Run-Down Forums

[Micah Ward]

Conway, Your eloquence is astounding!!!

And here we are once again talking about the sorry state of US distance running. I would have to look at the figures to make sure but I would be willing to guess that we have no one but Kannouchi running the marathon as fast as Bill Rodgers did 25 years ago. Anybody know right off the top of their head?

[Conway]

Off the top of my head I would say you are right .. As a matter of fact I can't think of the last time we had an "American" run under 2:10 for the marathon .. Anyone know ?? Dan, how about your "resources" ?? .. I'm at work and not near mine at the moment ..

[Dan]

Wow, where to start? You guys have left me lots to catch up on... I like it!

Edwards is indeed very religious, but I hesitate to point to that as a determining factor for his athletic success. A good deal of his competitors probably have very similar religious beliefs, yet only one person can be victorious. If I were religious enough to believe my belief in god played a factor on the track and also believed god was playing favorites, I'd be looking for a new god...

Many people say it, but I'll grant that Edwards may well believe it much more than most.

However, isn't Edwards also considered the best technician the sport has ever seen? I would say that would go much further to explain his dominance in big meets. The more sound you are fundamentally, the more likely you are to pull through when the going gets tough.

I'm reminded of a scene in Without Limits where Bowerman is telling Pre that his insistence he has no natural talent is the ultimate vanity. It does seem that distance runners in this country (I don't know if it's the same elsewhere) follow some unwritten rule that it's unacceptable to admit to being talented. I believe that mindset greatly limits the heights they are able to reach. You can call it sacrificing the gift, but I look at it more as not accepting the gift as even existing because to do so would somehow imply a lack of work ethic.

Big schools vs. small schools... The big schools obviously have a larger base of talent to draw from, but not enough people realize it only takes *one* person to drastically alter things, and that one person can come from a city of 100 just as well as from a city of a million!

Marathons... David Morris and his one-race wonder come to mind. Also Bob Kempainen a couple years earlier, but I believe that's about it.

Dan

[Conway]

I think a great deal of Edwards "success via his regiloius beliefs" comes from his belief thta if he does the right thing he will be rewarded .. Part of doing the right thing is his training, diet etc ... As a result I think he is probably better prepared than most - and that is reflected in his technique, mental state of mind etc ...

And on the issue of mental state of minds I don't even want to get on a soap box regarding the mental state of mind of American distance runners ... Suffice it to say that prevoius conversaton on the running boom, and the idea of Leisure running head in the direction of where I think the distance mentality in this country has gone .. Everyone down grades the cockiness of sprinters and praises the meakness of distance runners (American in both instances) ... But in this country the meak have not inherited the medals !!!! Medal winning by American is dominated by sprinters and hurdlers and relay teams ... And our poorest showing internationaly come in the distances (with field event performances being more in line with the sprinters/hurdlers and guess what - the attitudes too) ... And low and behold the last distance runner this country had with a sprinters mentality was - PRE !!! And the last true medal hope in a distance race on the track - PRE !!! Although I might put an asterisk beside the name of Jim Spivey - who mentally was closer to sprinter than most

[Micah Ward]

You may be on to something with the idea of a distance runner with a sprinters mentality. I don't know if this is the same, but I ran my 10K PR of the emotions of being angry at another runner in the first mile. I simply was not going to let him beat me and that energy carried me to a PR.

[Conway]

Yeah .. You got excited .. You got your heart rateup .. You used adrenaline .. I'm not sure if distance guys ever use adrenaline .. Too busy trying to relax and be comfortable all the time ...

Let's top looking at the Kenyans and look at the Europeans for example .. Look at the reckless abandon that the Spaniards run with .. They get out and go .. Put it on the line .. Competing is as much a mentality as it is physical .. That's what getting psyched up is about ..

Of all the events in track and field, distance running (in this country) seems to be the most communal .. And that itself seems to make for less of a competitive atmosphere .. No rivalries .. Just kind of a who is the top runner .. We develop a Steve Scott or a Spivey .. and then everyone else just sort of falls in line .. No chomping at the bits to knock off the top dog .. No personalities .. Nothing ... No Greene v Johnson .. No Crear v Johnson v the next up and comer .. No Jones v Miller .. No everyone trying to topple Dragila .. Hell if you're not into distance running you probably don't even know who is running ... How would you excpect anyone from such a non descript group to become great ???

[Dan]

Yep, that competitive fire Micah experienced in the race is what needs to be present in every day training, give or take a few easy days. That's not to say the mentality is completely missing in the distance ranks, but I think it tends to be witnessed more in the form of grind it out toughness than in rivalry and attitude.

Dan

[Conway]

Hmmm .. I might disagree with you there regarding the grind it out toughness being equivalent to rivalry/competitiveness ... I have known many athletes - sprinters, hurdlers, field event et al - who could grind out workouts but did NOT have competitive fire !!!

One simply has to have the ability to accept and/or routine to be able to grind out workouts ... And frankly I think that is one of th ereasons why recreational distancae running became popular in the first place ..

Competitiveness means putting yourself up against others .. Competitiveness is much more personal .. Requires much more intensity .. To compete means to put YOU / YOURSELF out there .. To get on stage v just practicing lines .. Lots of great "practice players" out there .. A different animal to become a great competitor .. And at the risk of ticking off the distance running community, I am not sure they are taught to compete in this country .. As great as Webb is and is going to be, he did not compete at the Prefontaine Classic (and from interviews I have read I tthink HE realizes that) .. He ran his race (which is a good thing), but he let everyone get away from him (didn't compete) .. Now obviously he broke the record, BUT he could have run faster had he competed in that race ... And therein lies the rub .. HE will run under 3:50 becasue he is a competitor ... But how many more in this country have his kind of talent but will never get to his level .. And I am talking about guys already in college !!!

[Micah Ward]

I think one reason there isn't as much of the adreneline pumping competitive aggression in distance running is that you run the risk of burning yourself out before the end of the race. There is a very fine balancing act there that is hard to master. You need to have enough of it going to run with the leaders and put in the decisive move at the right time. But on the other hand you don't want to find yourself 4 miles into a 10K and discover that you have spent it all.

So unfortunately todays runners are erring to the side of caution because they don't have the courage to let it all hang out and go for broke. I read an article in an old Running Times that said in order to run your fastest time you had to not care if you finished or not. Lay it all out from the beginning and if you crash then so be it.

I think one of the reasons I admire Frank Bozanich is that he runs ultras that way. He runs a 50K or 50 mile like Pre ran a 5K; from the front with a challenge to everyone else that if they want to win they have to beat him.

[Conway]

I agree Micah .. But isn't that what training is about .. To find out where you are and work on improving it ?? I have no doubt that it is hard to run at that level .. I've run several road races myself .. And while I ran no where near elite level I know the feeling of trying to push to my own limits .. But if I were a distance runner and planning ot do so on a regular basis, I would have gone back to the drawing board and tried to alter my trianing to allow me to run closer to that threshhold .. I had to do the same thing when stepping up to the 400 and when learning ot run some 800 on 2 mile relay legs (not easy for a 100/200 sprinter) ..

Guess I have difficulty understanding the mentality .. It seems as if distance runners have somethign against pain .. And i use the word pain sort of generically .. Everyone has their pain demons to overcome to get better .. whether it is harder weight workouts for throwers ... Repeat 400s/500s for sprinters .. Or whatever .. But it seems that distancae runners have this thing about always running in comfort .. Yet wanting to do so and run faster .. And as Hammer said in an earlier post you don't run faster by running slow ..

I grew up on the traininig phrase "it takes pain to gain" while simultaneously watching our distance runners "play" during workouts ... Distance runners love to talk about how sprinters don't work very hard, yet it was the sprinters and hurdlers who were always bent over on the side of the track bringing our lunch back up ... Not sure I've ever seena distance runner puke ..

[Micah Ward]

I've never trained for sprinting so it's hard for me to compare the pain of distance training to the pain of sprint training. Is the muscle burn from sprint repeats more painful than the accumulated pain of pushing the 4th mile of a 5 mile tempo run? I'm sure the track work may look more painful but does it really hurt more? It's kind of like asking if it hurts more to hit your thumb with a hammer or get stung on the ear by a hornet. Both hurt...but in different ways.

One aspect we have not talked about is tradition. We have a rich tradition of sprint and hurdle success in this country that distance running does not have. We have had a few bright spots in the distance community but nothing like the sustained record of Olympic and World gold medals that our sprinters and hurdlers have won. When we talk about elite sprinters we are talking about world records and gold medals. When we talk about elite distance runners we have Kennedy whose claim to fame is that he can keep up with the back of the Kenyan pack. Would the US sprinting community settle for that? I think not!!!

Success breeds success and HSI and the Santa Monica Track Club have been breeding that success in the sprinters. We need something like that in the distance runners. We need a group that can get that first taste of success and then build on it and turn it into a tradition. Now how do we do that?

[Dan]

[Conway]

I agree with you totally .. When it comes to training .. And as to the physiological aspects of the two disciplines .. However ... That does not address the "competitive nature" .. I agree that the distances provide a totally different "feeling" than the sprints .. But so do the weights, and jumps, and every other event ...

I'm talking about competitve fire ... And the fact that the distances are the only discipline that seem to lack it .. Unless you are saying that it is due to the constant pain that a distance runner experiences both during training and during competition itself .. But I have trouble with that as it seems to be a phenomenon indemic only to US distance runners ...

[Micah Ward]

It seems then that we are back to wondering why our distance runners don't have the same competitive fire as the foreign runners. I hate to keep bringing it back to money but who can live the best on the prize money available? Obviously the Africans. But also the Russians and east Europeans on the women's side. It just seems like the ones that are rising to the top are the ones who can take the prize money and go home and live in relative luxury. The Americans can't so they don't have the incentive to build that competitive fire to keep up.

I would like to think that there are Americans out there who would do the necessary training out of a pure love for the sport and the drive to excel. But reality is that you got to pay bills too.

Am I too cynical?

[Conway]

Well I find it interesting that the greatest success in american distance running occured "before" the professionalism of the sport (I'll use 1985 as sort of a defining date) .. Padilla, Marsh, Ryun, Scott, Shorter, Rogers, Spivey, Virgin, Lindgren, Pre, Meyer, Salazar et all, were all products of the pre-professionalized era of track and field !!! How were the bills getting paid then ???

How ironic is it that America's greatest succeses in distance running were pretty much achieved before there was money in the sport !!! And I mentioned all of those names to illustrate that actually the US has a rich tradition in distance running .. Second class US distance running, so to speak, is a recent phenomenon .. Scott, Maree, Spivey, Marsh, Padilla Salazar were not afraid of the Africans .. And were not espousing differences in geneology !!!!!

So far no one has given me a satisfactory reason as to why the sudden down grade in US distance fortunes .. Sure the Kenyans and others have emerged .. But so what .. They've improved .. The rest of the world has also improved .. Why not the US ?? Or why have we not even stayed the same ??? Why has US distance running gone backwards ?? Why must an 18/19 year old kid (as precocious as he is) bear the weight of the nations middle distance hopes on his shoulders ?? Why is he not one of a plethora of young stars waiting to make his move ??

And sprinters, hurdlers, shot putters, pole vaulters, and all the rest have to pay the bills too !!!