Why don’t Non-Africans train like they used to?

Pat Carroll? Grossmont College Pat Carroll?

I've ranted on this before.

In all seriousness, I believe that the absence of daily vigorous phys ed in elementary school is a real factor. Kids just don't develop all-round athleticism and build joint/connective tissue integrity. So even though there's probably just as much inborn aerobic *talent* as there was BITD, most runners can't put in the kind of work that those earlier-generation athletes did. They bust up.

I was the most unathletic, sedentary, weak schoolboy that I knew. But even I ran around a bunch of times each day: phys ed; 5-10 minutes to eat lunch and then the rest of lunch period on the playground; plus a recess (or two?) every day. Plus playing after school, of course.

We also had one, or maybe two, fat kids in each class. Now the *median* kid in a lot of grade school classes is a little pudgy.

Probably a combination of a lot of reasons.

Kids moved around a lot more on their own.

Less distraction from media.

More steady and better payed jobs.

Now almost half of the people are obese. Fat is the new thin.

People work a lot just to get by.

Because of all of that there is less talent to be discovered. And if they are discovered they go "pro" quick, train too hard and burn out.

I also question that the "old guys" trained a lot more. I think a lot of them trained less but more focused. Just because some 120 mile weeks are reported didn't mean they ran 120 mpw all the time.

These reasons make sense.

I disagree that they weren’t running as much as they claim. Most of them were running high mileage very frequently, most weeks out of the year.

Even if guys BITD were more active as kids you would think with all of the strength training that pros do, and over years of building-up, they could train higher mileage.

Old School Cool wrote:

Shorter, Rodgers, Virgin, Malmo, Meyer, De Castella, Moneghetti, Pat Carroll, Troop, the list goes on. These guys were running 120-140+ miles per week and running times that would still be competitive today, especially if you give them Vaporflys. Nowadays the top Non-Africans are running much lower mileage, and often running slower.

What’s the reason (read: excuse)? Why could these guys handle that training but the current-crop prefers to run significantly less? You can dig through the recent trials results and find a handful of guys doing similar training, but not many.

Running fast at middle/longdistance is not just a question of doing high mileage and then you succeed. If it was that easy we would have millions of potential world record breakers.I can assure you that for every Shorter, Virgin, Meyer, De Castella,Moneghetti and so on there are millions of elite runners that tried the same way but failed with overdoing and/or other injuries and so on. The key to succees is not high mileage, it`s more like finding a perfect individual balance of quality/quantity , only enough what it takes to reach your individual realistic goals and stay injury free and continuous to reach the next level.

-The Wizard-

Old School Cool wrote:

Shorter, Rodgers, Virgin, Malmo, Meyer, De Castella, Moneghetti, Pat Carroll, Troop, the list goes on. These guys were running 120-140+ miles per week and running times that would still be competitive today, especially if you give them Vaporflys. Nowadays the top Non-Africans are running much lower mileage, and often running slower.

What’s the reason (read: excuse)? Why could these guys handle that training but the current-crop prefers to run significantly less? You can dig through the recent trials results and find a handful of guys doing similar training, but not many.

Virgin never ran 120-140+ miles per week. I believe he was usually around 85. There were plenty of runners in the 70-80s era who were not big mileage guys.

Yes, but the perfect balance for them turned out to be 120-140 with modest speedwork.

A champ is a champ no matter the era, however MOST not ALL of the times these guys ran would not be considered competitive on the world class level.

Old School Cool wrote:

Shorter, Rodgers, Virgin, Malmo, Meyer, De Castella, Moneghetti, Pat Carroll, Troop, the list goes on. These guys were running 120-140+ miles per week and running times that would still be competitive today, especially if you give them Vaporflys. Nowadays the top Non-Africans are running much lower mileage, and often running slower.

What’s the reason (read: excuse)? Why could these guys handle that training but the current-crop prefers to run significantly less? You can dig through the recent trials results and find a handful of guys doing similar training, but not many.

No. None of those guys times would be competitive today so maybe the training has improved

Two reasons: kids are a lot heavier than they were 40 years ago and there are a lot more endurance sports to choose from than in 1980. Less talent means you don’t have to work as hard to be the top dog .

not compet wrote:

Old School Cool wrote:

Shorter, Rodgers, Virgin, Malmo, Meyer, De Castella, Moneghetti, Pat Carroll, Troop, the list goes on. These guys were running 120-140+ miles per week and running times that would still be competitive today, especially if you give them Vaporflys. Nowadays the top Non-Africans are running much lower mileage, and often running slower.

What’s the reason (read: excuse)? Why could these guys handle that training but the current-crop prefers to run significantly less? You can dig through the recent trials results and find a handful of guys doing similar training, but not many.

No. None of those guys times would be competitive today so maybe the training has improved

Umm mouth breather ... the conversation is about non-Africans... the best USA runners aren’t any better outside of the druggy Rupp. So, no the training is not better; but have it your way ...

I know of one non-African guy who has been running 140+ mpw. He won two Olympic medals and ran 2:06 twice.

I know of another non-African guy who has run 2:05 twice. I don't know what his mileage is, but I bet something similar to the first guy.

So why aren't more non-Africans training like Rupp and Osako?

Didn't the 1998 blast from the past video have a lot of comments about "how they used to train" being dumb?

Also, the nation is more sedentary.

Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:

I know of one non-African guy who has been running 140+ mpw. He won two Olympic medals and ran 2:06 twice.

I know of another non-African guy who has run 2:05 twice. I don't know what his mileage is, but I bet something similar to the first guy.

So why aren't more non-Africans training like Rupp and Osako?

With shady coaches you mean?

It's worse than that. It's not just okay to be lazy, it's bad to be aggressive, competitive, or otherwise manly. T is toxic. We're in a safe space away from nature now.

Only exception is that a man may now aggressively compete against women. And a woman may take T to live as a man, and T is not toxic in that case.

For one thing, we've had a lot of "science" in the intervening decades telling people there's no need to run as much as some of us used to do. Running 20 miles a day for months on end is hard so there's a receptive audience for that sort of message. Another thing is professionalism. If you race all year for your living you want to be reasonably fresh and totally healthy all the time. You don't want to be dragging around after a 150 mile week and you maybe are afraid the 150 mile week will leave you hurt and unable to race. And not everyone in those years was running that kind of really big mileage. I think the 100 mile or so was pretty common for even the better guys with some very notable exceptions like the names the OP mentions.

Well said. It makes me crazy that my kids’ school will cut recess to make up for lost time in another subject. Kids miss out by being so movement-deprived.

Bad Wigins wrote:

It's worse than that. It's not just okay to be lazy, it's bad to be aggressive, competitive, or otherwise manly. T is toxic. We're in a safe space away from nature now.

Only exception is that a man may now aggressively compete against women. And a woman may take T to live as a man, and T is not toxic in that case.

Sad but true.