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

HRE wrote:

I always found that I could run marathons at only slighty slower paces than I could for marathons. I saw the same with most of the guys I knew.

And your points is ???

Exercise Physiology 101 wrote:

HRE wrote:

I always found that I could run marathons at only slighty slower paces than I could for marathons. I saw the same with most of the guys I knew.

And your points is ???

That it would be better for marathon runners if many of the half marathons we have now were races in the 15-20 mile range, the same point I made in an earlier post.

Hi all,

I'm don't really frequent the Board but occasionally check it out and really enjoyed this thread. To my surprise I completely agreed with a lot of the points made. I know there are several middle-aged (or at least on the verge of such) here because of the comments about the half not being all that common decades ago and not being talked/cared about at all. So I know some of you will relate to what I'm about to write and some will agree.

It is true that the US used to produce some of the best marathoners in the world in a largely pre-East

African scene but those same guys were impressive compared with today's Americans. I certainly agree with the point of the whole thread that something seems wrong today. A guy like Ritz compares very favorably with the best Americans in a variety of events and would have had half a dozen ARs if he was a generation earlier. The fact that no one besides Rupp is close is worrying just from a fan perspective, and I don't know really how close he is! This hopefully doesn't turn into a love vs. hate Rupp thread but the point I'm illustrating is the fact that our current best is not where Rodgers was 30+ years earlier is bumming me out. The next tier (NAZ et al) are behind Shorter 40 years ago. And I do agree that this seems inconsistent when compared to US men at 10k and down as well as US women all the way through the distances.

What's happening? I don't buy the KFC/PlayStation/trick-or-treating becoming illegal type of arguments because of Webb's mile,Jager's steeple, Ritz's and Solinsky's 5k, Rupp's 10k, Hall and Ritz's halfs, and Hall's marathons. These and a handful of other performances seem to contradict the McDonald's arguments. Where are the 2:06-2:07 guys that extrapolation would predict? There are a couple points made earlier that I believe explain it.

First was touched on and one poster hit it dead on. The US college system, and less mentioned, the US HS system. It is true that these institutions train primarily for the 1500-5k. It is NOT true that young runners MUST participate in their programs. Some of you who were teenagers in the '70s and maybe even 80s can back me up here: during America's most recent period of significance on the world marathon stage, a lot of kids ran long distance races. Going under 3 hours didn't get you on the podium for 17-and-under in your local marathon. There were a lot of kids who seemed to focus on the event since the races ( including the marathons I ran in HS) often took place during the school year and during official school-sanctioned seasons. I suspect their wasn't a whole lot of overlap between the crowd I was running against at 10k, 10 miles, and longer, but I do know that winning that age group now requires just finishing. There may have been some overlap, but a kid who did a fall marathon every year and the school track season as well is still a kid who's done half a dozen of them by the age at which current US runners debut.

Today this just does not happen. If you are interested in the sport and eligible to do so, you run for your school and then for your next school. Training to run competitively with no school affiliation is out of the question. Some say this is how it should be. Some (nearly all Americans now) say teenage or even college- ages road racing is foolish. However, there was a time when social pressures didn't prevent it and that was also a time when the US ruled the roads.

The other point, like the above, already touched on earlier, is specific training. Canova's disciples have pointed out that most American marathoners are 5-6 weeks out from their potential peak when they race. They have covered the bases of pure endurance with many 2 hour runs slower than goal pace and some 2-1/2 hour efforts a little slower yet. They have also trained for a decent 10-15k with paces significantly faster than marathon goal. What is often lacking is a lot of work at 90-105% of the target pace in workout covering 14-18 miles of quality running.

I like to go back and look at Mosop's Boston buildup. A lot of quarters and 1/1 minute fartlek 2 months out as well as a few 30-40k runs. Look at the last month before the taper, though. A half at exactly race pace (our guys do this, too) but then it gets interesting. A final long run, setting the course record on a 40k a roll call of superstars have run, and 8x3k, 1k float. 24k alternator (1k on, 1k off). A final 25k (Hanson's call it a simulator). There is a 10x1600 that is really more half marathon specific, but even that is more marathon related than a 10k type workout often done by our guys. I think runners here would do well to train for e

Because Wages in USA are too low. Because they don't get paid enough money to focus on nutrition and recovery so they have to work full time to support their running hobby

Also the us people voted for trump so that didn't help things

The idea that all Kenyans have the same body type is wrong. If you look closely there is more diversity than first appears. For example compare Sammy Wanjiru with Eluid Kipchoge and Geoffery Mutai. And the Ethiopian body structure is very different from the Kenyan. The body type argument is a myth. American's carry too much fat and therefore underdeveloped aerobically.

I'm with you on not buying the KFC/Play Station argument. We didn't have Play Stations in the 70s but we watched TV, cable had come along, and we did have McDonald's, KFC, BK. etc. Shorter used to knock off a big bag of M&Ms after dinner each night, Rodgers put mayonnaise on pizza, Don Kardong lived on Froot Loops, PB&J sandwiches, and pizza. I have a friend who won the Enschede Marathon one year beating Mamo Wolde and he was eating upwards of 20 Mars Bars a day at the time.

But college running then was aimed at one to six mile racing then too. But things then were a little different than now after graduation. One difference I see is that today thee seems to be a divide between graduates who can become professionals and those who can't. The latter group today seems to drift away from the sport evidently deciding they don't want to train seriously on top of a full time job, there are many exceptions, but a lot of the guys in the 70s/80s boom were guys like Rodgers, Durden, Hodgie-san, Tom Fleming, none of whom were high profile college runners but who stuck with the sport, ran marathons, and were maybe classic late bloomers. Heck, even Shorter was almost unknown until he won the '69 NCAA six mile as a senior. So I don't think we're getting as many late bloomers now as we once did.

And I think now for many attitudes towards racing have changed, generally for the worst. People don't do nearly as much as they did decades ago. The idea now seems to be that you train and train, get really fit, then find a small number of races, then back away and train some more. We have thread after thread here from people who aren't racing as well as they think they should and almost every response focuses on what they might be doing wrong in training. It's really rare to find responses that go, "Do more races. Racing is a skill related to but separate from training. You need to do it to develop that skill." And this goes double for racing marathons. Two a year is on the high end of what people do now. But if you look at Track and Field News annual marathon lists from the 70s and 80s you can see that guys were running many more marathons each year, I think Jack Foster ran eight one year, Ron Hill was doing 4-6. And there's Kawauchi...

Racing and competing should be fun. That’s why I like to do it. It’s fun to get out there, test yourself, compete, push it hard at the end passing people, and generally see what you can do.

If you train hard and barely race as an amateur or semi-pro, then what’s the point? We train to race, not train to see how much we can improve in workouts. When you’re rummaging around, putting all your stock into running a certain pace at a “race” a couple times a year, what’s the fun in that? How do you expect to improve your race times if you barely test yourself in a race?

F that. I’ll see you all at the local Turkey Trot.

We can, and do talk this to death, but these past two threads have nailed it.

Today's runners don't race nearly enough to accomplish their best. It's all this tempo this, tempo that, training run, BS. There are half marathons, 20K races, XC races, 30K if you go to Japan, and nobody is running them. We have the runners, everyone is just afraid to race. Good on Rupp with medals, but he could have won so much more. A watered-down Chicago? Whatever. Get out there and race!

Two marathons per year seems to be too much to expect now. Chris Derrick says he wants to be a marathoner, but will "focus on the track" next spring and work towards a possible fall marathon. There was an interview a couple years ago in which Matt Tegenkamp said he was doing a spring marathon "buildup" but was not planning to actually race a marathon at the end of it. Huh?

WTF is this jibberish? Are you and everyone lauding your post really saying that Americans are too stupid to shoot for 4:55 or 4:50 miles on their watches instead of 5:00?

trails for life wrote:

WTF is this jibberish? Are you and everyone lauding your post really saying that Americans are too stupid to shoot for 4:55 or 4:50 miles on their watches instead of 5:00?

What you aim for on your best days are seldom the same as what you settle for on your hard days. And numbers add upp from those too. It's easy to remember and praise the few days you aimed for 4:50-4:55 x 10 and held it. But those many more hard days when you patted yourself on the back for averaging 4:59 on tired legs are more common. Meanwhile much of the rest of the world are doing the same for a 2:59 average. It's a tiny difference, but come race day it's worth 2-3%.

You personally might be above it, what do I know, but even numbers have some kind of subconscious appeal to most people, hence the hunt for 2 hours in the Marathon. How many times have you read that Kipchoge "just barely missed the 2 hour mark" compared to "Kipchoge broke the 2:02 barrier/Kipchoge broke the 2:01 barrier"?

Exception that proves your rule: American Discovery Trail Marathon in Colorado Springs has been won by High Schoolers the past 2 years. They are both refugees which is why I say it proves your point. There were a couple of college kids who finished well also; literally "a couple" as in 2.

What is WRONG? That's self-evident.

1. They are AMERICANS

2. They are MALE

3. They are MARATHONERS

All the evidence you need, in your own thread title, OP...

47yroldrunna wrote:

Come on.

1-Kenyans are all super lean to begin with. They don't have to KFC and Dominos at every corner to tempt them.

2-They're gifted.

3-They run to survive, to escape poverty not for "a respectable time". They always run to place and earn money. And they know (and they're coaches know) what that time must be.

They don't enter races to be the "top Kenyan".

1. Kenyans are not the only "super lean" people on planet Earth.

2. There's no evidence of this mysterious "gift".

3. They're not the only poor people on earth.

4.If being born at altitude is it, then Nepalis, Tibetans, Mongolians, Colombians, Ecuadorians and Bolivians, etc would be as good as the Kenyans. They're not.

The only logical explanation is that the Kenyans train hard and work for their success. Simples.

Yes, tremendous motivation for Africans to cheat/run fast. For Americans, very little.

Greg Meyer raced 10 times between Jan 1 and Boston when he won in 1983. Races included Gasparilla and a 30k in Japan (1:31) but also a mile, indoor 3k and 5k, and Cherry Blossom (46:13).

As you may recall TrackCoach, I stated 44.5 to 47.5 400m PB. Many of the best US 800m men tend to have 400m PB of 46.0 to 47.5. I didn't want to exclude Mark Everett with his 44.59 400m PB and 800m PB of 1:43.20 and Duane Solomon with his 400/800 PB of 45.98/1:42.82.

150 Japanese men? Less than 50 Americans? 876 men have broken 2:10. 417 Kenyans have broken 2:10. 157 Ethiopians have broken 2:10. Only 80 Japanese have broken 2:10. Only 17 Americans have broken 2:10. (3 were African.) Leaving 205 from the rest of the world. Maybe we should train less like Ivan Drago and more like Rocky Balboa. Raw guts wins over high tech, and the fans stop hating and start to love the athletes again.

WhereAreThey wrote:

Why does it seem like a superhuman feat for an American man to break 2:10 in the marathon?

So many African runners do it every year. Over 150 Japanese men have done it. But in all of recorded history, less than 50 American (natural born or otherwise) men have broken 2:10. What is this magical barrier? Does no one know how to coach the marathon in the US? Are American marathoners the cleanest group of athletes in all sport?

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?

So you are saying Shorter was taller?

wrong genetics wrote:

Wanjiru (original) 1.63m

Gebrselassie 1.63m

Kipchoge 1.67m

Bekele 1.67m

Kimetto 1.71m

Lelisa 1.75m

Farah 1.75m

Hall 1.78m

Shorter 1.78m

Rupp 1.8m

See a trend?