Are We Better Runners or Just Bigger Geeks
By Todd Heady

There are many places you can go and get information on training for your particular sport.  The unexciting part is that most places will give you similar information.  One of my goals is to play devil’s advocate and get people to think about how much is good info and what is the latest fad.

I will start with running in my first few articles, since that is what I know the best and feel most comfortable speaking about.

There always seems to be somebody that has a revolutionary new training method and wants to share it with the world.  I find it hard to believe that in the million years (give or take a few) that man has been running someone has not tried just about every way possible to get faster.  My favorite is the latest fad of barefoot running.  Don’t get me wrong I think some barefoot training would benefit everyone.  I ran an ultra triathlon once where a 51 year old man from Brazil did the entire 72 mile run barefoot on pavement.  He is both tough and fast.  The thing I find funny about the barefoot thing is it started because certain tribes still run barefoot, but most of the barefoot runners of today think it is something new.  Abebe Bikila from Ethiopia won the 1960 Olympic marathon sans footwear.  Going back a few years my guess is that the cavemen were not wearing a stability shoe.  You get my point; there is nothing new under the sun.

So what happens when something new does pop up?  Normally if it is really new it is technology.  And with running most of the technology just gives us a digital readout of what we have always done.  I remember when a group of experienced runners could get together, socialize during the run, and at the end be fairly accurate about the distance and pace they had just run without a GPS.  Now we need that number.
Let’s take a look at what a boon to running the heart rate monitor was.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about heat rate monitors.  “The first wireless EKG Heart rate monitor was invented in 1977 as a training aid for the Finnish National Cross Country Ski Team and as “intensity training” became a popular concept in athletic circles in the mid-80s, retail sales of wireless personal heart monitors started from 1983.”

People wrote books and made good livings talking about heart rate training.  With the new technology and everybody telling you how it will make you a better runner there was no doubt that everyone would get faster.
The fact is it did not work out that way.  Let’s compare America’s best post and pre heart rate training. If we were to look at the average times of runners it would obviously show that we have gotten slower, but this is due to the larger number of recreational runners.  These people by and large are not a serious training program and are just having fun.   I think the best way to do this is to look at the US Olympic Marathon trials.  
On the USA Track and Field website it said that of the 2008 trials that “the resurgence of American distance running came to fruition in powerful fashion”  We had 3 men go under 2:12:00 and 29 under 2:20:00.  That is impressive, and with all the new training methods and technology it should be our best trials ever.

 
In 1996 we had no finishers under 2:12:00 and 24 under 2:20:00.  To give credit where it is do Bob Kempainen ran one of the gutsiest races I have ever seen.  He was throwing up the last several miles and still pulling away from the competition.  Nike did a great ad on how proud they were that he puked on their shoes.  We did make some progress between ’96 and ’08.  Several of the athletes in the 2008 trials became professional runners before they became American Citizens, which may account for some of the improvement.

Both of these examples were after the introduction of the heart rate monitor, so they should be faster than before.  The last Olympic trial before this introduction was 1980.

It is bad enough that these guys did not have heart rate monitors they also had a boycotted Olympics.  The trials were already planned so they went ahead with them.  A few of the top names such as Bill Rodgers, Don Kardong, and Garry Bjorklund decided not to show up.  Even with all these negatives going into the trials we still had 3 men under 2:12:00 and 56 under 2:20:00.  What would these numbers have been if everyone showed up?

For a closer example look at any of the local races that has been going on for many years.  You will see that even though there might be a record set here and there if you look at the top 20 finishers as opposed to the top 20 of 20 years  ago we have gotten slower.  A personal example is that I ran my fastest Derby Festival Mini Marathon 12 or 13 years ago.  I ran 1:17 something and finished in 24th place.  Because my memory for times is not great I will round that up to 1:18:00 for the sake of comparison.  That year there were probably about 6,000 finishers.  In 2009 there were 9423 finishers and 1:18:00 would have been in 11th place.  2010 saw 10794 finishers and 1:18:00 would have put you in 16th place.

Draw your own conclusions from the facts presented, but I don’t think there can be any doubt we have not gotten any faster.  My next article will take us back to some fundamentals without the new and improved.