Hope for Americans? Belgium's Koen Naert, who didn't break 2:10 in his 1st 6 marathons, just ran 2:07 in Rotterdam

Thought you had to be Kenyan to join

Naert 2:07:39.

7th in loaded Rotterdam marathon.

The only one in the top 10 that was born in and also trains in the northern latitudes.

How does he do it? What is the secret?

US has dozens of guy faster than him on the track.

We should have a good 20 guys under this time but we don't.

Wow. The bandana guy??

Thats badass!!

xcrunner8 wrote:

Discus.

Koen already trains and spends a lot of time in the US. Should be a straightforward path to citizenship.

xcrunner8 wrote:

Discus.

He’s better at the marathon than field events.

Also, there’s an assumption here that he would want to represent the US.

Most Trials Qualifiers would probably make a better living financially if they joined the Army and WCAP.

They have the Michael Jordan of Track!!

https://www.instagram.com/mj_of_track/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_mid=XKoSQwAAAAESp2_tSRnDtU4Rruy7

Alan

Dude is a beast. Only further proves the case that non-Rupp American marathoning is still super weak. We’ve got plenty of guys with better track PRs than him who simply can’t translate it to the marathon and end up settling for 2:12-2:13 PRs. Europe > US at the marathon (on the men’s side, that is).

How is this possible? wrote:

Naert 2:07:39.

7th in loaded Rotterdam marathon.

The only one in the top 10 that was born in and also trains in the northern latitudes.

How does he do it? What is the secret?

US has dozens of guy faster than him on the track.

We should have a good 20 guys under this time but we don't.

Secret? Better nutrition.

Also, he's not overvaccinated like typical younger American.

I think its Naert. Not Nart.

What is Naert's training regimen? Who is the coach? Who does he train with?

So he is a 13:32/28:32 runner on the track.

Has a 1:01:42 half!! Droddy has run a 1:01:48.

Good grief, I think Naert just ran 10 minutes faster than Droddy!!

I'm sure it is only a matter of time that this message board will be filled with bogus accusation that the only reason that Koen ran 2:07 and U.S. born runner's can't is because Koen is a doper.

When he ran his first marathon in 2015 (2h13.39 in Hamburg) he worked full-time as a nurse and his highest weekly mileage was 150km (95 miles).

Then he turned pro and in preparation for Rotterdam this year (and the european championship last year) he trained in flagstaff logging 880km in 4 weeks; that's an average of 137 miles per week.

His coach is Raymond Van Paemel who was a (sub)elite runner in the 80's.

Correction: He didn't turn pro until after the Rio Olympics. So he ran the Berlin Marathon in 2015 in 2h10.31 while working fulltime and a highest weekly mileage of about 100 miles.

It's like rojo has never heard of Bill Rodgers.

How is this possible? wrote:

Naert 2:07:39.

7th in loaded Rotterdam marathon.

The only one in the top 10 that was born in and also trains in the northern latitudes.

How does he do it? What is the secret?

US has dozens of guy faster than him on the track.

We should have a good 20 guys under this time but we don't.

How does he do it? Simple, he doesn’t try to stinson the race like most Americans. Run even pace you are actually capable of and finish strong. He ran even splits and picked it up a bit in the last 7k. That’s how you do it.

Maybe there is hope for Yuki to one day sub-2:08 as well!!

Is this is howz he doez it?

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8960348

Or is it all the "hard work"? (sound familiar)

2:36 debut wrote:

It's like rojo has never heard of Bill Rodgers.

His first marathon was a DNF, than he went on to run 2:36, off the top of my head ran 2-3 more marathons in the 2:19-2:2x range and finally did his brake through at the Boston marathon. Winning it in a American record time of 2:09.

He is focused and disciplined in his approach; takes the long-term view of his goals, but is also realistic about his capabilities. Not afraid to challenge himself, but doesn't race over his head: Simply put, this Belgian doesn't waffle about his training or his goals or his racing strategies.

Clean WR.