Distance runners with sub-50 400m speed?

The study was on a remote tribe of Ethiopians, none of whom were mentioned as beign World class runners. Bekele does not seem to share the low hematocrit/high oxygen saturation at altitude trait that they have.

I don't agree with your conclusion. Where do you get the idea that these people have a "fantastic oxygen delivery system?" They have adapted to living at high altitude, but so do many lowlanders, but in a different way.

Also, you are suggesting that this genetic trait is compatible with an ability to run well at altitude. Don't you see that the people in the study had a different altitude adaption than is normal, not a better adaption, a different adaption. What sets the best altitude trainers apart is their ability to run well at both altitude and sea level, and this is seen in athletes from many parts of the World, because most of us have the genetics to adapt to both environments.

Anyway, you are missing the point about Ethiopian distance runners performances at altitude and sea level. They are slower by 5% or more at 10k in Adis Ababa, which is normal for any elite runners. They are among the best trained distance runners in the World, but without training they are lousy runners like anyone else.

In 1997 I raced against one of these runners and he beat me by a huge margin, as you would expect from a former Junior World Champion. Six years later, I beat him at his best distance. I was 40 years old, he was not the runner he was when he was at his peak. It's all in the training.

wellnow wrote:

It's all in the training.

That's a good comment to bring the conversation back around. So, all human beings, have the ability to adapt to altitude. The degree of adaptation is variable (some white guy from Kansas can climb Mt. Everest without oxygen, and some Himalayans get altitude sickness above 25,000 feet).

There is enough variation in all human populations that whatever skin color your group of choice has, your group is going to have some freaks of nature (both freakishly fast, in terms of running ability, and freakishly untalented, like, "Are you SURE you're Ethiopian?")

The only way to bring these 'freaks' to the front of the line is through some incentive system. In pre-historic terms, this may have been something like the fast runner eats, the slow runner doesn't. The incentive system can be made more efficient (for large populations) by employing some social organization, sport, for example, to identify those people with the maximal skills for hunting over long distances, again, for example, which helps the group of individuals eat in larger numbers, permitting more individuals to survive. Etc, for example, for example.

Of course, I'm bending this example suit my needs. But here goes. Our system (U.S.) incentivizes speed, even for those people who have a very wide range (Alan Webb is again a perfect example: 47.x 400m to 27:34 10000m). Our method of identifying individuals pushes everyone toward sprint events being better. Even if we have the same amount of genetic variation as every other group on Earth, we have a very poor system for identifying those people with the ability we are looking for.

Ethiopia has the opposite situation. There is a tremendous economic and social incentive in place that encourages a larger percentage (much larger than the U.S. anyway) of the population to pursue the longer distance races regardless of how fast the individual is. Out of ten 47 second 400m athletes in Ethiopia, none may ever run faster than 15:00 for 10000 meters. The difference is all ten of them have an incentive to TRY, and an organizational regime that gives them the best opportunity to try.

That's been my point all along, and I think this is the clearest I have made it so far. It's not so much a question of whether a sub-50 400m runner WILL become a world class distance runner if they are trained properly--it's clear that still, very few will. It's more a question of if we trained ENOUGH of those runners, if we increased the numbers of ATTEMPTS to train 10 times the number of sub-50 400m runners that we do today, knowing that we have the same genetic variation as every other group of people on Earth, do you believe we would find an Asian Bekele, a Bolivian Bekele, a Russian Bekele, or an American Bekele?

just sayin wrote:

It's more a question of if we trained ENOUGH of those runners, if we increased the numbers of ATTEMPTS to train 10 times the number of sub-50 400m runners that we do today, knowing that we have the same genetic variation as every other group of people on Earth, do you believe we would find an Asian Bekele, a Bolivian Bekele, a Russian Bekele, or an American Bekele?

Same genetic variation? Maybe, but clearly there is something genetic that makes the East Africans faster. Some of that is cultural/environmental but not all of it-we aren't just seeing most good 5k/10k runners from East Africa, we are seeing just about ALL the good 5k/10k runners from East Africa. Bekele is the farthest outlier-the fastest from his group. In effect, we already have an American Bekele-Fernandez, Rupp, Webb etc. They are almost as big of outliers as Bekele is. They just come from the wrong group.

East Africans are the best distance runners, and Bekele is the best of the best. There will never be a non-East African who dominates like Bekele does.

Gee, what the hell crawled up your ass?? You started off all nice and sincere, and now have dropped that little guise and decided to show your real colors: an arrogant wiseass.

So we've had this debate before, huh? (were you posting under a different name? same name? I don't recall and I guess it doesn't matter).

ANYway. I agree with the other guy. How the hell do YOU know if Bekele has this trait or not. Did you measure the oxygenation of his blood at altitude? Of course not. So you are basing your ironclad opinion that he "does not have this trait" because he he has high hematocrit and the other ones studied did not? Nice try. A) he could be unique and have both, and B) for many, training at sea-level and then sleeping at altitude increases hematocrit (train low and live high), and these people studied were more likely sedentary and did not due the training like Bekele does.

In short, you do not know whether or not Bekele has the trait mentioned in the study. And his high hematocrit, while I see your point in bringing it up, certainly it does not rule out his having it. And yes, I do not know for sure either if he has it, but since all the Ethiopians studied did have it, I would expect him to have a similar ability.

( I would love to hear your great expertise in genetics. I have someone with a PhD in genetics from Harvard University sitting right next to me at this very moment? Would like me to her any questions for you?? I'd be glad to clear up any misunderstandings you might have on the subject. )

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

Gee, what the hell crawled up your ass?? You started off all nice and sincere, and now have dropped that little guise and decided to show your real colors: an arrogant wiseass.

Whoops, my bad, I confused with the OP. I guess you were an arrogant wiseass from get go.

force cushion wrote:

East Africans are the best distance runners, and Bekele is the best of the best. There will never be a non-East African who dominates like Bekele does.

Thank you. SOMEone without wishful thinking in the place of reason.

And I love how people try and say: "the east african dominating today is no different than when the Hungarians, and Finns, and (fill in the blank) did it in their day. It's no different, and someday another country will push the east africans into the past." Bullshit. It IS different.

Here's some homework for anyone who subsrcibes to that opinion: show me a world list from ANY time in running history when a nation or two (from same area) dominated the all time lists in distance running like the East Africans do today. I defy you to do it. And then find a time when two nations dominated the world x-c team competitions for a decade in BOTH men's and women's like like Ethiopia and Kenya has the last 10 years. Again, you...can't.... do it.

And show me a time in history when the entire rest of world combined can not put 1/10 as many runners in the all-time world top 25 lists in the 3k-marathon as 2 countries combined can. Again, you will fail.

It's never happened before, and it will never happen again. And the west african descended runners dominate the 100 and 200 even to a greater degree.

But "wellnow" is right, it's "all in the training" and has nothing to do with genetics. What a joker.

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

Gee, what the hell crawled up your ass?? You started off all nice and sincere, and now have dropped that little guise and decided to show your real colors: an arrogant wiseass.

Whoops, my bad, I confused with the OP. I guess you were an arrogant wiseass from get go.

I was wondering about that...it seemed like you were talking about me. Anyway, we're all armchair physiologists and geneticists when we try to talk about this stuff, because if we applied any kind of rigor to our discussion, we wouldn't THINK half the shit we write down, let alone write it. What-ifs are some of the most interesting (infuriating for some) discussions on the boards.

And if we're going to start trotting out experts, I've got a M.D./Ph.D. neuroscientist and a Ph.D. in ex. phys. sitting right next to me!

Your schedule is sound. Not sure the 60' is necessary but it might help them feel like distance guys...You bring them up from the speed side of things, but that's pretty much the only major adjustment. I am happy to see your efforts are paying off so far. Keep it fun.

A little easier on the work would be my only suggestion.

It's tempting to test them too much when they have some wheels. They still need some time. You cant take these guys to the well quite the same way because reliance on the buffering systems is so much greater, peak lactates etc >20-25mmol. Id probably get them to 121 for 600m in a TT situation before pressing for the 1600m or even worrying much about the 800. Then you might have to work an extra lighter period into the schedule to set up the sharpening phase adequately. It'll look like an early taper, but allow you to get one more jump before the meaningful races. Good luck. If you are doing it right, they run faster 4x4 splits all along with the stronger overdistance. It's a fine line, but you are dialing in.

You are grossly oversimplifying what it takes to be a top level long distance runner. Genetics is an important factor but I believe your absolutist statement will be proven wrong in time (maybe not in our lifetime, but eventually).

I believe there is too much of a black and white view of why the Kenyans and Ethiopians dominate the distances. One side says it is all genetic and the other side says if our runners would just train like them we would be able to match them. Both sides are wrong.

To have the kind of dominance they have requires more than just a genetic superiority. There is a massive psychologic element to it. There is a training element to it. There is a participation element to it. There is a cultural element to it (how the general population lives). I could go on.

Let's just compare the US of today vs the US of 15-20 years ago. We hardly compare with ourselves. Did we gain a sudden genetic advance? I don't think so. What has changed? 1. More people running the long miles. 2. Competition has increased, driving the top people to work harder. 3. Psychologically, non-Kenyan college runners have stopped fearing the Kenyan collegians (20 years ago everyone was crying about how it wasn't fair and now our collegians just go out and kick ass on them instead of whining). 4. Top athletes more focused on competing at the pro level earlier vs. hiding out in NCAA until they're forced into the pro world.

There are more factors but in a nutshell you have to build a program like the Kenyan/Ethiopian system over a long period of time, building confidence in your runners and generating the level of competition that forces the top people to break through early enough to make an impact. This is only starting in the USA and we may yet fail.

Think about this: one huge factor in the success of Haile G. was the very long time he spent building endurance, running a ton of miles early, starting from a very young age and being patient. How many American runners have a similar background? I can think of only one - Rupp. I would be willing to bet $1000 that Rupp will become the first "non-african" under 27:00. However, I expect Rupp will have a hard time pulling off a medal. It is when we have 5 Rupps at the same time that we will have the psychological confidence necessary to break into the medals.

About the original question:

I doubt many world class 5k - 10k guys can break 50. Many top coaches have weighed in on this in the past here on letsrun and agree with this.

This idea that our talented long distance runners are lost in other sports or in the sprints is mythology. In fact it was a subtle twist on this logic that was a major contributing factor into why we sucked so bad in the late 80s and early 90s.

Nationwide, coaches became intoxicated with the idea that speed was essential to distance running success. It was like a mass hysteria where all logic went out the window and it suddenly became imperative to improve speed at all costs, discarding mileage in favor of more fancy-on-paper interval workouts. Recruiters were obsessed with the sub-50, 1:55, and low 4:20s 800/1600 type who couldn't break 10 for 2 miles.

It became necessary to constantly produce impressive interval workouts to prove your fitness and simply having put in some solid tempo work and mileage over 70 was considered junk training.

What this led to was a running culture where speed was respected more than endurance. Guys with endurance were cutting mileage and trying to jam more speed workouts in with the predictable result of more frequent injury. Performances were horribly inconsistent. Psychologically, the average guy couldn't count on a good performance when it counted.

You may say, "Well, they weren't training like distance runners". True. But when you make speed the significant selection factor in who you consider to have potential, that's the trait everyone will try to maximize. Coaches will overlook the true endurance runners. It eventually becomes the culture, and distance running suffers.

Look at the situation today. How did we produce it? A bazillion young guys running sub 28, sub 13:30, sub 9 in high school, freshmen breaking 14 like it is nothing, collegiate records set by non-foreign guys 22 years old or even now barely 18 years old. This is an engineering marvel made of altering the inital conditions in our development system so that the product that pops out the far end is pure quality. We did not achieve this by combing the ranks of sub 50 400m high schoolers.

The true pioneer of all this was Bob Kennedy who was able to stick his head outside of the warped system that was 1990s America and see that it was all broken. How did he break through? He changed his environment. He moved in with Kenyans and adopted their running worldview.

You make some good points. In Ethiopia though, you have to feel sorry for the sprinters, they get as bad a deal as the distance runners in other countries. America or the West Indies are the places to be if you are a sprinter.

You clearly don't understand the information contained in the study, those people did not have a high hematocrit, they had the same hct as lowlanders.

Also, you are wrong to assert that altitude training alters blood counts, many studies show that this does not occur.

Anyway you are assuming that Bekele and other Ethiopians have superior oxygen carrying ability. Where is your evidence for this, it is a common misconception that the best distance athletes have such capacity. What they do have is superior neuro-muscular co-ordination.

As for you accusing anyone of being an arrogant wiseass, sir wanks a lot you are the worst offender on letsrun in that field, the biggest know it all of all, arguing about genetics from an ill informed viewpoint as thoug you are an expert. Ask your Harvard PhD about the differences in mental abilities, confidence, self belief etc. are they confined to East African distance runners?

But what is wrong with the approach of developing speed and speed endurance? It works for me and for many others.

The important thing is to do it right. And improve speed at ALL DISTANCES. By practice, you learn the skills to do that.

You mention Bob Kennedy, but don't you realize that his breakthrough came from running his sessions much faster, even though they were fast before?

All the 49s/sub 1:50 guys I knew loathed racing longer distances. I would too if I could run that. In relative terms, if you cannot top those times at 1500m + what's the motivation?

wellnow wrote:

[quote]hkjfhasjkd wrote:

But what is wrong with the approach of developing speed and speed endurance? It works for me and for many others.

The important thing is to do it right. And improve speed at ALL DISTANCES. By practice, you learn the skills to do that.

You mention Bob Kennedy, but don't you realize that his breakthrough came from running his sessions much faster, even though they were fast before?

No, actually I do think it is important to develop speed but not at the expense of endurance.

I didn't want to write a novel before but my basic thrust was that there are unintended consequences to the idea of searching for the next phenomenal distance runner amongst sub 50s 400 runners.

If coaches could stay with the same worldview they have started to have in the USA, and which they must have in Ethiopia, and then simply throw a bunch of sub 50 HS guys into that program without altering anything else, it might produce interesting results. But what really happens is that coaches become obsessed with phony mathematic conversions (like what you see on the "what could Fernandez do for 5k" thread), and start telling themselves "this guy is 3 seconds faster at 400 than Kennedy so therefore will be 36 seconds faster at 5k when he reaches his potential"... Given enough time, there is a creeping attitudinal drift. First they look for fast guys who would ordinarily run 800/1500 and try to train them for 10k. Next, the long training breaks down many of these runners psychologically or physically so they lower the mileage. Give it a few years and suddenly they are recruiting only guys with 49s PR in the 400 who can't train and all the programs call for 40-60mpw training. Then your Rupps and Kennedys have to do secret workouts just to get in the required endurance which breaks down the mutual trust between coach and athlete. This was the story of late 80s early 90s.

I do realize that Kennedy started running his sessions faster but I see this as an effect of his change of mentality and not as the direct cause of his improvement (in other words he changed his mentality, upped his mileage, and was able to run hotter workouts as a result). And when he really started to break through at 5k, he got slower in the mile. And the real moment when the lightbulb went off in his head was after he got smoked in the Olympics (I think in 1992) and made the infamous statement "65 miles a week is just not enough". You can trace the beginning of the American turn-around to that moment.

I think we will be far more likely to find the American Bekele if we go the other direction and start looking for 12 and 13 year old kids who are willing to put in a few mind-numbingly boring years building up to 100-120 mile weeks. In essence we should be looking for a bunch of Galen Rupps. We would also greatly improve our depth if our coaches prioritized work ethic as much as PRs. How many Brian Sells have stopped running because coaches think "talent" is being demonstrated by guys who can run semi-awesome times on low training? This is one of the biggest differences between us and Africans. An African coach is not likely to waste any time on a guy who isn't demonstrating his willingness to put in a lot of mileage and a lot of hard work. This is the true "talent" required to be a successful long distance runner.

[quote]fUrCeOsNhN wrote:

But if you have a guy running the same times who is much slimmer (think Ovett or Coe), then they will probably have a lot of success over the longer distances....

-------------------------------------------------------

...except Coe never did run a good 5K. Never did figure that one out.

LetsBlab wrote:

All the 49s/sub 1:50 guys I knew loathed racing longer distances. I would too if I could run that. In relative terms, if you cannot top those times at 1500m + what's the motivation?

Right on. There is no motivation, because we're all conditioned to think that way. The whole "moving up in distance" thing annoys me, because the implication is that if you're not fast enough at a certain distance, in the U.S., you move up. Problem is, guys like Martin Lel are destroying that line of reasoning at distances all the way up to the marathon! There's no further up to go.

wellnow wrote:

In Ethiopia though, you have to feel sorry for the sprinters, they get as bad a deal as the distance runners in other countries. America or the West Indies are the places to be if you are a sprinter.

What??? So let me get this straight: you REALLY think that the US, Jamaica, and some others are good at sprinting and Ethiopia is not good at sprinting because of culture, and not because the good sprint countries have west african descended runners and Ethiopia obviously does not?? You REALLY think that?? Wow. Genetics has almost nothing to do with it, and it's all about the environments of these nations??? If the "US is the place to be if you are sprinter, remind me again why virtually no white americans (and there are PLENTY that start out sprinting and like sprinting) ever become superstar sprinters? I mean, it's the "place to be" to be a sprinter....but I guess only if you are a black who ancestry can be traced to west africa?

And is it a coincidence that that 2 fastest US runners of all time at 10k are from (wait for it)..... EAST AFRICA ? And it's a coincidence, or a purely a product of culture/environment that every single men's WR is held by a runner from africa or who is of fairly recent african descent ?? (sprints: west african descended runners, middle distance and long distance: east african runners except 1500, north african). Not a SINGLE mens world record is held by a european, asian, south american, australian, or white american, and this has NOTHING to do with genetics??

Keep searching for your white Bekele. When you give up looking for him, you can start searching for your white Bolt. Good luck!

just sayin wrote:

. The whole "moving up in distance" thing annoys me, because the implication is that if you're not fast enough at a certain distance, in the U.S., you move up. Problem is, guys like Martin Lel are destroying that line of reasoning at distances all the way up to the marathon! There's no further up to go.

Wait, now you have me completely confused. The "whole moving up in distance thing annoys" you??? ISN'T THAT YOUR ENTIRE THESIS HERE?? That we should take guys who would naturally be middle distance runners (47-49 400 speed, who would usually either run the the 400, 800, or maybe the mile) and turn them into 5k, 10k guys so we can find one or two of them who can run with Bekele?? I thought was you entire idea, so why does it annoy you?

You've lost me now.