Optimal Training

Run! Mimichan Run!!!

Update: It looks like my sister hacked into my blog and posted one of her stinky doodles.  She'll obviously do anything to promote her site...which is a hilarious collection of weird doodles she posts everyday.

By the way, that's my cat, and those are noodles.  My cat loves curly pasta.

I think I'll classify this post in "Attitude & Motivation".  I hope seeing Mimi run will get you fired up to do the same!

RAK half: world's top 10k?

The Final Sprint published some amazing stats this week about the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon.  Basically, they showed that the 10k splits for the race make it not only an amazingly fast half-marathon (arguably as fast as The Hague, in the Netherlands)--but also the world's fastest 10k road race.  (Kudos to TFS, for going out of their way to get some truly insightful information.)

How fast did they run at RAK?  How about 8 people under 28 minutes, 7 at 27:45 or faster, and the top 5 runners all crossed the 10k mark at 27:42!  Want to know how fast that is?  The 15th fastest American all-time over 10000m is Dan Browne, with a best of 27:42.15!  Here's the US 10000m list, taken from my Ryan Hall lens.

1. 27:13.98 - Meb Keflezighi - Palo Alto (2001)
2. 27:16.99 - Abdi Abdirahman - Eugene (2008)
3. 27:20.56 - Mark Nenow - Brussels (1986)
4. 27:25.61 - Alberto Salazar - Oslo (1982)
5. 27:29.16 - Craig Virgin - Paris (1980)
6. 27:31.34 - Todd Williams - Knoxville (1995)
7. 27:33.48 - Galen Rupp - Palo Alto (2007)
8. 27:33.93 - Alan Culpepper - Palo Alto (2001)
9. 27:34.72 - Alan Webb - Palo Alto (2006)
10. 27:35.65 - Dathan Ritzenhein - Palo Alto (2006)
11. 27:37.17 - Bruce Bickford - Stockholm (1985)
12. 27:37.45 - Bob Kennedy - Palo Alto (2004)
13. 27:37.74 - Anthony Famiglietti - Palo Alto (2006)
14. 27:41.05 - Ed Eyestone - Walnut (1985)
15. 27:42.15 - Dan Browne - Palo Alto (2004)
NR. 28:07.93 - Ryan Hall - Palo Alto (2007)

Ryan Hall can obviously run faster than 28:07, as he split mid-to-low 28 in his 59:43 AR half-marathon effort in 2007.  But assuming he can run 27:40, could he do that for the first half of a half-marathon?  I don't know, but his Boston competitor, Deriba Merga of Ethiopia, just did at RAK.

I'm not counting Ryan out at Boston.  The marathon distance is unpredictable and the Boston course is tough.  And Ryan is still scheduled to run at The Hague, where he might just do something similar to what went down at RAK.  But I think it's safe to say that at this point in time, the odds are pretty heavily against him in Boston.

Performances of the Week: Young Runner Edition

We had some crazy performances this week by some really young runners.  And when I say "really young", I mean it.  Here are the top three.

1.  Gabrielle Jennings (10 yrs old) wins Louisiana State 3200m title in 11:58.

I'm trying to remember what my high school record is for the women's 3200m, and I don't think it's much faster than what little Gabrielle just ran.  Here's a post-race video with Gabrielle at Flotrack.  And here are the results (race #29).

2.  Ajee Wilson (HS frosh) wins New Jersey State Meet of Champions 800m in 2:10.45.

According to this thread at LetsRun, she broke a 26-year old New Jersey state freshman record for the 800m.  Let's hope this is just the start for Ajee!

3.  Wude Ayelew (20 yrs old) wins Ethiopian Cross Country Championships

She's had some significant success on the roads, but it's still quite an accomplishment to beat compatriots Geleta Berka and Meselech Melkamu.  It's hard to know where she ranks within Ethiopia without Defar and any of the Dibabas running, but still it was quite a victory.  Recap of the whole meet here.

4.  Matthew Kisorio (age ? but young...probably) 2nd at Kenyan Cross Country Championships senior race

You might remember Kisorio from an article I wrote previously comparing him to German Fernandez.  Well, he just ran his first senior cross country race and had a spectacular showing, finishing 2nd to Moses Mosop.  He looks like he'll be a force to be reckoned with in the near future!  (Article here)

My 2009 USA Indoor Championships preview

I wrote a preview for the 2009 USA Indoor Championships that will be held Feb 28-Mar 1.  It's kind of a funny meet, since it only draws a limited number of the sports' best, with the fields filled out by athletes still dreaming of making a living in the sport, if they could...just...pop...a big one.  Here's what you'll find in the article:

1. A full preview of the distance events
2. My predictions for the events (so you know what not to go with)
3. In the spirit of the Oscars, some random awards
4. A fantastic photo of Bernard Lagat throwing down a gnarly dunk

No snippet today, the above should be a sufficient teaser.  Full article here.

Old article about Hicham El Guerrouj and training

I found this old article this morning about Hicham El Guerrouj at the bottom of Letsrun's homepage, and thought this quote from 2004 was worth sharing with all of you.

"I had over-trained. I put too much pressure on myself because I wanted that gold medal too much. If I had trained 15 per cent less, I would have won.  I was training like a crazy person. There was a lack of self-confidence and a lack of maturity. An athlete does not only train with his body. He trains with his mind."

I wrote a little about this previously here.

Chris Lukezic has been building his aerobic base

Chris Lukezic has been one of the US's better milers for some time, but despite his 3:33, I've never considered him to be one of the next "truly great" milers.  He didn't seem to have the speed (his 800m PR is just 1:47.75) nor the range (his 5000m PR is 13:52.60).  But that may be changing, since he's just done his first stint at altitude and he's been putting in some heavy base work.

There's a nice interview with Chris at Runner's World.  He covers a range of topics, but it's his experience in 2007-2008, and the way he views Nick Willis' performance, that offer the best lesson to other runners:

"Watching someone like Nick Willis (from New Zealand), who I raced against for the first time at the World Junior Championships in 2002, I've kind of come up with him and seen him do well but don't see him as any more talented than I am."

Chris shows me in this quote that he has the mindset of a successful individual.  He builds confidence from the successes of those he relates to, and he does not attribute their superior performances to talent, but rather to their hard work, preparation, or other variable quality.  I think we'll see more big things from Chris in the future, and given that he's only 24 years old, we could be seeing them for a long time!

Ryan Hall focuses on building mental strength

There's a great article about Ryan Hall and his preparations for Boston.  It covers Beijing, his trip to Africa and a few other aspects of his life, but this was my favorite section:

Beyond the physical demands, Mahon said, it was apparent Hall had to develop even more mental strength. He had shown such toughness in domestic events such as the Trials. Now he had to take the next step, to do so in major international races.

"Winning a major race isn't always who's the fittest on the day or who has the fastest personal time," Mahon said. "It's who knows how to compete against your competitors."

That takes time in training, and the pain of pushing yourself up the hills in the thin air - because the confidence that comes with knowing you've put in the time and you can push back the pain, Mahon said, develops both the "ability to focus" and, more important, the "ability to be a calculated risk taker."

"That," Mahon said, "is as important, if not more important, as all these other things in sport.

"The Michael Jordans, the Kobe Bryants, the Lance Armstrongs - they have that ability to put the rest of the world ... [to make it] just gray. The only thing that's in color is what they're doing that day for training and the goal that they have."

In training now, Mahon said, Hall "does that every day."

(Photo from Universal Sports)

In-depth interview with Jon Rankin

Runnerstribe has a pretty in-depth interview with Jon Rankin.  They cover a wide range of topics, and you could do a lot worse than to start your day off listening to Jon talk about his range of interests and experiences.  For me, already knowing a lot of this stuff, the line part that caught my interest the most was this one:

I'm in a transition phase where I'm moving towards the longer events. I'll still race the 800m (mainly for training purposes), but I plan on racing more 5000m a few times this year for good results. The emphasis, however, will remain on the 1500m/1-mile. I'm not too sure which events I'll race at the World Championships. At this point it's best to take it one day at a time and make a decision based on which events I'm performing in best. (emphasis mine)

I've often wondered how well Jon would run at 5k with a little more targeted training and a few races under his belt.  If he can get the base work in, I've no doubt he can dip under 13:30.  With more experience and with his speed, sub-13:20 might be possible, too.  I guess we'll start to see this year! 

Top five performances of the week

Last week I said that the Tyson Invitational was the meet to watch, but I was wrong.  The real meet to watch was the Husky Invitational in Seattle.  They combined an over-sized track, a huge number of top runners, and a mile field that didn't wimp out (I'm talking to you, Tyson field) to make fur a huge number of great performances.  I'm limiting the awards to five this week, in order of impressiveness:

1. Jenny Barringer 15:01.70 NCAA record for 5000m.  This performance at the Husky Invitational was absolutely incredible.  She ran the race alone, winning by over a minute.  She did it on an indoor track (albeit an oversized one at 307m).  She broke Kim Smith's previous NCAA record (15:09.72) by 8 seconds.  And she is now the 12th fastest American ever at the 5000m distance (and 2nd fastest indoors).  In my mind, this performance tells me that she is likely our best bet to medal at a future World Championships or Olympic Games.

2. Galen Rupp 13:18.12 American record for indoor 5000m.  We need a term for running a performance that should get you headline recognition but due to freakish circumstances someone else out-performs you in another race on or about the same day.  I'm going to go with "Mebbed".  Back in 2001, when Meb Keflezighi ran his 10,000m American Record of 27:13.99, a high school kid by the name of Alan Webb shocked the country by running 3:53.43 to break Jim Ryun's decades old mile record.  Webb was on the cover of Track and Field News, and Meb...well, he got Mebbed. 

Despite breaking Doug Padilla's American indoor record of 13:20.5, Rupp finished 2nd in the race to Ethiopian Bekana Daba for the 2nd week in a row.  But he held off Sam Chelanga of Liberty University, who also went under the old NCAA indoor record of 13:20.40 by Solomon Nyambui.  It was a helluva race and both look poised to take a crack at the NCAA outdoor record of 13:08 by Henry Rono this spring.  (Here is a video of Padilla's 5k record at Millrose--scroll down to find it.)

3. German Fernandez 7:47.97 American junior record 3000m.  Like Rupp, German was pretty much "Mebbed" by Barringer this weekend.  His time took down Galen Rupp's old 3000m record of 7:49.19 and he did it by running from the front.  He did get a scare from Michael Coe of Cal, but was able to turn it on in the last 80m to secure victory.  With his combination of strength and speed, he will be a threat in any race, save one in which Rupp/Chelanga run away from everyone.

4.  Bernard Lagat 3:51.34 mile victory at Pas de Calais.  I haven't mentioned many of Lagat's great early season races this year, but it's time.  He followed up his recent 7:35.41 3000m race with this big victory over studs like Mehdi Baala and Deresse Mekonnen.  I'm not sure how many more years he's got in him, but he's still got that amazing speed.  I hope he'll give it one good shot at the 10k before he hangs up his spikes.  He could do something special.

5.  Tie: Matt Centrowitz 3:57.93 and Andrew Wheating 1:47.03 respective mile and 800m indoor school records at Husky Invite.  It's hard to know what to make of these records, as they are a bit soft for a school with such running history.  And they were run on an oversized track.  That said, both athletes won their races pretty easily, and I thought it worth recognizing their accomplishments.

The other big contenders for the 5th spot included Nick Symmonds for holding of KDR at Tyson, Michael Coe for his 2nd place finish in German's 3000m victory cited above, and Luke Puskedra's 13:46.52 for 5000m to finish 4th.  The fact that he didn't win the race made Luke's time get a little lost in the news, but that is a stellar time for a freshman and showed he's much more fit than he displayed at the USA Cross Country Championships.

New Rules for USATF

Others have done a great job of breaking down the recent Project 30 Task Force report.  I particularly recommend Wejo's, Rojo's and Conway's analyses.  I decided to take it one step further, though.  As I write in my most recent article at Runnerstribe:

So much wacky stuff has been happening in track/running to start this year, I thought it was best to sit down and make sense of it.  First it was the Project 30 Task Force's report analyzing "what went wrong" at the Beijing Olympic Games.  I addressed a brief piece of that report in my last article, which focused primarily on the Task Force's call for increased "professionalism" amongst athletes and the USATF, but my analysis of the report was like criticizing a car for having a bad paint job when the real problem is its engine is broken, its wheels are flat and the steering wheel only turns left. 

It seems clear to me that we need some New Rules.  Unfortunately, track and field isn't mainstream enough for Bill Maher to fix it for us, so I'm going to have to step up to the plate.  Before we let this year get any more out of hand, let's agree to work within the following parameters:

New Rule!

Reports should not be published unless they would earn at least a "C" in any graduate school course.  It appeared that the Task Force lacked a sufficient knowledge of the difference between opinion and fact, anecdotes and references, and causation and correlation.  Why do I say that?  Because it was all opinion, anecdote and correlation masked as causation!  You'd think the writers were angling for a career in "government stimulus package creation"!

Continue reading all my New Rules here.