Long Term Athlete Development: Event Alignment

[nscoach67]

So back to my point - 5000m for women at Pan Am Juniors this year.

[CTaylor]

Oct 17, 2009 10:22:54 GMT -5 random said:

No actually it's because they are stunted by the hard early workouts...well at least according to the research.

Could you cite or provide a link to that research? Thanks.

[ronb]

I was fortunate to have a lot of contact with Grete Waitz, during her running career. I offer a few insights here, that may be interesting to some.
Grete Waitz (then Andersen) made her first overseas trip to race in Canada in 1971. She ran the 1500 m. in Victoria, at age 17. She was 2nd ranked in Norway in the 1500 m. but had become the best runner in her country at the 400 and 800 metres as a 17 year old.
She realized she was an endurance athlete, and applied herself fully to achieve whatever what was possible in that arena. She became the European Junior Champion at 1500 metres, running around 4:17. She moved up in distance, and soon was running very fast at 3000 meters, which was a new event for women at that time. In 1975, she set a World Record of 8:46.6. In 1977, at the World Cup in Germany, she ran 8:31.75 for another World Record. I think that was her all time p.b., and she did run close to 4:00 for 1500 metres.
Here is where Grete's story, and the implications for specificity of training gets really interesting.
She won the World Cross Country Championships in 1978/1979/1980/1981/1983. In those days, the Women's X-C Race was about 5K., sometimes as short as 4.2 K., so only about 14 minutes of running or so.
Grete also started running the Marathon during that time, and ended up winning the New York Marathon in 1978/1979/1980/1982/1983/1984/1985/1986/1988.
So, for many years, Grete was the best, or very close, in the World at distances from 4K. through 42.2 K., and her development years included running well at shorter distances such as 400/800 metres. I'm not sure exactly how that fits with the LTAD models of Athletics Canada, but I can guess that it doesn't really fit at all.
Grete told me that a lot of her training, before she became successful enough to leave her home town of Oslo during the winter months, consisted of getting up very early and running on the streets after the snow plows, and before the traffic. Aha, sherlock, there is a clue in there somewhere....

[oldster]

Skuj, not much to say here. And, no, these changes do not follow in any clear was from the original LTAD guidelines. The actual distances kids race is secondary to the amount they train and the number of times they race. We will never be able to stop jackasses from cranking up 9-12 year olds with serious, specialized training, but AO could do something constructive by sanctioning fewer meets for under 14s and restricting the number of times clubs may enter kids this age in meets. Ontario Swimming already does this (although not nearly to the extent necessary) by having a complete ban on meets in the month of March.

There's plenty of evidence that kids can do very well in the sport when they're older, and still enjoy it when they're younger, without training or competing outside a couple of seasons per year. And, of course, there is plenty of evidence that the opposite leads to very unsatisfactory outcomes for most kids. On balance, then, the optimal approach is the conservative one where racing and training are concerned; but, the distances kids race is a secondary consideration. Over-training and over-racing a possible whatever the distances.

O.K., so there was a little more to say.

Oh, and it's funny how little we hear from the venerable coaches c and j except on the subject of kid's running. Make of that what you will!