>Of course it also means we must look to other, harder explanations as to
>why
>the Kenyans are such good runners.
>
>Kurt Bray
There is no smoke, no mirrors, no magic potion, no genetic code, it is
purely a list:
1. from their ancestors they get the genetic advantage of a high metabolism
contributing to them being rail thin
2. work ethic is ground into them from youth (the whole "farmer's
mentality")
3. becoming an elite athlete for a year and winning US road races for a year
will let them live comfortably in Kenya for years and years to come...aka
running is either a way out of poverty or a way into a better life--->to
live better than their parents
2 and 3, work-ethic and to be better off than your parents, used to be the
driving force in everything the US did and it showed with the massive
improvements in science and standard of living from 1900-1980. Since about
1980 or a little after the work-ethic of Americans has suffered due in part
to an ever increasingly busy lifestyle and the technology age---->computers
makes us lazy as a whole. This generation, my generation, has had no trauma
to mold and motivate them, no wars, no economic turmoil, nothing. It seems
that every generation has had it better off than the generation before it,
until the most recent one. The standard of living in the US has pretty much
remained constant since the 80's. Children are no longer improving on their
parents economic and social standing. Things are stagnant.
We could say Kenyans are great because of altitude. If so then why haven't
our best runners come out of the Rocky and App. Mountains? If altitude was
"the" factor then every great US runner would come from these regions. We
could say because they are of east African decent. If so then why aren't our
best runners of east African decent. I'm sure we have a fairly large
population of people with east African decent. This is America, the most
diverse country on the Earth.
Then we have training method and drugs. US distance running has been
dominated by the "less is more" philosophy since the late 80's. Recently
though this philosophy has gone the way of the dinosaur. Drugs will help,
but will not make a jogger into an elite marathoner.
Everything on the Earth is run in cycles. In distance running it seems that
a different region or country will domitate for some time, then another
region will domitate. The Finns of the 20's, the Aussies of the 60's, The
Americans and British of the 70's and 80's, and the Kenyan's and East/North
Africans of the 90's. Only time will tell who will be next. There are many
reasons why a particular group of people domintate a sport. Maybe it's just
"their time".
Alan
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