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

American athletes are good at sprinting and explosive power.

For long runs, they deserve to be congratulated for having such a grade

rekrunner wrote:

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.

Thank you for the correction, I was just counting total sub 2:10 performances on All Time Athletics not individual performances. The point still stands

They are doing something wrong that's for sure. Look at guys like Ron Hill and Charlie Spedding. They couldn't break 28 but went well under 2:10

I don't think they race enough as these guys racef a lot more regularly.

Charlie Spedding wrote in his book that people always asked him about technique, diet drinking but nobody asks him how he trained

That makes more sense then.

WhereAreThey wrote:

Thank you for the correction, I was just counting total sub 2:10 performances on All Time Athletics not individual performances. The point still stands.

I have never seen another sport where the "fans" hate the athletes when they win.

Polly Plumper wrote:

Is there any other profession where mediocre or even sub-par performers receive a "pat on the back?" These guys are running 2:12 when the winners are running 2:04 and 2:05 and relaxing back at their hotel when these 2:12-ers come to the finish line. It is like congratulating a .170 hitter in baseball. They are in the Majors but they are light years behind those batting .300 and higher. Would you praise a teacher whose students performed in the lowest percentiles? These guys ran good times for a local runner but pedestrian times for a professional.

Polly Plumper wrote:

Is there any other profession where mediocre or even sub-par performers receive a "pat on the back?" These guys are running 2:12 when the winners are running 2:04 and 2:05 and relaxing back at their hotel when these 2:12-ers come to the finish line. It is like congratulating a .170 hitter in baseball. They are in the Majors but they are light years behind those batting .300 and higher. Would you praise a teacher whose students performed in the lowest percentiles? These guys ran good times for a local runner but pedestrian times for a professional.

The thing is, if you've spent much time around baseball and understand the big picture, you understand that someone hitting .170 in the major leagues is a very, very, good baseball player. Even someone hitting .170 in AAA ball is a very good baseball player. I'd have killed to have been a good enough baseball player to hit .170 in the majors and would at least have maimed to have done it in AAA. . I might have killed or maimed even more to have hit .270, but if you really understand the game, you know a .170 hitter looks bad because he's measured against guys who are even better. And the same is true for sub 2:20 marathon runners, 3:59.9 milers, etc. Those are very good performances, ones very few people can match and even fewer can better.

What he said was 100% true. It's about hitting milestones and breaking walls, and 5:00 is the last one for Americans. As soon as they achieve 5:00 pace, sure they'll go for something more. And I bet that all 4 Americans capable of a sub 2:12 marathon are doing just that.

These numbers say it all. This is running and those who work the hardest get the results. Kenya and Ethiopia are out working the rest of the world.

HRE wrote:

Exercise Physiology 101 wrote:

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.

I don't know what it means that you can run marathons at slightly slower paces than for marathons. If you meant slightly slower than HALF marathons, that depends on what you mean by "slightly." Kipchoge is 59:25/2:03:05. Tadese is 58:23/2:10:41. Kipchoge is slightly slower. Is Tadese also "slightly" slower, or much slower?

In any case, it has nothing to do with my point that any fast half marathoner can run a fast 30km. I bet Tadese could run a very fast 30km. It's the distance beyond 30km that runner like him have a problem.

FrenchDawg wrote:What he said was 100% true. It's about hitting milestones and breaking walls, and 5:00 is the last one for Americans. As soon as they achieve 5:00 pace, sure they'll go for something more. And I bet that all 4 Americans capable of a sub 2:12 marathon are doing just that.

I'd like to add that trying this out is free - absolutely free! Changing the setting on your GPS is free. If you're logging manually in Excel or something counting in kilometers is free. Most internal online logging service has the option too - for free.

No gimmicky shoes for 200 dollars a pair is needed.

No extra fee to your personal trainer.

Not even really any extra time in training that you need to plan for.

Let's compare 10 x 1600 with 2 minutes rest to 16 x 1000 with ninety seconds rest.

10x5 + 9x2 = 68 minutes.

16x3 + 15x1,5 = 70,5 minutes.

If you've been stuck at the same level/times for a couple of years you need to switch something up anyway - try kilometer based workouts and logging for six months - it's FREE!

(Also it's cultural appropriation - so it's bound to piss a lot of non-running people off - hence FREE mental training on top of the physical part!) :-)

Most of what has been said can all be true to an extent, but sometimes the simplest explanation works best. Most of the top U.S. marathoners train to run 5 to 5:10 minute miles in the marathon and that's the pace they try to stick to and that's pretty much where they end up. That's a safe approach. Safe on many fronts.

1. You are less likely to get injured by potentially training above your capability.

2. You are less likely to blow up in a race by potentially competing above your capability.

3. *You are less likely to miss out on a payday by not being among the top Americans.

*For a lot African athletes, you are spending months away from your family and it's a matter of making the podium or else. Else could actually mean being in debt since your agent is fronting all of your expenses. You have no choice but to run fast. A lot of times they blow up, but that's the risk they have to take because finishing 7th or 8th for example and running 2:15 means almost nothing. Btw, sometimes the gamble pays off and they become the next marathon star.

Over the last decade, in WMMs, only Meb, Ryan Hall, Ritz and Rupp have actually raced with the intent of winning the race. In life, you get what you put into it. There is no way you are going to win a WMM and/or run 2:07 if you train to run 2:12 and race at that pace. If you train to run sub-2:10 and simply race to win as in run with the leaders for as long as you can, you have the possibility of running under 2:10. On the flip side, you also have a greater possibility of getting injured in training and/or blowing up in the race, but you never know. I use to think that the aforementioned athletes where simply more talented; the fact that they had faster PRs at shorter distances is what obviously made them better at the marathon. That's simply not true, there are a ton of world class marathoners who only have 28x PRs in the 10K. Just looking at U.S. marathoners like Bill Rodgers , Greg Meyer, Bob Kempainen and Ryan Hall for example, I don't think any of those athletes ran sub-28 in the 10K.

The other simple explanation is the NCAA. NCAA XC all-American's routinely do long runs at the equivalent of a 2:15 marathon pace. I am not saying they could hold that pace for a full marathon. but some of them probably could if they were training for a marathon as opposed to a 10K. In the U.S., most marathoner's don't start training for it until their mid to late 20s. That's not necessarily a bad thing especially if you are having success at shorter distances. However, if you can't achieve the USATF 28:30 10K standard, it only makes since to move up in events. Although the USA has a much larger population than Ethiopia and Kenya and probably leads the world in recreational marathoners, we have fewer true athletes training for the marathon. If your NCAA career is over and you consider yourself a long distance runner, immediately move up to the marathon.

A final note, we routinely refer to 2:15 marathoners as elite, perhaps they are USA elite, but the truth is, the marathon has progressed to the point where sub-2:10 is actually world class elite. You can't say you're world class elite when the winner of the race has done a victory lap, put on their sweats and is conducting interviews when you cross the finish line. If sub-2:10 is world class elite, that means the USA only 2-3 athletes in that category. In the entire IAAF table of events, that would make the marathon our worse event. Sad, but true! This is a crazy thought when consider our success in other disciplines and consider the fact the U.S. has over a 100,000 marathoners a year and half of the WMMs are on our soil.

I have no idea when and where you played baseball, but 170 is bad. I can't think on any team that has 170 guy in the regular line up. 300 is good, 250 is average, 200 is poor and below 200 means you are out of a job.

The point being made is that although batting .170 in AAA or the Majors means you are not moving up to the next level or are out of a job, it still takes a ton of talent AND years of practice/preparation to be able to be the type of athlete that could hit .170 in AAA or the majors. (It is generally agreed that Michael Jordan and Tim Tebow outperformed expectations in their attempts to play professional baseball even though they batted in the low .200s at lower levels than AAA.)

In other words, even though a hypothetical .170 batter at AAA or the Majors won't be confused for Mike Trout, he still in the top percentages of people that ever played baseball seriously. A 2:12 American born marathoner is similarly impressive, even if they will never challenge Eliud Kipchoge.

To all the people saying the US doesn't have faster runners because they all shoot for at 5:00 pace, then where the F*CK are all the 2:12 marathoners?

From 1/1/2016 to today, here's every US runner who ran 2:11:00 - 2:12:59, or roughly 5:00 pace.

Bobby Curtis - 2:11:20

Abdi - 2:11:23

Jared Ward - 2:11:30

Shadrack Biwott - 2:12:01

Meb - 2:12:20

Scott Smith - 2:12:21

Scott Fauble - 2:12:35

Ryan Vail - 2:12:40

Chris Derrick - 2:12:50

Two of those were debuts (Derrick and Fauble) and two of those are guys over 40 with sub 2:09 PRs (Meb and Abdi)

So there are FIVE guys in the US who train hard and have run more than one marathon and are "stuck" at 5:00 pace because of the US not using the metric system. Now that's conclusive evidence.

Give me a break. If this theory were true, you'd see dozens, not five. It's completely made up with no evidence.

Kawauchi runs only 80-90mpw in all singles.

Seko ran only 1-2 marathons a year. (15 in total in 12 years.)

Takaoka broke the NRs in 5000m and 10000m before he ran his first marathon at age 31.

What does that tell us about the benefits of running a high mileage, racing frequently, and starting marathon at an early age?

NOTHING. It tells that the optimum training and racing is a highly individualized thing.

I wrote that badly. I thought I had said that I found that I could run marathons at pretty much the same pace I could run for races in the 15-20 mile range, especially, 30 kms and 20 miles.

The Dingo^3 wrote:

To all the people saying the US doesn't have faster runners because they all shoot for at 5:00 pace, then where the F*CK are all the 2:12 marathoners?

From 1/1/2016 to today, here's every US runner who ran 2:11:00 - 2:12:59, or roughly 5:00 pace.

Bobby Curtis - 2:11:20

Abdi - 2:11:23

Jared Ward - 2:11:30

Shadrack Biwott - 2:12:01

Meb - 2:12:20

Scott Smith - 2:12:21

Scott Fauble - 2:12:35

Ryan Vail - 2:12:40

Chris Derrick - 2:12:50

Two of those were debuts (Derrick and Fauble) and two of those are guys over 40 with sub 2:09 PRs (Meb and Abdi)

So there are FIVE guys in the US who train hard and have run more than one marathon and are "stuck" at 5:00 pace because of the US not using the metric system. Now that's conclusive evidence.

Give me a break. If this theory were true, you'd see dozens, not five. It's completely made up with no evidence.

Interesting look. And I think this is mostly right. But you should perhaps add a few minutes into your search. out to say 2:15 or 2:16. How many guys aim for the 5 minute miles and hold it for 20 or 22 and then go into a crash and burn? They should still be in the list.

Admittedly, how many of them are capable of going faster? Maybe none. Or maybe if the silly 5 to 3 conversion would work, those guys would go out at 2:07 pace and die to 2:11.

addafew wrote:

Interesting look. And I think this is mostly right. But you should perhaps add a few minutes into your search. out to say 2:15 or 2:16. How many guys aim for the 5 minute miles and hold it for 20 or 22 and then go into a crash and burn? They should still be in the list.

Admittedly, how many of them are capable of going faster? Maybe none. Or maybe if the silly 5 to 3 conversion would work, those guys would go out at 2:07 pace and die to 2:11.

Fair enough. I wanted to keep the argument "tight" around the 2:07 vs 2:11 comparision. Obviously the issue is complex. For one guys stuck at 2:11 (or 2:07 with kilometer based training) might actually have maxed out their potential already no matter what they change up, unless they DO change and have a positive breakthrough there's no way to prove that either way.

But forget about the five American outliers for a second and note that the most interresting (or depressing) thing here is that American runners at just behind the very best in their own country are stuck at the same level as 30 years ago. 2:10-2:15. Counting just the last years is a strawman argument - because now that means being 10-12 minutes behind the winners instead of 3-5. The whole 30 year worldwide progression most be taken into account - there will soon be a thousand guys who have run sub 2:10 in the whole world. Several 2:04 kenyans or ethiopian aren't even guaranteed a spot on their national teams! That many guys can't all be doped, and it can't all be natural talent getting by on less training than Americans.

Bonus thought: That Norweigian dude who ran 59:47 for the HM the other day - let's keep an eye on him. Oslo Diamond League has The Mile on every year by tradition (world records have been set there) - and while the nation might be metric based at the core there's also some mile stuff going on in their sports. Probably dates back to post WW2, becasuse the king and much of the national social elite had fleed to and lived in England/London during the war, then brought it home along with NATO and American metrics. There might be some best-of-both-worlds going on there.

I think GPS watches and metiulous pacing in every workout does something to it as well. African runners run with the feel. They don't watch the clock other than for the start of their fartlek intervalls. They run on hard, undulating dirt roads and don't care what pace it is. They run hard as it feels. You know when you are working hard. And some days you feel good and your hard is fast er, sometimes you feel bad and your hard is slower. That also changes DURING a race. Like Cerutty said, you got to run with your energy and energy comes and goes within a race. Hence the surging.

But in the west de train on the flatest possible road to get the splits right and de relogiously follow the clock. And we race like that too.