John Treacy: Majority of Euro distance runners have simply given up "They're being too cautious,"

mofong wrote:

subelite hobbyjogger wrote:

Perhaps constantly hearing you are genetically inferior (as an ethnic group) and will never be able to compete at the highest level has an effect.

"Euro distance runners" covers a wide variety of ethnic groups, so it ain't that.

White distance runners.

“Euro distance runners” clearly refers to people who are genetically European, not non-White immigrants or naturalized citizens. Genetic Europeans, whether they are Norwegian or Italian, are generally considered white.

Don’t be a gamma.

We all know the answer to this. The cheating East Africans have and will continue to destroy distance running. They don’t have a genetic advantage. They have an EPO advantage.

subelite hobbyjogger wrote:

mofong wrote:

"Euro distance runners" covers a wide variety of ethnic groups, so it ain't that.

White distance runners.

“Euro distance runners” clearly refers to people who are genetically European, not non-White immigrants or naturalized citizens. Genetic Europeans, whether they are Norwegian or Italian, are generally considered white.

Don’t be a gamma.

“Clearly refers to”? Haha, please.

Of course they gave up! They don't get to use all the steroids they want out of competition anymore.

I'll begin by saying that I agree with you that there probably isn't as much interest in distance running among Europeans as there was decades ago. And I have no problem with people who want to argue with something I wrote. But I can get really pissy with people who want to argue with me or criticize me for something they've decided I've written or said but never did. In that spirit, let's note here that YOU are the one bringing up the "tougher and more hard nosed in my day" thing. I did not. All I said was said in response to the guy who thinks that runners in the 70s had more time to run than today's pros do because they didn't have the Internet or video games to distract them then and to explain that having a job, as we mostly all did, was pretty time consuming.

This feels like another boomer/millennial thing which I'm over tbh. People worked hard back in the day & people are working hard today. Different things existed to distract runners then compared to now. You can't just blanket statement and say because of iPhones/Netflix nobody runs 110-120 miles/week. & you gotta appreciate the path blue collars runners took to work tough jobs and run twice a day and pull off solid race results. I feel like track runners have gotten a lot faster. We have a ton of depth 800-5k range, I wonder if the NCAA system was the same back then as it is today? A ton of people leave the sport after burning out after 4 years of trying to peak three times a year. I'm not going to fault people for doing what's best for them if that's choosing a career or relationship over running.

John was referring to European athletes.

The US is the only place in the world where the sport is truly healthy, from High School through College and the Professional ranks. I would advise any aspiring European middle/distance runner (Ingebrigtsen's excluded) to seriously consider college in the US.

The Irish athletes who performed well on the world stage almost all came to school in the US. Irish standards have dropped dramatically since athletes started staying at home.

Coach education in Europe has left a lot to be desired. When the running boom took place there were thousands of people looking for coaching qualifications most of them had very little background in the sport. The governing bodies quickly formed or revamped their coach education programs as they saw an opportunity to keep control and make money.

The problem is that what they taught these new coaches was absolute garbage.

Exercise physiologists were consulted to form curriculum and their mantra was as a previous poster pointed out "less is more" So we have all these new coaches going into the system preaching the information they had been given, low mileage/high intensity is the best system!

It took a few years to fully become implanted but those years saw a gradual decline in standards to the present dismal place that Europe finds itself in now. How on earth do they expect Europeans running 70 miles a week to beat basically more talented Africans running double that amount?

I was asked what my favorite sports quote was a few weeks ago and answered with my own quote from 1995 " the African athletes are so good if they start taking drugs we are f----d".

As someone posted up thread, economic opportunity is a huge factor in the decline of Western running.

If you are a 28:XX 10K runner coming out of college with a marketable degree, becoming "pro" in a world of 26:XX 10K runners is a hard sell. Consider the choice: you could sign with a training group or shoe company for less than $30K a year in hopes of getting better during your initial contract or join corporate America and get double or triple that money (depending on your degree) right away. Got a finance or data science degree? You're making six figures on day one. Why toil in obscurity (and get constantly mocked/analyzed/doubted on sites like LRC) to chase $500 at a road race?

Portland Hobby Jogger wrote:

As someone posted up thread, economic opportunity is a huge factor in the decline of Western running.

If you are a 28:XX 10K runner coming out of college with a marketable degree, becoming "pro" in a world of 26:XX 10K runners is a hard sell.

See Callum Hawkins. Move up to the thon earlier. Before professionalism was a thing in distance running(meaning you made no money in running), there were plenty of guys knocking out 100+ MPW with full time jobs. It's all about how bad do you want it.

Portland Hobby Jogger wrote:

As someone posted up thread, economic opportunity is a huge factor in the decline of Western running.

If you are a 28:XX 10K runner coming out of college with a marketable degree, becoming "pro" in a world of 26:XX 10K runners is a hard sell. Consider the choice: you could sign with a training group or shoe company for less than $30K a year in hopes of getting better during your initial contract or join corporate America and get double or triple that money (depending on your degree) right away. Got a finance or data science degree? You're making six figures on day one. Why toil in obscurity (and get constantly mocked/analyzed/doubted on sites like LRC) to chase $500 at a road race?

You seem to think that people have thinking smarts on a regular basis. People working those two fields are as rare as elite runners.

Stop being lazy and making excuses wrote:

Portland Hobby Jogger wrote:

As someone posted up thread, economic opportunity is a huge factor in the decline of Western running.

If you are a 28:XX 10K runner coming out of college with a marketable degree, becoming "pro" in a world of 26:XX 10K runners is a hard sell.

See Callum Hawkins. Move up to the thon earlier. Before professionalism was a thing in distance running(meaning you made no money in running), there were plenty of guys knocking out 100+ MPW with full time jobs. It's all about how bad do you want it.

Back before professionalism was a thing, the American amateurs were whining about the Europeans and their makework non-jobs that allowed them to train full time, and taking money under the table.

Don't most of the Kenyan runners have side jobs? Most of them don't have luxury to only run and rest.

Big Stick wrote:

John was referring to European athletes.

The US is the only place in the world where the sport is truly healthy, from High School through College and the Professional ranks. I would advise any aspiring European middle/distance runner (Ingebrigtsen's excluded) to seriously consider college in the US.

Your points do hit home regarding the UK, although we're doing way better now than 5 years ago in the mid-distances. Many of our kids do consider college in the US, but that's because our own college got so expensive that the chance of a scholarship and a free education makes huge sense even if you don't become a pro athlete. When I was young in the 80s, coaches warned teenagers off going to the US because of over-racing, but we did OK at home as I remember.

"The sport is healthy" in many European countries, in the sense that it's growing, has participation at all levels, great series of Euro championships (U18, U20, U23 and senior) to develop talent, gazillions of competitions with real history, and usually some route to nurture the top talent in most countries (many of which are state-sized). Obviously, Norway's really on a roll now; but Europe and the USA had a very competitive match just a week ago, and achieve similar levels across all events with similar populations. It just tends to be more home-town-club-structured, rather than based around High School / College structures. Yes, I concede you're better at the marathon, if that's what you care about.

I think Treacy totally misses the point when he says that what's lacking is athletes who are training consistent 110-120 mile weeks. That line of thinking suggests that there is the same basic set-up, the same number of talented athletes pursuing track at what they think is the highest level, except they don't know how to train properly. But distance training is not exactly secret knowledge known only to a few - more or less every successful distance runner of the last several decades ran/runs 100+ mile weeks for much of their training.

The relevant question would be, WHY aren't as many current European runners with the right physical tools pursuing this path? Most likely, numerous factors are at play, from cultural changes to more attractive alternatives to discouragement due to African domination. Not to say it isn't worth examining what these factors are, and even trying to address them, but I think the explanation can be best summed up as "young Europeans just aren't interested in distance running as much anymore" rather than acting like the athletes are there, but just don't train hard enough.

For example, Finland used to be a distance-running powerhouse (perhaps aided by blood doping). Now they have nobody. Did they forget how to train in Finland? Do their would-be Olympians have the same level of talent as the '70's guys, but now only run 50-60 mpw or something? I would venture that the better explanation is that Finnish males who are physically capable of running 27:XX for 10k are as numerous as ever, but fewer of them take up track nowadays.

The Past Ruled wrote:

I would venture that the better explanation is that Finnish males who are physically capable of running 27:XX for 10k are as numerous as ever, but fewer of them take up track nowadays.

Or fewer are doing the training needed to run those times

It could be that there are fewer Europeans taking up serious distance running as were doing it thirty plus years ago. It could be that comparable numbers of Europeans are taking up serious distance running but are not doing the training that was done thirty plus years ago. It could be both. I can't help but think that the "less is more" years have had some sort of long term affect but can't prove it. It might be possible to check the "fewer are interested" hypothesis by comparing numbers of competitors at today's U23, U18, etc. races with those from the '70s and '80s.

Runners lose because they are soft and too precious about racing.

Never up, never in as they say

Train hard and race. Let the chips fall where they may

Another "back in the day" blog. 100% , he does not know what other are doing , how could he know. Is their a European , "please report your exact daily activities to JT ".

not again. wrote:

Another "back in the day" blog. 100% , he does not know what other are doing , how could he know. Is their a European , "please report your exact daily activities to JT ".

I’m not saying JT is 100% right or knows everything that is going on but he may due to his professional position and reputation know considerably more than most.