events, historical progressions and what not.

Bottom line: we are settling for mediocre marathon performances and don’t even approach the best athletes in the world. Time to raise the bar.

WhereAreThey wrote:

Over 150 Japanese men have done it.

Some sheep farmer from Wales just ran 2:09. Well done to him but why can these super elite, super funded like BTC produce better marathoners? What is 2:12?

We crush the Japanese at 1500, 5000 and 10000m. That sheep farmer can't even dream about running what Derrick ran for 10000m or 5000m.

The truth is that most talented American distance runners go to soccer, which is why the US is the best. Thread over

Jerry Schumacher squandering all the talent.

Salazar's guys can break 2:10.

NAZ/Hansons are working with 28:xx guys so you can't expect them all to go sub 2:10.

Pointing out you, Jerry.

3 and 5 are the magic numbers here.

5 seems to be the magic number to Americans.

Americans are all training to hold 5 minute miles for as long as possible.

5 minutes per mile equates to 2:11.

Hence they all end up in the 2:10-2:12 range.

(Depending on either surging or fading in the last miles).

Most of the rest of the world is training to do 3 minutes per kilometer.

3 minutes per kilometer equates to 2:07.

And 3 minutes per kilometer prefigures results in the 2:06-2:08.

Furthermore: Logging training in kilometers gives much higher weekly numbers.

Another psychological "trick" to boost body chemistry etc.

Just reset their GPS-watches to kilometers and their training logs to and the results will come.

Bonus thought: Actually, this would make for a good study, ask half of the American 2:12s to reset as suggested above, and the other half to continue as a control group - then give them two-three years before evaluating.

The truth is most the people with enough talent to break 2:10 are to busy working to train for marathons. Once and a great while someone will work and train well enough but they are an exception. If our talent only had to work 20 or so hours a week the marathon times would drop.

It is hard to believe fast times these days. Go back and look at the Marathon Performance list when the world record was 2:06:50 (Dinsamo 1988, record stood until Sept 1998). That performance is now over 150th on the all time list after standing for 10 years. Kannouchi's 2:05:38 WR is now over 50th. Human performance does not work like that.

The 90s were the EPO years of T&F. The progression shows that EPO did not hit the marathon until the late 90s, early 2000s. This also coincided with an effective test for EPO. Marathons were not testing nearly as much at T&F and no testing was (and very little is now) done in rural areas of Africa where most of these crazy fast times are being trained. People always claim money in the marathon as the reason, but NYC had $50K for the winner in the mid 80s. Inflation adjusted, that is more than WMM races pay now. The only reasonable explanation for such an explosion of fast time is drugs.

In the US, getting busted for drugs as a runner is a deal killer for the rest of their life. And the money to be made is just not worth it. Imagine an American wins a few big marathons and makes $500k. Now he better go get a job. In Kenya, win a marathon or two and retire in luxury. You see the motivational difference to dope? If an American could make millions (like say in Major League Baseball) would he be tempted to cheat? I think you know the answer.

no YOURE hilarious wrote:

We crush the Japanese at 1500, 5000 and 10000m. That sheep farmer can't even dream about running what Derrick ran for 10000m or 5000m.

At 5000 m and under, yes. Most years more Japanese men run under 28 minutes for 10000 m than Americans. If they had the same kind of easy road to citizenship that U.S.-based Africans have then the Japanese numbers would slay. They have way better Africans running there than in the U.S.

I’ve never thought of it this way. There is definitely more to it than that, but this is a very interesting look at it.

It's pretty simple really. It's not a popular competitive sport in high school and college. To quote Kenny Powers "I play real sports. I'm not trying to be the best at exercising."

There's no fame, money, or support. If Soccer was as big as football, baseball, and basketball, don't you think we would be producing some of the world's best? Same goes for marathon running.

Also, people in the sport already have to listen to you douchebags on here b**ch about everything. It's a bunch of f***ing dorks on here talking about running. Where's the appeal for kids at a younger age? I mean, come on, I have to edit my swear words. What a joke.

American running just isn't as impressive as these boards will have you believe.

It's not the end of the world. You can all go back to calling ultra marathons hiking and cheering on school kids running xc.

I'm very proud of the 2:12 marathon runners because they are CLEAN!