UKC

In the 1970,80's led by Ron Hill, Ian Thompson , Charlie Spedding, Steve Jones et al, we virtually ruled the world. All ran under or around 2.09, world records in there too. In 2003 Paula re-wrote the womens record books for women with 2.15, a time we are struggling to find men who can run it at the moment, we haven't had a decent man runner in the marathon for years, what is going on?

In reply to Al Evans: OK so I guess nobody has a clue?

In reply to Al Evans: Exactly.. 2:09.. 2:10.. that was there pb's its 6 minutes off these guys now..

I wonder if Farrah will step up, perfect age. Times were down today due to heat so I think its harsh to say Marrien/overall et al aren't decent runners as they are in 2:13/2:11 shape..

Radcliffe ran her quick times in cool weather.

In reply to IainRUK: But still Ron Hill's record was run in 1970, only Steve Jones has ever made a serious dent in it, and come on Paula's times are outstanding compared to the men even if she ran them in perfect conditions.

In reply to Al Evans: I never said PR's weren't incredible.. but you can't compare them to Overall's and Lee's today...

I just think the motivation factor must be massive.. training to be top 2 or 3 in the world.. or training to be top 60 or top 100...

Look at Bolt and Blake.. they are pushing each other on.. likewise Jones and Spedding.. now we don't have that competition, so its more to do with who isn't there than who is there..

In reply to IainRUK: Well I take ypour point, but when Ron Hill re-wrote the record books there was no other great UK competition.

In reply to Al Evans: I was reading somewhere it was to do with the proffesionilsation of sport. In particular fell running. I'm too young to remember exactly what happened. Something to do with fell running beginning proffesional so the runners couldn't compete in ammature races. Not sure how that would work now, I watched the Snowdon Mountain Race last month and the winner was 1:05. That's got to be a fast marathon speed.

Why run 4 laps of Buckingham palace when you could be up and down Snowdon twice?

I thought Mo struggled at the Half Marathon he ran last year? Was it the Great North Run?

In reply to DancingOnRock: Mo ran New York half and won, so not really struggled. I can't find reference to him running other halfs.

In reply to Liam M: Mo Farah fired the gun at the GNR but didn't run it.

In reply to Al Evans: I have a couple of thoughts on this. Firstly, as Iain says above the two runners GB had today have pbs within 2mins of Ron Hill's then record time but that's well off current race winning times (look at the number of 2.05 times set by Kenyans). So you have to wonder why have some nations managed to improve the standard of their top runners over the last 40years when GB (and indeed lots of Europe) failed in achieving this in their training. Are their training methods that much more effective?

Which inspires my second point, maybe GB training isn't any worse but we aren't getting the potentially quickest athletes becoming long distance runners. Some others may be able to confirm if this is the case, but I get the impression that running used to have a fairly high status amongst the GB populous, but this status doesn't for the most part hold any more compared to a lot of other sports. Excepting a few weeks after things like the Olympics, there will be few kids wanting to be runners rather than footballers or rugby players etc. Those with talent shown early are less likely to be drawn to athletics.

For a lot of African nations, it is the sport, so you'll get a bigger field of talent to search from and less likely to disappear into other sports. Further this means harder competition. You may disagree, these are just my thoughts.

In reply to Al Evans: What happened is an interesting question with many answers. You can start with training methods over the last 30 years, and a lack of depth and 5 and 10K pushing people out (also means we are rubbish at steeplechase)

You can get a lot of interesting information now on how kenyan marathoers train - lots of miles, and some of them fast. Some people would dscribe a 15 mile 'brisk' run on a Sunday morning as junk, but it's similar to how these guys train, how Jonesy trained (I know) and I also used to do Sunday runs with a 2.10 runner and that's how he trained. Less track sessions than many, but regular long fast runs to give super aerobic fitness. It's coming back into fashion now, and I can give other examples of people who've 'discovered' this and achieved great success (look up Mark Whetmore (I think) as a coach)

I have a low opinion of Ron Hill, and his book is the worst thing I've ever read. If it was better then Paula R might have read it and not repeated all his mistakes. A better coach who wasn't her husband would have helped as well.

In reply to Liam M: OK. My mistake.

In reply to wbo:

What a bizzarre thing to say about the best female marathon runner who has yet lived, also I liked Ron's books.

In reply to Al Evans:

Women have only been running marathons since the early '80's, so that's not quite the achievement it sounds, and wouldn't you say she has under-achieved given her talent? She certainly seems to have arrived at various major championships injud or under-prepared, which has something to do with training, eh?

In reply to Al Evans: I don't think it's bizarre at all. As stated above she's consistently had issues at major champs and outside as well. She is indeed the greatest female marathon runner I've seen, but she was decidedly, and seemingly unpredictably, hit or miss. In contrast in her early days she was bombproof predictable.

To save you 350 pages of pain here's a sample of RH's book ' I'd run really well the race before but this had been terrible.... I'd doubled my training and been tired all the time the last 12 weeks , and my legs felt heavy in training and in the race. I just couldn't understand it.
Obviously the answer was to increase my training even more......'

The parallels between the two are painful in my opinion.

In reply to andy: Farah has a pb of 60:23.. so not bad..

Should be looking at sub 2:10 marathon...

I think he may well step up..

In reply to IainRUK:

He and Rupp hadn't trained specifically for the New York Half, it was a late decision to run, due to another race being cancelled. Be interested what can do with a bit of specific work.

In reply to Al Evans: It would be interesting to see what Alister Brownlee could do if he wanted - sub 2.20 I'd imagine without too much trying.

In reply to kevinknights: He says he's going for the 10k at the commonwealths..

He's a very good runner, but from 28 something to 26 something is a big gap so I think it's wait and see..

In reply to Al Evans:

I remember an article by a GB marathoner who said that top runners preferred to concentrate on the shorter distances nowadays. I think it was something along the lines of the training being harder, and because they could only run a limited number of events per year and expect to do well at them.

In reply to Al Evans: Mo was reported as running 150miles a week. For a 10k? That goes against most received wisdom and is up there with marathon training.

I'm not back to full training until 3 or 4 weeks after a marathon but then I'm quite a bit older, slower and don't run high distances in training.

In reply to DancingOnRock: I heard 130.. which isn't that much..

Bare in mind they think Paula Radcliffe went from a 6:18 min miler to 5:18 min miler purely by changing running economy.. and that's done by running more miles..

On a 9-5 job I can hold 70-90 miles week no problem. A full time athlete would easily get 110+..

In reply to wbo:

Marathon runners do not stay on top for long periods of time. Training for and running an elite marathon just does too much damage to the body.The only real repeat winner in the olympics was Bikila and that was back in 1964. How many times has a surprise winner appeared?
Paula could run a couple of amazing races, but no training would have allowed her to stay at that standard for 4 years, nevermind 8.

In reply to wilding: I reckon that is true sadly.. stepping from 60-90 really hurt me.. I'm now achier... older.. for me anyway, I have the feeling that increasing my mileage is shortening my running career...

In reply to wilding:

Try checking your facts before posting - Waldemar Cierpinski won in 1976 and then repeated his vistory in 1980!

In my opinion one of the big factors in the decline of marathon runners at the 'sharp end' is the introduction of Sunday races. In the 'dark days' we used to race Saturday then Sunday was always to day for getting a long run in
(anything from 20 to 28 miles) Not if a runner races on a Sunday I wonder when he finds time for a long run, given he has a full time job