Malcolm Gladwell’s Running Knowlege

Ziplocker wrote:

running commenter wrote:

If a flower grows only once a year, I would say it routinely grows every year.

Right, just as if you had an interesting thought once per year, you would say you routinely have interesting thoughts.

No, I would say i routinely have an interesting thought once per year.

Twig Mzungu wrote:

Brian Gates wrote:

He once published a theory of his that NHL hockey players became professionals because they were born earlier in they year and therefore received more coaching as kids (he thinks being a few months older = bigger and stronger than younger peers). Based on this, I’m certain that Gladwell is a grade-A idiot and would never read another word he wrote.

To be fair, he wasn't pulling a theory out of thin air. He was reporting a peer-reviewed paper that found a statically significant relationship between birth month and likelihood of reaching the NHL. If it wasn't a surprising result, he wouldn't have bothered reporting it. Writing someone off as a "grade-A idiot" for finding an interesting result is the academic version of assuming that whoever wins a race must be doping.

Yes, and this has been shown to be even more so the case in soccer/'European' football, in which you have "under x" age categories for youth clubs. The kids who are the oldest in the "under x" categories are always the oldest, since there is an "under x" category for each year. The older kids *tend* to be more developed than the younger ones, especially as you consider the following two things: i) the same kid compared to his teammates year after year, and ii) large populations (e.g. all kids in the UK who play club soccer).

As for the larger point, Gladwell knows a lot more about running than the general public, but less than many (probably the majority) of letsrun posters. That's my impression, at least. But, even more generally, Gladwell has a reputation for under- and over- exaggeration when it suits him.

A major way that Gladwell (and many other journalists) strengthens his point (often unfairly) is to use semantically vague terms like 'routine.' As somebody above noted, what counts as 'routine' depends completely on the event in question. Routinely exercising is usually taken to be once per day, routinely checking email is usually taken to be once per couple hours (and this again would depend on your job). The sad part is that Gladwell bills himself as a 'data journalist,' so he should know better and just skip the 'routine' term and simply tell us the actual number.

In my opinion, it's definitely fair to criticize him here.

Nope no nope wrote:

Ziplocker wrote:

Right, just as if you had an interesting thought once per year, you would say you routinely have interesting thoughts.

No, I would say i routinely have an interesting thought once per year.

Perhaps. However, I would then assert that you have an interesting thought once per year. No need for the word routinely if you are discussing your annual pilgrimage into an interesting thought.

compressed wrote:

The sad part is that Gladwell bills himself as a 'data journalist,' so he should know better and just skip the 'routine' term and simply tell us the actual number.

What is the actual number?

Gladwell picks and chooses his information to suit his narrative.

Hardloper wrote:

compressed wrote:

The sad part is that Gladwell bills himself as a 'data journalist,' so he should know better and just skip the 'routine' term and simply tell us the actual number.

What is the actual number?

That would be Gladwell's job to tell us, but according to the third poster on this thread (who was quoting flowtrack), the number is 10:

"It may not be routine for high school runners to do it, but there have been a few and it happens with less fanfare. I just googled it -- in 2017 Reed Brown became the 10th, according to flowtrack. I don't remember Reed Brown's name and I check the boards pretty regularly."

Maybe Gladwell considers other kids around 18 or under high schoolers.

When you do that the number of high schoolers who break four climbs considerably. Ovett, Cram and Williamson were all sub 4 as teens. As were all kinds of African kids.

compressed wrote:

Hardloper wrote:

What is the actual number?

That would be Gladwell's job to tell us, but according to the third poster on this thread (who was quoting flowtrack), the number is 10:

"It may not be routine for high school runners to do it, but there have been a few and it happens with less fanfare. I just googled it -- in 2017 Reed Brown became the 10th, according to flowtrack. I don't remember Reed Brown's name and I check the boards pretty regularly."

There are ten from our country, but in Gladwell's native Canada there are 3 more, plus several more from Gladwell's country of birth (UK). Maybe there's a reason he wouldn't give a precise number.

This must be Gladwell here. Can't imagine anyone would bother to write this much detail about him.

It's pretty clear that Gladwell is either not up on his details or exaggerated the piece for some sort of literary effect. I agree with you that there is still nothing routine about high schoolers breaking 4 minutes. Nor do 'decent' 10,000m runners routinely do the same in their races. It's a bit disappointing that he couldn't get the details right.

In fairness to Gladwell, as an experiment, I want to confess that I misrepresented something he wrote. However, either nobody noticed it or nobody bothered to comment.

Much like Gladwell misrepresented, or rather, misled readers in the New Yorker.

Gladwell actually wrote that ”decent” elite 10000m runners could probably run a sub 4 in a 10000m. This is still rather misleading, however. I am not exactly sure what a “decent” elite 10000m runner is statistically, but if it is a 27:15 runner, yes, some probably could run sub 4 in a 10000m race, but they don’t, because it is impractical. If I said that the top few marathoners in the world could probably run sub 4 in a marathon, it arguably might be not obviously false, but it is rather misleading, because they don’t, and the few that could would be doing it for the first mile and then paying a price for it.

Agree Gladwell may have not been precise in the use of "routinely" but seems like a petty criticism. More importantly, how was the rest of the article? I don't agree with everything Gladwell writes, but I so think it's generally interesting.

I actually liked the article a lot, especially the reference to David Foster Wallace.

Brian Gates wrote:

He once published a theory of his that NHL hockey players became professionals because they were born earlier in they year and therefore received more coaching as kids (he thinks being a few months older = bigger and stronger than younger peers). Based on this, I’m certain that Gladwell is a grade-A idiot and would never read another word he wrote.

I thought this was CW. I have read several pieces over the years (the last was about hi-school footballers in Texas) about parents deliberately timing conception to make sure their son was born so as to be 'older' for their year. Happens all the time, I understand. Makes a big difference.

They probably could. Carlos Lopes cruised the last 1200 in 3:02 which was about his best mile speed.

Just a hunch , but I’m betting Gladwell is posting on this thread . Come clean , you little scamp !!!

This. It's a reckless use of "routine" for someone whose job is language. It's kind of like saying Trump's political successes are now routine. (Ok, that's one's not even in the eye of the beholder.) But, yes, the phrasing could be "high schoolers going sub-4:00 in the mile is now an annual affair."

The claim that any runner goes sub-4 as part of a 10k is slipshod at best. Like, what?

His comparison of Bannister's mile with Federer's tennis arm was also awkward.

I like Gladwell. He's smart. He shows up to races in my fair city and doesn't drop a bad mile, but this was not his best.

Bekele was sub 4 in his last mile at Beijing, and that's probably not the only time that has happened. He does say it as if it were a common thing, which isn't true, but it's also just to illustrate how running a mile under 4 minutes isn't even close to the peak level of the sport anymore.

smd wrote:

Hardloper wrote:

No, you're the classic "well actually" guy who interrupts a friend's interesting story to nitpick trivial semantics

Disagree. Gladwell is writing about Bannister only because he was the first to break 4:00. Gladwell then makes basic factual errors about how common sub-4:00 is now.

Totally agree with the OP. Hardloper is off base here and being a bit of a putz.