Where have all the good runners gone? (Read 1621 times)

A couple of points: I don't think it's easy to explain. I think it's cooler than ever to run a marathon and because of that I think more and more people have an appreciation for the hard work necessary to run a competitive time at a marathon. In fact, some might argue it's now too cool. I think talent matters very little in distance running except as a variable to explain why someone else is faster than you. If the trend of American runners is slowing down then why have the top seven fastest times ever by an American all occurred within the 2000s? I love statistics. And Americans are working much less than we did 25, 50, 100 years ago by almost every metric. We are working less per week and retiring earlier. The rise in obesity, imo, is because we have so much free time.

Well, I guess you are the antithesis of me...sorry but I disagree on every point. It may be "cooler" to run a marathon, but by "cool" you mean to simply complete one, with doing so at any pace being "cool". 25 years ago it was not finish that counted, but PERFORMING. They were still "races" back then, not "events". Big difference. If you think talent means very little, then put your chips on the table and spend 5 years pushing your body to the absolute highest training loads it can handle and explain to me why you are not running 27-minute 10Ks. I've been there done that and barely broke 31 and saw some guys do it on half the volume and work, so you'll have to explain that one to me. And this is from a guy who uses "talent is an excuse for not trying harder" as a sig line. As for the top 7 being in recent years, you are comparing apples/oranges. You can have one trend at the extreme end and a lack of people in the middle (2:15-2:20 guys) at the same time for reasons already covered. They are two different groups to begin with training for two different reasons. As for the work thing, you must be seeing a different set of numbers than me. My parents' generation worked roughly 40 hrs/week, sometimes a little more, with weekends off. People are "turned on" almost constantly now, there were no blackberries or email 25 years ago. And for obesity, I don't understand your argument. I know tons of people who don't have the free time to work out and therefore gain weight over time. If they had less time, your theory is that somehow they'd lose weight? How is sitting in front of a computer more hours a day going to cause them to lose weight? MTA: "In her recent book, "Willing Slaves – How the Overwork Culture is Ruling our Lives", Madeleine Bunting stated that from 1977 to 1997 Americans working full time have increased their average working hours from 43.6 hours to 47.1 hours each week. (This does not include time required to travel to and from their places of business)" I'm not much on wikipedia as a reference, but going off the "real" references they list I have to agree with the assessment there that we're averaging the longest work weeks in 75 years.

I thought only three people in the world had broken 2:05, but apparently they ran something at Rotterdam recently. MTA: Huh, just typed in my bib number (#1) to see my finish video at Rotterdam; gee, I got passed in the last 30m!