"Will the Aussies be beating us in swimming soon the way the Kenyans beat us in distance? Very depressing."

Went on a 10 kms race in January. I'm strictly middle aged MOP AG, but quite a number of younger serious elite runners were there. There was a guy from Kenya running his first ever cold weather race. Somebody gave him bad advice and he showed up with cross country shoes with spikes on the bottom anticipating winter conditions that he was totally unfamiliar with. There was a bit of ice/snow in a few places on the course, but very little and nothing to warrant spikes. During the race he stopped, took his spikes off, ran with them in his hand for the rest of the race in his sock feet and still finished third.

I think some of what's at work in the AG ranks is "event dilution". There are just vastly more events these days, and maybe it dilutes the results at any given race. The winner in my AG (40-44) at the San Diego Half went 1:11. That's pretty freaking fast for a guy in his 40's.

At the top, there seems to be a resurgence of effort among the elite runners. A few collectives of male racers are living and training together and clocking big miles, pushing each other hard. There was a gang of American men under 2:13 at Chicago, with Culpepper going under 2:10 in his debut. Even Shorter only went under 2:10 a couple of times in his career.

Maybe the "less is more" attitude has run its course here in the land of the fat and lazy. A monster work ethic is required to succeed in the sub-2:10 world. I'm hopeful that Josh Cox, Alan Culpepper, Alan Webb and their contemporaries can lead things back, or at least draw some younger runners upward.

American Distance running is undergoing a resurgence that has not been seen since the days of Shorter, Hodge and Malley i.e. the days were people knew you had to be putting in 140 miles week in and week out to succeed.

Along with this new breed of runners are the support system that are making it possible with probably the best example being the Hansons in Detroit, they give their runners a job, kit, travel and health insurance and the oppurtunity to train for the trials.

I know of several runners at the moment that have already got their trials spot and I know of one in Chicago that is still trying the last I heard, he ran 1.06 last spring, dont know what he ran in the fall but............

What absolutely kills me about this though is that we all know that assuming that he's fit and healthy KK is going for the states but then UST&F goes and runs the poxy trials marathon in the south in the spring when it's gonna be hotter than a mo fo.

They'll end up with another debacle like Vegas where they'll be lucky to get one person across the line in the B time let alone 3 guy's in the A time.

You'd have thought that it would be in the best interest of the US to field as many athletes as possible not make it impossible to field more than one..............

All the work these guy's are putting in and they're gonna get screwed by a bunch of beauracrats that sold the marathon to the highest bidder, coz at the end of the day that is how it works..........

you mentioned.

TNT and other charity runners are truly a double edged sword, essentially they do several admirable things such as raise a lot of money, get people that would otherwise eat dorito's adn drink natural light of their couch's running and promote generally healthier life styles.

On the other hand they are not by any stretch of the imagination doing anything at all for competition, they have told people that finishing regardless of time is as admirable as winning and that essentially a 5.5 hour marathon is worth the same as a 2.05 and that people should feel equally good about it, there fore negating a persons need to push them selves.

Shallow Hal and Jeff Gallowwalk also have a lot to answer for having represented their country at Olympics, run incredible fast they then sold out to the masses and Gallowalk recently published and said that elite marathoners take the "elite" equivalent of walking breaks when they slow to pick up their water bottles.

When mediocrity is actively encouraged by everyone from charities to former elites you can hardly be surprised when the standard of running dropped off but thankfully now the situation is being reversed and those leading the charge are to be commended and the Shallow Hals and Gallowalks of this world are not..................

It was good to see culpepper run well, now under 2:10. However, the bad thing is that when Americans were running like this in the day they were very close to the world best. Now, we are finally back to the same times but the rest of the world has really progressed. A 2:10 was a helluva lot closer to the front in the 70/80s than it is now. How many American men do we currently have on the A list faster than Paula Radcliff ? I actually think that other than Culpepper, our normal pack of true American elites is in the 2:12-2:14 range which is actually closer to Radcliff's record that KK's record.

Actually I am not sure where the true spread of US males would be at the moment, I suspect you're correct that it is 2.12-ish but none the less it's good to be back there after the lousy performance over the last 20+ years.

Radcliffe is not a reasonable comparison however, the womens marathon is only now beginning to really come in to it's own, remember that it was not until 1980 that women were even allowed to run marathons in the Oly's they did start this game somewhat behind the 8 ball. So she's is moving along the evolutionary curve at a fairly good clip, be interesting to see the % difference between men and women over all distances and how close the marathons are now, is there a pattern and is do women still have some distance to go in the marathon or are they closed in the marathon than in other events?

My bet is that if not by the trials next spring, by the trials for 2008 there will be a number of us born runners clocking sub 2.10's, and lets face it, I dont see 2 hours being broken for the marathon anytime soon so slowly but surely the US runners are getting back in the game.

OK, let's consider this example then. If we are looking at american born runners, I still consider the 10k record to belong to Mark Nenow (I may be wrong but I don't think any american borns have beaten it). That time has to be around 20 years old now. I think at that time it was very close to Arturo Barrios' world record time (it may have even preceded Barrios so sorry if my chronology is off). Still, no US born runner has beat Nenow's time but the rest of the world certainly is getting faster.

I agree there is a natural curve to all events, however, it seems that most curves have continued to improve whiles most US mens distance running curves have stagnated over the past 20 years. I know there have been a few outliers (Kennedy), but overall, it is quite evident.

I do agree that American running is on the upswing. Running fell out of popularity for a long time, I think basically that it is too hard and hurts too much to run fast and youths are offered many other sports that hurt much less. Still, it will take some time to bridge that gap that grew in our absense. Further, it will take longer to actually "race" with the world's elite than to actually start running fast times. I agree that we have several guys upcoming that can run the 2:10, but it would have to be done very carefully and planned out to a T, hit all preset timesplits, on the right course, etc. What is going to take the longest time is to be able to react to the 4:30 surge at mile 18 and really "race" the race.

I think the true irony, and sad fact, is that we are talking about the state of affairs for american distance running while our country continues to grow more over weight on a yearly basis. Surely, this has to attribute somehow to our overall long term projection . . . even though I hope it doesn't . . .

For more information on the Hanson's Running program, visit their web site: http://www.hansons-running.com

Not only does the shop support the elite, but they host a weekly killer 8-mile urban run that has made me a runner. If you're ever in Detroit on a Thursday evening, it's worth checking out -- at a minimum just to start with the Olympic Development guys.

I don't follow running closely enough anymore to know whether a few individuals in system might have the opportunity to compete with the best. There is enough money in the sport now that a few American elites might periodically get to the top of the pile. If we had one Bill Rogers now, my point would be the same.

My concern is that we don't have any numbers among the group of normal Americans with a job that run for exercise and run the occasional marathon in 2:45 to 3:00. I can tell you that when I ran under three hours, I didn't consider it to be any big deal at all. I was never a good enough runner to win anything in high school or even earn a track letter. Doing that now would be the running equivalent of qualifying for Kona.

I guess Jeff is right about overweight Americans. Very depressing. I also hope he is right about the pendulum swinging back.

I took a stab at analyzing elite talent: www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/longrun/highschool.html

My conclustion was that we are seeing a resurgence of top talent. However, that does not mean that we are catching up with the world, just our own history.

This is a bit like folks who pine for the U.S. economic triumph of the 1950s. Hello, the rest of the world was decimated; of course, we were going to have the world's greatest economy (still do, just there are other functioning countries now). Because of the fitness boom that started here in the late '60s and early '70s, we had the jump on the world. Combined with the Olympic boycotts of 1976 and 1980 by the African countries, this gave the U.S. a huge advantage.

And it is not just the U.S. that is getting its clock cleaned by the Africans. In the last 4 top-10 lists from T&F News, there are 29 Africans, 2 U.S. (both our recent African import), 3 Japanese, 4 Europeans, 1 South Korean, and one Euro-South African.

Also, the marathon is just not as popular as it was in the 1970s and early '80s. This is true for both elite runners and recreational runners. Heck, the big trend in the l980s was to move away from the "long" 10k races to the 8k. Plus the shorter distance offered at most races has become increasingly popular -- more and more people opt for the 5k. It used to be that most people in the 1970s would not think of running the shorter race.

Finally, as to "imports" in the U.S. I can see the argument that a recent immigrant like Khannouchi does not give us any indicator of future success. But Meb Keflezighi and Abdi Abdirahman grew up in the U.S. Recall Salazar was born in Cuba and immigrated to the U.S. and was a product of the U.S. distance development system, just like Meb and Abdi.

I think everyone should be gratefull for Radcliffe both here and in Europe, she has clearly shown that it is possible to beat the Africans at their own game and from that a little hope should be gained.

I think that there has to be better grass routes development inplemented so that if you have a kid with talent that some overzealous HS T&F coach does not do their best to burn them out.

However, running is coming back in style, and not the "just finishing" type runing either, so there is hope..........

I do remember that article from what seems like about a year ago. It looked at the top runners. I knew the story there was not good. What amazed me was how shallow the pool of even mediocre recreational runners is. I just got back from the Disney Marathon. My old marathon time would have gotten me 56th place out of 16,000 runners. This is not a particularly competitive marathon certainly, but give me a break. I don't think I could have pulled 56th place at a district cross country meet in high school.

I guess I really don't have a problem if the Kenyans beat our elite runners most of the time. I don't live in and can't relate to that level of competition. I do have a problem with my former level of talent and ability finishing so close to the top at these big races.

I guess this is not exactly an issue on the level of national security or Iraq, but I sure hope the pool is getting deeper. Don't dive in to today's pool. You would break your neck before your feet got wet.

I actually don't think the lack of depth in marathoning is negative sign. It reflects that people have far more choices now than they did 15 or 20 years ago. Remember, 20 years ago, there was hardly any triathlon. Some of those 2:55 marathoners of 1980 skip the marathon and do triathlon. Similarly, some skip the marathon and stick to 5ks. Some play rec soccer (nonexistent 20 years ago). Some are in cardio classes of all forms. Etc. These options are a good thing. Unfortunately, too many people take the option of getting the 2 for 1 sale on Doritos and watching the latest over-hyped entertainment; but they were never the types to run a marathon.

I really hope you are right Hitch. I was just really stunned by the numbers when I went through them last night. I read a really good article about a month or so ago about the fattening of America's adolescents. It is hard not to make the connection.

You comments about many more options is on target of course. I hope that explains most of it, but I have my doubts.

The biggest problem with distance running in North America is that North Americans are basically lazy and not very active anymore (I know, big generalization but that's my observation). I coach high school track and cross-country and see the kids that come out. It is a very small group (not as glamorous as football or basketball) and there are very few kids willing to put in the type of work required (or make the commitment to do so) in order to progress to the elite level. When I look at provincial championships the first 3 or 4 kids are still fast in most events but the depth has entirely disappeared from 20 years ago. I attribute it to the "Nintendo" generation that loves to watch sports and play video games rather than being out after school playing road hockey/soccer/basketball etc. until your parent forced you to come in for dinner. They're watchers and not doers and they want immendiate gratification vs. the long process of building up to become good.

has a lot to do with the London marathon in the early 80's when running for charity became such a big thing that it started to overtake the actual goal of the marathon of attempting to finish in the best time possible.

Think about it for a minute if all you want to do is say you finished then why do you need to drop 80 bucks on an entrance fee, simply get up and go run 26.2 miles if that is the only thing that concerns you.

With out the running boom and the mediocre runners we would probably not be witnessing Webb or Radcliffe, both of whom's parent were avid, maybe even competitive runners but who certainly were not career standard runners.

I agree with Hitch that people have more choices but my guess is, simply looking at the kids suing McDonalds is that people are not making the choice to participate in triathlons as opposed to running, they're choosing the super size bag of dorito's for 99 cents and X-box instead of running.

20 years ago when I was in elementary school we would play outside with the kids in our street, go to the park, our parents would take us to the tennis club if we wanted to find pickup games and during the school year we swam.

I am staying with friends in what I guess is one of the wealthiest sub divisions in CO just outside Boulder, it is a huge sub division where most of the folks are between 30 and 45 and it is baby boom time here but there are never kids outside, it's shocking and it is not like there are not kids here, I know most of the neighbours and their children and they are all indoors playing PC games, PSII games, X-Box etc........

Of the 2 dozen or so kids that I know there is one kid I consider an athlete, he's 13 and will break 37 for the Boulder Bolder this year, aside from him the others are more interested in the latest games release than playing games........

Times have changed I guess..........

n.b. as for those kids suing McDonalds. Which part of the grease and fat dripping off of the wrapper and the burgers did they think was good for them????