Say Alberto Salazar was 20 today, could his career have been even better?

We already know how big of a difference the shoes make in the marathon. This is obvious. Put Kipchoge in some Nike Cortez in London and he will absolutely run 2:06+

No because if he was 20 today he would not have been born when his career took place.

Luv2Run wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

No, Salazar was extremely talented and maybe the most talented marathoner in the world at that time. The goal in training should to do the least amount possible and still maximize results and Salazar went way past that point. Just about any elite runner is capable of overtraining and the the ones who had longer careers trained closer to the optimal amount.

The idea that Salazar was tougher than everyone else is a myth. Guys like Lopes, Castella and Seko were as tough as it gets.

I am glad to see someone else pointing out finding that sweet spot of training. Too many folks add load and see a decline and never think "Hmmm I was running better with fewer miles (or intervals or whatever)".

How do you measure "toughness"? The "you" here is not specifically SDSU Aztec.

I am tough. You are talented? The problem is the sweet spot for training is pretty small. Back off training a bit and your a 2:11 marathoner instead on a 2:09 one. Overtrain a bit and you become a 2:14 or injuried guy. And who knows is the exercise endure asthma which supposedly was AlSal’s problem was caused by excessive training or something that was going to happen anyway.

There are a ton of athletes that have brief moments that they cant repeat. See a guy like Andrew heating or to some extent Alan webb( multiple peaks but still). Hard to say how much of that is poor training and how much is just a result of who they are.

Now the one that gets me is everyone who brags about their 18+ mile MP training sessions. Most of the timer hey can’t hit 18 miles at that pace in the actual race...

Luv2Run wrote:

tarckstar wrote:

Coe ran as fast as he was able to, I don't think he left anything on the track in his fastest times. I know some here can forever extrapolate his times to be faster and faster, but I think the personal bests of Sebastian Coe are as good as possible.

Salazar, given less overtraining, might have been top-5 at the LA games, and might have gone high 2:06 at Rotterdam in 85 or 86. He was saying when he was winning that he could see a 2:05 or 2:06 before he was done, something like that, and I think he would have gotten there. It's too bad it all went south starting in 83.

I think top 5 in LA in 1984 is optimistic. The guy did not do well in the heat. Lab testing showed he had an incredibly high sweat rate. Nothing I know of can help with that.

Ackley wrote:

Your out of shape, alcoholic guy ran 27:30 that day he beat Salazar. I'm also out of shape, but I need to start drinking more.

For the younger guys around here, when Salazar lost to Rono, he was experimenting to determine the feasibility of a 10,000/Marathon double in LA. He ended up running within seconds of the AR for 10,000 and nine days later running a 2:08:52 Course Record to beat Beardsley in Boston (which later became recognized as the AR).

He had also won Silver at World Cross a couple of weeks before this double in March 1982. Roughly two months after the double, he set ARs at 5,000 and 10,000. This was all before his 24th Birthday.

That same year a 35 year old Portuguese guy began a return to form that obliterated anything Al ever did.

Takinadump wrote:

We already know how big of a difference the shoes make in the marathon. This is obvious. Put Kipchoge in some Nike Cortez in London and he will absolutely run 2:06+

Agreed.

So Salazar's 2:08.13 at NYC in American Eagles would be worth a high 2:06 at a flat Euro course in 1981*, and 3-4 minutes faster in 4% shoes, giving him a low 2:03 - both claims states earlier.**

* Rotterdam is a flat Euro course, and Salazar was nowhere near even a 2:08 there in 1983, but I think we all know the floor had dropped on him some time between NYC 82 and April of 83. (Leading to the topic of this thread.)

** DK in 4% shoes would have gone as fast as Kipchoge did at Monza, at Berlin his year.

Luv2Run wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Salazar significantly shortened his career by overtraining. I've heard he trained as much as 180mpw and it caused a breakdown of his immune system. With more rational training he would have been a medal threat in both the 84 and 88 Olympic marathons.

I think he might have been better, but I doubt he would have had success during the Olympics. He was notoriously poor in the heat and I do not think any training or modern stuff would have helped with that.

He could have maybe ran better in the heat if he wasn't wearing that fur coat on his chest!

There are no 4% shoes on the track and Bekele was 11 seconds a mile faster than Salazar in both the 5000 and 10000, which comes out to 4:45 over a marathon. If Salazar could have run 2:03, then Bekele could have run 1:58:15.

How does Nike throwing around money help someone run faster? Would Salazar put a couple $100 bills in his shoes?

I believe Salazar may be a dope coach but not a dope runner, himself. With epo he would have run 2:06 marathon.

His downfall is that instead of trying to expose drugged runners, he feels that one must join them to beat them.

According to the following thread, Mutai's 2:05.05 at NYC was worth the world record that day. Yet, somehow nobody can see Salazar's 2:08.13 in 81 being worth anything better somewhere flat. Aside from the fact, and yes I'm talking to you Brojo, Salazar predicted it, and Clayton's time just sat there for over a decade with no one coming anywhere near it. He predicted it, did it, and it took another four or five guys to put the time better than what Salazar would have done that day, on those same courses.

Meanwhile, fast-forward to today, and Rupp is always two minutes faster.

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8970653