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Last Sunday there were two programs on television that I enjoyed watching. The first was the New York City Marathon and the second was the Formula 1 races at the Circuit of Americas in Austin. And as an added attraction, the NYC Marathon had a shortened showing of the race after the Formula 1 race. I missed a few football games, but these two events are once-a-year broadcasts that, for a runner, was worth the viewing.
The fascinating points in watching the Formula 1 racing was the design and technology of the cars in the race. The fact that you can watch a car go from 45 miles per hour to 200 miles per hour in less than 10 seconds is tough to imagine. The fact that when a car comes in for a pit stop to change tires the total stop is 2 seconds. Try to imagine changing four tires on a car in 2 seconds. I did see one slow stop that lasted 2.4 seconds.
Being a runner I enjoyed watching the 52,000 runners enter the New York City Marathon. The television focused on the elite professional runners the majority of the time but had views of the mass of runners crossing the bridges. The fact that to enter the NYC Marathon you have to be entered in a lottery and have your name drawn shows how popular this race is.
It was interesting to watch a couple of runners take off early and lead the pack of runners. I have written about trying to go out too fast in a race as it will catch up to you near the finish line. Both the men and women’s divisions had examples of this. The weather was almost perfect for running a marathon. It was interesting to see runners from Ethiopia and Kenya in the lead pack. It seems that when it comes to winning marathons runners from these two countries seem to be favorites. Runners try to say that it is in the genes of that area of the world that allows them to dominate marathon running. I have heard from two sources that might explain this phenomenon more than the gene pool.
Years ago I listened to a lecture from Allan Besselnick, author of the book, ‘Run Smart’, on why these runners seem to dominate over runners from the United States and other countries. His theory was that at a young age, these kids had to run to school — or anywhere else — and grew up running. Children in the United States ride the bus, or get a ride to school, and many drive cars at the age of 16 years. Running does not come about as a way of life as much as it does when they enter the sport of running and cross country in high school.
An interesting book to read that backs up much of what Besselnick said comes from David Epstein’s book, “The Sports Gene.” He covers a lot of research into the various sports and has a section focusing on the marathon race. It seems that the European countries helped develop the runners from Kenya. Before Kenya became dominate in marathon running, the majority of distance runners came from Britain, Finland, and the United States. But as these countries became wealthy, increasingly overweight, increasingly interested in other sports, and increasingly less likely to train seriously in distance running, the number of distance runners became fewer. From 1983 to 1998 the number of U.S. runners that ran under a 2:20 marathon time dropped from 267 to 35. Britain dropped from 137 to 17 runners. And Finland, which was the top distance running power in the world between World War I and World War II when it was a poor, rural country, did not qualify a single distance runner in any event in the 2000 Olympics. This was explained by record holder, David Rudisha, “The genes didn’t go away in Finland, the culture did.”
Peter Matthews, the track and field statistician who compiled these numbers, states, “In these days of computer games, sedentary pursuits, and driving our children to school — it is the hungry fighter or the poor peasant who has the endurance background, and the incentive to work on it, who makes the top distance runner.”
The region that seemed to have the fastest marathon runners came from specific districts in northern Kenya called Kalenjin. One study found that this area is a poor, rural area and most children had to run to school. An interesting statistic showed that 81% of 404 Kenyan professional runners had to run or walk a considerable distance to and from primary school as children. One Kenyan runner said, “When the boy grows up, all he will know is running.” Kenya jumped from a single sub-2:20 man in 1980 to 541 in 2006. The fact that 17 Americans have run under 2:10, 32 Kalenjin runners did that in October of 2011. In fact, 17 Ethiopians and Kenyans broke 2:10 in a single race in 2012.
A Danish scientist said of the dropping off of top distance runners, “After 10 years of work, I have to say that this is a socioeconomic phenomenon.” How much this environment account for becoming a top runner is best demonstrated by the children of these top runners. How many of the top Kenyan runners have sons or daughters who are excelling at running? The answer was, “Almost none.” Why? “Because their father or mother becomes a world champion, has incredible resources, and their children never have to run to school again.”
Genes do play a role in the potential to become a top runner. But if you do not train and work with the potential the end result will not be accomplished.
