Forums >Racing>2024 The Waltons: Racing & Training Thread
Hot Weather Complainer
Records are always going to be challenged. Billions more people to produce athletes, better training and nutrition, better rest, better equipment and better medical care. The races themselves tailoring fast courses, good season for ideal weather and start times to go along with it. For the long races, improved hydration and fueling pre and during race. Each wave of runners is aiming at a new record, so they are always working towards a high standard than the last generation. Take all of that and it’s a gradual lowering. Add these dramatically performance enhancing shoes, and then it’s trivial.
Records are always going to be challenged. Billions more people to produce athletes, better training and nutrition, better rest, better equipment and better medical care. The races themselves tailoring fast courses, good season for ideal weather and start times to go along with it. For the long races, improved hydration and fueling pre and during race. Each wave of runners is aiming at a new record, so they are always working towards a high standard than the last generation.
Take all of that and it’s a gradual lowering. Add these dramatically performance enhancing shoes, and then it’s trivial.
Maybe. Except tons of athletes have been done for doping.
5km: 18:34 11/23 │ 10km: 39:10 8/23 │ HM: 1:26:48 9/23 │ M: 3:34:49 6/23
2024 Races:
Motorway Half Marathon February 25, 2024 1:29:55
Christchurch Half-Marathon April 21, 2024 1:27:34
Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024
Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024
And supershoes have been around for 5+ years now too. Sure, they'll improve like any shoe, but that might lead to slightly faster records, not the sort of massive improvements we've seen in some cases.
3,000m: 9:07.7 (Nov-21) | 5,000m: 15:39 (Dec-19) | 10,000m: 32:34 (Mar-20)
10km: 33:15 (Sep-19) | HM: 1:09:41 (May-21)* | FM: 2:41:41 (Oct-20)
* Net downhill course
Last race: Runway5 / National 5k Champs, 16:22, National Masters AG Champ!
Up next: Still working on that...
"CONSISTENCY IS KING"
I was in Berlin when Assefa lowered the Radcliff record. I lowered my own PB massively too and I was definitely clean
We live in a world where vibrating anal beats are used to win in Chess. There is a lot more at stake in running. I very much doubt anyone is clean these days. Except for Nick Bare of course.
HM: 1:47 (9/20) I FM: 3:53:11 (9/23)
2024 Goals: run a FM & HM + stay healthy!
Mother of Cats
+1000.
Everyone's gotta running blog; I'm the only one with a POOL-RUNNING blog.
And...if you want a running Instagram where all the pictures are of cats, I've got you covered.
In addition, when an athlete gets popped for doping, there is virtually no incentive for them to call out anyone they know who is also doping. There have probably been several times an athlete who got caught knew of a few others who were not clean and just didn't say anything.
I tend to be more skeptical of records that stand for a ridiculously long time, largely due to mt79's point. I'm not saying for SURE the current women's 800 meter WR was dirty, but I am saying it's been standing since 1983 ...
The whole East German athletic regime in the 80s was known for state sponsored doping.
The lady in the 800 is extremely masculine
( understatement
Flojo too is hard to accept.
55+ PBs 5k 18:36 June 3rd TT
" If you don't use it you lose it, but if you use it, it wears out.
Somewhere in between is about right "
In addition, when an athlete gets popped for doping, there is virtually no incentive for them to call out anyone they know who is also doping. There have probably been several times an athlete who got caught knew of a few others who were not clean and just didn't say anything. I tend to be more skeptical of records that stand for a ridiculously long time, largely due to mt79's point. I'm not saying for SURE the current women's 800 meter WR was dirty, but I am saying it's been standing since 1983 ...
A lot of the "run on New Zealand soil" records are very long standing...but I think that's due to the insane quality of athletes we had in the 60s and 70s and partly into the 80s with John Walker and Rod Dixon. Even some of the overall records are from the 60s. It's insane to me with all the leaps forward in coaching, nutrition, equipment etc that the NZ 800 metres record was set in 1962. Sure Peter Snell was an absolute beast, but it still amazes me.
Unfortunately our 10km, half and full marathon records are all held by an admitted doper (Zane Robertson).
Ever since the whole Lance Armstrong cheating was exposed, I'vee pretty much given up hope that sports are clean.
MJ, definitely not googling whatever the heck it is chess players are doing.
A lot of the "run on New Zealand soil" records are very long standing...but I think that's due to the insane quality of athletes we had in the 60s and 70s and partly into the 80s with John Walker and Rod Dixon. Even some of the overall records are from the 60s. It's insane to me with all the leaps forward in coaching, nutrition, equipment etc that the NZ 800 metres record was set in 1962. Sure Peter Snell was an absolute beast, but it still amazes me. Unfortunately our 10km, half and full marathon records are all held by an admitted doper (Zane Robertson).
Not only that, Snell's 800m record was set on a grass track too. Unbelievable athlete.
Kathi - you don't wanna know. Trust me.
Halfcrazy I'm a little uncomfortable on the amount of knowledge Mick has on that subject
Mark that 800m record must be one of longest surviving for a country worldwide, amazing.
My sleep is sucking at the moment. I think it's the heat but I'm in a routine of 12am till 5am. I do sometimes get a Nana nap....I mean power nap in the afternoon
Waltons ThreadLord
Forecast for the 10k XC I have planned on Saturday: 3" (7.6cm) of snow falling the day before. Race time temperature of 18º feeling like 3º (-8C/-14C) thanks to the 16 mph (26kph) wind. I can't wait. That's the stuff that makes for epic experiences. I have all the gear I need to keep warm, so why not? Who knows, maybe enough people will stay home that I'll get to the podium this time? (In my experience, it's often the faster folks in their teens and twenties who don't turn out in such conditions, leaving the field more open to the crazy old men like me.)
5k 23:48.45 (3/22); 4M 31:26 (2/22); 5M 38:55 (11/23); 10k 49:24 (10/22); 10M 1:29:33 (2/24); Half 1:48:32 (10/22); Marathon 4:29:58 (11/23)Upcoming races: Running is Back 10k, 5/12; Greta's Run 5k, 5/19
Fred - good luck.
PEDs are part of pro sport. I just accept that.
The women improvements are PARTIALLY to do with a greater pool of talent than previously. Ethiopia and Kenya are much more encouraging of girls and woman competing than in the past, so historically their would have been potential champs who never started. It was 1996 before Kenya had a female Olympic medalist, and 2008 for a female gold. Whereas the men were getting medals from the 1960's.
PRs: 5km 18:43 (Dec 2015), 10km 39:59 (Sep 2020), half 1:26:16 (Sep 2016), full 3:09:28 (Jun 2015)
40+ PRs: 5km 19:31 (Oct 2020), 10km 39:59 (Sep 2020), half 1:29:39 (Jun 2018), full 3:13:55 (Sep 2022)
2023 PRs (hope to beat in 2024): 5km 20:34, 10km 41:37, half 1:32:32, full 3:21:05
2024 PRs: 5km 20:25
Halfcrazy I'm a little uncomfortable on the amount of knowledge Mick has on that subject Mark that 800m record must be one of longest surviving for a country worldwide, amazing. My sleep is sucking at the moment. I think it's the heat but I'm in a routine of 12am till 5am. I do sometimes get a Nana nap....I mean power nap in the afternoon
If you ever come to Switzerland, be careful if I invite you for a chess match
My sleep is sucking too - I think its too much coffee. Can't be the heat here, as it is super cold atm.
JamesD
On the doping records, it's always surprised me that the longstanding ones were such outliers in their time. Yeah, the W800 record looks incredibly dirty, but why weren't the other East Bloc women running times at least somewhat close to those - it's not like the Czechs would have been doping just Kratovchilova, or like FloJo was the only sprinter who had access to whatever she went on. One other reason I've seen suggested for why women's records seem to be even more influenced by doping than men's is that taking things that boost testosterone help women more than men, since men already have more.
The longevity of Snell's NZ 800 record is amazing, but the one that always gets me is (in a different sport) Secretariat's 1973 Belmont Stakes run. Beat the existing record by 2.6 seconds, and in the 50 years since, the non-Secretariat record has been lowered by only 0.6 seconds. At that rate, it won't be broken until around 2190.
I'm having sleep trouble too, mostly because I'm getting to bed around 1 with all the refugee resettlement planning. I also took over this week as president of the board of a local tree-planting group. Starting to remember why I wasn't able to train consistently until after I retired, and to remember how impressive it is that the rest of you are able to do so while working.
Post-1987 PRs: Half 1:30:14 (2019); 10K 39:35 (2019); 5K 19:12 (2017); Mile 5:37.3 (2020)
'24 Goals: consistency, age-graded PRs, half < 1:32
Some of the crazy records (that were cheating vs natural) are probably by world class competitors that compounded their natural ability with cheating. Also the effect on a specific individual could be much greater than on others. I was thinking about the super shoes and how it must make an outsize difference for some individuals. On the treadmill tests the differences were observed from like 1-9% improvements for various subjects if my memory is correct.
But let’s just say that the expected benefit for a woman who is already running world class pace is 2.5%. What if the actual benefit for a specific woman is 5%? That means the typical elite woman cuts 3.5 minutes off a 2:20 marathon, but our test subject cuts 7 minutes. That’s not a small difference.
I would also assume that someone is experimenting with individualizing the shoes to maximize runner specific performance. That could be shoe companies or training groups.
Finally a lot of sports advances start with men and migrate to women. Men and women have biomechanical differences that affect running economy. One super shoe model could be aiding men/women to a larger degree. So super shoes may have been around awhile, but that doesn’t mean that people just stopped trying to optimize them for women in general or for a specific male or female runner.