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I just found an article about Ginette Bedard from the Daily News. Anyone want to complain that they're slowing down because they're getting old? A 3:46 marathon ain't shabby for a 75-year old woman.
I love the idea of the guy lining up for his race and looking over at Ms. Bedard and thinking "why is granny lined up with me? Geesh!" and then getting smoked. Kinda like those lined up at the marathon last week next to the guys with the baby joggers.
None of our crazies ran the Knickerbocker 60k today, but there were plenty of Friends of City Coach taking advantage of the perfect running weather. Among them were women's winner Carol Buonanno, Claude Meliarenne, Kwok-Ming Cheng, Danny Campos, Nate Schiller, Melissa Woods and Sandra Ferrari,
And in case you've forgotten, I still think the course is long. Last year I questioned NYRR's math, but have never gotten a response. Unless the out and back section is markedly shorter than they say it is, the runners are doing an extra .5751 miles or so.
Back in June, the New York Times' Tara Parker-Pope wrote the following under the title "Better Running Through Walking". "To
train for my first marathon, I’m using the “run-walk” method,
popularized by the distance coach Jeff Galloway, a member of the 1972
Olympic team. When I mentioned this to a colleague who runs, she
snickered — a common reaction among purists." Well count me among those purists. Or at least among those whose minds are not so open that our brains fall out.
Like many others, I posted a comment at her blog. And like many others, my comment was shot down by the author, who has no background in exercise science or athletics. While TPP may control her blog, I control mine and wrote about the topic without her editorial comments. For those who can't be bothered to read what I opined at the time, I simply stated that while walking breaks are appropriate for those who are unprepared to run a marathon, the idea of a well trained runner going faster by incorporating walking breaks is in defiance of logic and science. But the Galloway and his cult like to give bits of anecdotal evidence (some of which is accurate and some - like their claim that Ronaldo da Costa used Galloway's method in his marathon wins - is patently false) to support their argument. Here's one they might want to leave out of the argument:
NYC MARATHON
November 1, 2009
Tara Parker-Pope
Finish Time:6:58:19
Pace:15:58/mile
As a postscript, it's interesting to note that TPP has now changed her tune. She has decided that walking breaks are no longer the way to do your best marathon or go faster as she has previously claimed. Now she says "The main benefit of the run-walk method is that it eases your body into exercise, makes marathon training less grueling and gives muscles time to recover, reducing the risk of injury. Walk breaks are an ideal way for new runners and older, less fit and overweight people to take part in a sport that would otherwise be off limits.
"The downside is that just as you are out on the marathon course about 50 percent longer than the average runner, your training time is much longer, too — four and five hours a weekend for long runs.
In other words, she is agreeing with what i said all along.
Justice Is Blind. And Dumb As a Box of Rocks.
Posted at 03:08 PM in Coach's Comments | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)