American Marathoning officially is a sunk ship..? Our top men in 2018 are nearly getting beat by elite women.

beyond 2:19 gets hard to track because the sheer number of people goes up radically and the lists are typically maintained by hand unless you want to go through marathon guide results every month and try to pick out the americans vs the rest of the world - once you go past 2:30 hundreds

this is obviously incomplete but a few more names beyond the otq standard (and may even duplicate earlier otq times)

2:19:50 Sage Canaday (Co) 01/14 Houston

2:19:52 Andrew Bumbalough (US) 04/16 Boston

2:19:59 Mike Deren (Ky) 01/14 Houston

2:21:17 Samuel Chelanga (US) 04/22 London

2:21:46 Brian Atkinson (Fl) 01/14 Houston

2:21:47 Scott Smith (US) 04/16 Boston

2:23:35 Scott Bauhs (US) 03/04 Otsu

2:23:37 Elkanah Kibet (US) 04/16 Boston

2:23:43 Riley Cook (Ut) 01/14 Houston

2:24:24 Connor Kamm (Mi) 01/14 Houston

2:24:31 John Raneri (Ct) 01/14 Houston

You are saying if more Americans took the marathon seriously, we could have 100 sub 2:04 guys.

???????????

Someone mentioned title 9. That has to have some effect. In the MWC, all 11 schools had a women's track team and only 6 schools had a men's team. Plus, the level of scholarship at some of those schools is something less than tuition, room, and board. Easy to see why the pool of future pro runners is getting smaller.

So american marathoning is strictly related to men's outcomes? Sexist much?

Rolling my Eyes wrote:

So american marathoning is strictly related to men's outcomes? Sexist much?

Oh for God's sake; try and use your head, reason just a little and try to leave behind the college/pop culture victim memes.

Grow up and take a look at the wider world.

I corrected and explained the last handle.

Be and adult wrote:

Rolling my Eyes wrote:

So american marathoning is strictly related to men's outcomes? Sexist much?

Oh for God's sake; try and use your head, reason just a little and try to leave behind the college/pop culture victim memes.

Grow up and take a look at the wider world.

Why does acknowledging that women marathoners exist make you so angry?

I seriously think GPS watches and paces/splits are to blame. American men have forgotten how to compete cause they are so far behind the Africans to begin with, so they're trying to race their watch and splits rather than effort.

--The Africans are racing to COMPETE, just like the great Americans and non-Africans did in the 70s and 80s. They've got money on the line and scalps to take down.

--Everyone else in the world is time trialing and most likely going by kilometers. 3:00 kilometers equals 2:06:26, so you've got all these Asian and European guys training and aiming for 3:00/km. They may come up short but still run sub 2:10.

--American guys are aiming for 5:00/MILE, which equates to 2:11:00 (and they fall off pace and run 2:12-18). So our guys are aiming LOWER than their likely equally talented Asian and European counterparts.

--Sadly, trying to raise the Olympic Trials standards has done nothing to get men to step it up, unlike American women.

--Also, American women are more likely to have a chance in being competitive at major and mid-major marathons, so they can throw time and splits out the window and focus on competing.

I wasn't so sure if Desi would ever win a major because she was so focused on splits and hitting pace rather than competing. This year's Boston forced her to ditch the watch and splits, and look what happened!

People just need to ditch this crap and focus on competing and getting the most out of yourself.

Les wrote:

If you go back over the history of American marathon running we have very rarely had more than one world class guy at a time. By that I mean someone who could contend for a medal or run fast. We have Rupp now. Before him we had Hall. Before him, you have to go back to the early '90s when guys like Spence/Plaatjes medaled. Before them, you have to jump to the early '80s when Salazar had a couple good years. Then Shorter and Rodgers in the '70s. That's the last 45 years of American marathoning.

US world-ranked marathoners 1970-1982

1970

1971

1. Frank Shorter

1972

1. Frank Shorter

5. Kenny Moore

1973

1. Frank Shorter

1974

2. Frank Shorter

1975

1. Bill Rodgers

4. Steve Hoag

5. Tom Fleming

1976

2. Frank Shorter

4. Don Kardong

6. Bill Rodgers

1977

1. Bill Rodgers

1978

2. Bill Rodgers

1979

1. Bill Rodgers

10. Kirk Pfeffer

1980

4. Alberto Salazar

8. Tony Sandoval

1981

1. Alberto Salazar

6. Craig Virgin

7. Bill Rodgers

9. Dick Beardsley

1982

1. Alberto Salazar

7. Benji Durden

8. Dick Beardsley

and then something went wrong...

olyrun wrote:

Another fun fact: the 10 fastest Ethiopian women this year is faster than the 10 fastest U.S. men in the marathon. 2:21:19 vs 2:23:35

Ouch! Can't be a good look for American masculinity.

One thing I've noticed is that the lead pack is almost always racing a tactical race, but after that it seems to mostly just be a time trial for everyone else. Most of these races don't have a lot of depth upfront, so maybe you get the lead pack going in around 2:10 pace, but after that it's super strung out between that and 2:30.

About the same that Atari and Nintendo came onto the scene, along with personal computers.

There's your answer!

compete against yourself. wrote:

--Everyone else in the world is time trialing and most likely going by kilometers. 3:00 kilometers equals 2:06:26, so you've got all these Asian and European guys training and aiming for 3:00/km. They may come up short but still run sub 2:10.

--American guys are aiming for 5:00/MILE, which equates to 2:11:00 (and they fall off pace and run 2:12-18). So our guys are aiming LOWER than their likely equally talented Asian and European counterparts.

--Sadly, trying to raise the Olympic Trials standards has done nothing to get men to step it up, unlike American women.

I disagree with all of this.

No American with the talent to run faster is limiting their goals to 5:00/mi. For someone like Nick Arciniaga, 5:00/mi is a great goal. But I doubt Ritz, Rupp, or Hall have ever limited themselves like that. Along similar lines, no int'l athlete with the talent is limiting themselves to 3:00/km.

There's no evidence to suggest the OTQ standard has any bearing on top Americans, neither men nor women.

+1

I agree that the 5min/mile vs 3min/k is not the novel insight that it’s suggesters believe it to be. I cringe to see that people actually think that.

El Keniano wrote:

olyrun wrote:

Another fun fact: the 10 fastest Ethiopian women this year is faster than the 10 fastest U.S. men in the marathon. 2:21:19 vs 2:23:35

Ouch! Can't be a good look for American masculinity.

Meh, my masculinity is just fine. Thanks for your concern, though!

Mebmerica wrote:

Les wrote:

If you go back over the history of American marathon running we have very rarely had more than one world class guy at a time. By that I mean someone who could contend for a medal or run fast. We have Rupp now. Before him we had Hall. Before him, you have to go back to the early '90s when guys like Spence/Plaatjes medaled. Before them, you have to jump to the early '80s when Salazar had a couple good years. Then Shorter and Rodgers in the '70s. That's the last 45 years of American marathoning.

Yeah you forgot me.

Me too.

vivalarepublica wrote:

About the same that Atari and Nintendo came onto the scene, along with personal computers.

There's your answer!

also improved drug testing... radical increase in traffic using leaded gas until 1996, etc.

look, America is about diversity which means genetic diversity, we're not monolithic genetically like east africa or Japan, so it takes awhile for extreme talent to emerge

there's also no government driven method to find talent at a young age other than maybe kids being forced to run a mile in high school PE ? maybe there needs to be a universal, government encouraged "Morning Mile" program in every elementary school

finally there's little money or glory for being a fast marathoner that's not absolutely #1, even #3 is virtually unknown to the public and #10 probably can't make a good living - compare that to football. basketball or even soccer these days

Can we please stop calling anyone that doesn't run

< 13:15 (5k)

< 27:30 (10k)

< 1:02 (half)

< 2:06 (full)

A sub-elite. These guys are soo much faster than the fastest person on here and by that logic I am a super-sub-elite athlete and now feeling bad about myself.

Seriously though, its quite obvious that alot of the talent in NAZ, ZAP and elsewhere isn't world-class professional level but these people who dedicate their time to this sport certainly ARE elites.

This post simply degrades the only people in our entire country who are talented enough, and want to give up their time, effort, youth, job opportunity etc to run this distance and then you wonder why athletes leaving school aren't interested in pursuing the lifestyle that accompanies running "elite" times.