See how Noakes is wrong in the facts about Carlos Lopes
First of all check it all out that i say now please. Lopes never did altitude training, medium or high altitude in his entire run career, what means from 17 years old to 38 when he finish. Not a single day of altitude training. the reason i because his coach Mario Moniz Pereira didn´t allow him to do so because Mario does´t trust in the hypoxia positive effect. Fernando Mamede that did the same Lopes coach didn´t also altitude training for the same reason.
Second. It´s not true that he did long runs from 90 to 120min. On the preparation for the LA Olympics the long runs he did was did 3 runs of JUST 90minutes, one of them he gave up after 75minutes. Consequently 35k in 90minutes don´t you think is too fast even for a 2h07:12 ?
All this that i say is well documented in Portugal and was known by Carlos in many occasions. As a curiosity, i know who did one of that 3 sessions 90minutes runs with him, it was Cidalio Caetano, the other portuguese present in LA marathon, and Cidalio was able to follow Lopes on that day. Cidalio did start the La marathon in the 84 olympics but didn´t finish. When at 32 k he did pass Rod Dixon and Salazar he got high dehydration - because he didn´t drink nothing at all since the start up to that 30k, and he falls on the road and he needed to be assisted in LA hospital and he stayed in the hospital a few days.
No one of this 3 items is true or factual.
Let´s see the facts.
First of all he did a car accident, earlier on he taught it was serious, but after some minutes Lopes knew that the car accident was without no major consequences apart a scratch and he did continued to train everyday like a horse. What is true is that when in did arrive in LA he said that was handicapt by that accident, the usual Lopes trick to make the adversaries think he was bad.
Second he did not the premature success as one Fernanda Ribeiro that with 13 years old did 1h13m in the HM, and as youth did win the european junior champs in 3000m, or the same success that did Fernando Mamede that with just 16 years old was 4th in the 400m and 5th in the 800m of the eurpean junior champs, and he did not such instantaneous success like António Leitao that with 17 years old did 13:42, however while starting at 17 years old, with 18 years old in the junior category he was selected to make the portuguese junior team in the world cross country. With 21 or 22 years old, he did break the 5000m portuguese record. Bt it´s true that his best seasons were only after 29 years old because it was the age he was permitted to be a professional runner, because before 29 he did work 8 hours a day and was amateur runner indeed.
Third his best marathon was his 7th and not the 4th. First in Portugal with 32 years old, second in NY that he give up, 3rd in Rotterdam the one he lost or Castella, 4th Rotterdam again that the winner was Ikanga from Tanzania, 5th LA Olympics and 6th Chicago that he lost for Steve Jones 2 months after the olympics Rotterdam, and finally 7th the best one word record of 2h0712 still in Rotterdam Holland, and he did run another one (the 8th) in Fukouka japan that he did give up at 16k. Noakes wrong again.
This is the problem of one man of supposedly from science that takes as trust source what another runner said. this is not science, This are information made by rumours. If on the facts he was so wrong how might we trust on his theories? One individual is not a trustful source for me - him ! Hoe can someone bit a theory with data support that is wrong ?
Nothing about Lopes' training contributed to Noakes CG theory. ? ? ?
First of all the basic Noakes premise, the early Noakes hypothesis that moves him to think bot something that might be one universal and cognitive factor of performance estimation or performance analysis a fallacious. Why? Because if we all are different and we all need training individualisation also there willn´t be a single universal factor or reason to justify why someone did one certain performance. In one runner might be for one scientific reason and in other runner for another. Even if the Central Governor existed, to some runners we would attribute to the Central Governor as the scientific reason of their performances to some others tere would be another kind of different reason out of the Central Governor and to a third one another different reason, and so and so. The hypothesis there will be one universal single reason why such and such perdfromance would be done WILL NOT BE A FACT EVER !
As far as i know Noakes he says that early to think about something that in the human physiology, one factor that might justify why someone runs faster than another he studied in the lab a few years the effect of the lactate. He also says that because he got the conclusion that anaerobic threshold is a poor estimate of the performance was the reason of his idea of something in the "brain" like the Central Governor.
Or the Lopes training denies that the LT training isn´t a good thing. One rnner with no special talent, no rich physiology parameter why he did win so many times and was superior to some others with better ability. Because
Or precisely Carlos Lopes with so many LTp (Max Lass really) runs in his training schedule is one example of someone that did get the level of individual performance enhance due to that faster daily runs, because if from the perspective of VO2mx or any other known physiology factor he was estimate to be just a average runner, there we got one clue to the positive influence of the MaxLass training on him. However the Noakes quote that says Lopes does easy runs as daily training wile quote as source the book "How they train" is what is wrong.