Hi Dreamer ... and Tony Brien ... nice to hear from you too! (Wow, that race course up Sunset Ave. was pretty tough in LA '81!)
What I'm saying is simply this ... my "desire" to be a world class distance runner was greater than my ability ... I was willing to train very hard and be ultra consistent every day ... I was extremely lucky to NEVER get hurt running 140+ miles per week! Genetics I guess? My training was hard stuff but I loved it, and wanted to be good ... and wanted to win the Boston Marathon more than anything ... that was my # 1 goal ... winning NYC M twice meant nothing to me ... winning LA, Cleveland, Toronto were just "pay days" and nothing more to me ... I had a few challeneging goals and tired as hard as possible to acheive them ... as simple as that!
I believe we should have more sub 2:15 marathon runners in America ... true, it won't get you anywhere internationally, but there should be more runners going faster with 300 million population in America.
How about setting the American marathon standard higher? Lets train young runners (start at 19-20 years old and up to train and race (with 2:08 at least) in mind! 140 mpw is NOT a magic number once again..but you better be aware of what your compitition is doing in Africa. Its 2-3 workouts per day, 7 days a week! Its running high volume and up-tempo pace ... we must run more and it must progressively be done at a quicker pace!
I'm open and willing to coach any athlete, 2:20 guy can run 2:12 of course ... Joe Lemay had zero speed and was too tall etc etc .. but he achieved highly off 140 weekly mileage and fast tempo distance runs .. he's an example here (besides being a wonderful friend and athlete) who gave 110% all the tiime to his athletic goals!!
got to go..TF