Run-Down Forums

[Dan]

[Distance_Guru]

Sorry about that. After the publication of one of his biographies (The Jordan Rules, I think but I'm not positive) it was made public that Micheal Jordan did a fair bit of gambling, betting on the ponies and the like. Well there are those out there that theorize that Jordans previous retirements weren't exactly his idea. They speculated that Jordan bet on basketball. And that his two retirements were actually suspensions by the league to punish him. By breaking them up they prevented the total degradation of his skills and made it look more like he was retiring and unretiring rather than serving one long suspention.

All in all it is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. And although the unannounced one month suspensions for not taking a drug test sound more likely. I put them in the same category. Entertaining, but unbelieveable without real evidence.
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Time is the fire in which we burn

[Dan]

Wow, that is a stretch. I suppose the league also killed his dad to send him into a fake mourning and made sure he couldn't think of any more challenges to pursue prior to his second retirement?

[Distance_Guru]

What I would consider hard evidence is a whistle blower from the inside. Someone that was supposed to take the samples from the runners that were to be tested and refused, going to the media. Which would as you suggested spark an investigation by the IAAF. An admission by a retired athlete, like what is going on in baseball right now. Something along those lines. I am just feel that if this is as wide overt as athletes refusing to be tested and then being put on secret suspension that there would be to many people in the know and that somewhere along the line someone with a backbone would stand up and say "this is wrong". Sure there would be risks for the whistle blower but with as many people are required to be in on a cover up this big someone would come forward.

Do I think cheating happens, yes. I have never denied that. I simply think that it isn't as wide spread and as tolerated as you and Hammer are insisting
_________________
Time is the fire in which we burn

[Dan]

You're closer than you think...

Dan

[Dan]

An article in her defense:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,4-381819,00.html

Although, I have to add that I personally know a physio of Mary Slaney's who has no doubt of her innocence despite being in the relative minority on the issue. It's a pretty simple concept called ... loyalty, whether or not it's misplaced.

Dan

[Dan]

I should also point out that Mr. Hartmann makes one of the more common short-sighted mistakes in reasoning in the article: Athlete X works harder than anyone else -- I've seen it in practice! -- thus they are obviously capable of running such times and cannot be a cheat. The problem is, most performance enhancing drugs I'm aware of (blood boosters such as EPO and blood doping being the major exception, but even they fit into the category to some degree) do not make you faster just on race day... They allow you to train harder, making what you can do in practice just a precursor to race performance. So, that reasoning is no more evidence in favor of innocence than it is of guilt.

Dan

[Paul]

Thanks for the article, Dan.

DG, I'm waiting for your comments on that Easter Monday workout of hers located in the heart of the article. Awesome!!

Paul

[Justin]

Whether they were on drugs or not a woman still ran 29:31 for 10k. It can be done. It's convenient to dismiss the mark as a freak but it would be more sensible to see it as a new horizon, a new peak to climb. That's what Radcliffe did. Many of her rivals took a see no evil, hear no evil approach and pretended 31 minutes was a good 10k time.

The ER Radcliffe broke was 30:13 by Ingrid Kristiansen in 1986. Man, if beating it by 12 seconds 16 years later is cause for suspicion, what must Kristiansen have been on???

Alternatively, the event has stood still for a decade as athletes ignored the evidence in front of their own eyes that they were setting their sights at least a minute too low. Perhaps Radcliffe's advantage is in her horizon setting, not her training. She's training to run 30 mins, her rivals are training to run 31 or 32. And guess what...in a race she beats them by a minute.

Same with Mo Greene. While the rest of the world dismissed 9.79 as an abberation, rather than wonder how they could do it, Mo Greene saw it as a challenge. The rest of the world trains to beat 10 seconds by as much as possible. Greene starts with 9 seconds and adds as little as he can. Different world. Train for 10.00 and that's what you run. Train for 9.80 and you run that.

The women's distance events have hardly advanced in a decade. 30:13 was possible in 1986; 7 years later 29:31 doesn't seem so weird for an event which was only added to champs in the 1990s. The record now should be nearer 29 minutes than 30. The Chinese may have been doped, but they gave a little glimpse of what can be done. It's just taken until now for someone to have the courage to actually try to do it too.

Justin

[Dan]

[Paul]

Off topic in the Run-Down Forums. :question: :question: I don't think I've ever seen that happen before.

Paul

[Distance_Guru]

Paul, I took a look at that Easter Monday workout. Pretty impressive. I would discribe it as almost Oregonian. From what I've read of Bowerman's old training and from a former teammate of mine who ran for Oregon (I think his coaches name is Seevers (sp) he's now coaching at Wake Forest). They liked to do a lot of fartlek style workouts and intervals without stopping. It also reminds me a little of what the Fins use to do (Pre-Lydiard anyway), after all I'm pretty sure they invented fartlek style workouts.

A little off topic but I do know that the word fartlek is Sweedish but from what I understand Finnish and Sweedish in Finnland (and much of Scandanavia) are sort of like French and English in Canda. In other words you have a high percentage of the population that speek both languages.
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Time is the fire in which we burn

[Paul]

The workout reminded me of a variation off the Prefontaine 40-30 workout outlined in Sandrock's Running Tough:75 Challenging Training Runs. After a warmup, the runners would run a 40 sec 200m and then go directly into a 30 sec 200m. They would follow this regimen nonstop until they couldn't hit the splits anymore. The record was Pre at 4 1/2 miles. The basis of the workout was race simulation and learning how to recover while running. The recovery interval was a fast float instead of a jog. Dellinger says the genesis of the workout originated while he was watching Kuts train at Melbourne for the Games in '56.
DG, you would enjoy this book. The cover picture is Adam Goucher on the track with his Fila racing flats, shirtless, looking like bullets would bounce off him!!

Paul

[Dan]

Once again, Paul comes to the rescue with another book recommendation! Here's a link to it, for those of you interested in a closer look.

I was also immediately reminded of the 30/40 (or 40/30) workout when I read that article. It's also similar to a workout called "minutes" and what Said Aouita apparently did on a regular basis.

Dan

[Dan]

http://sports.yahoo.com/m/sa/news/reuters/20020828/reu-radcliffe.html

Quite bold, I must say.

Dan