The state of the Youth

shels4ever

The title of this was taking from something that someone said to me on Tuesday night at a 2 mile race that I was running. 10-15 years ago there were a few guys that I used to battle it out with over 3-5k road races at that point he was in his late 40's .

On Tuesday night I had yet another battle with the same guy (Not much of a battle he dropped me after 1 mile) , But now he's 65 years old . Still running 2 miles sub 12:30 and loving it.

In a chat after the run he had some fairly harsh words about the youth of today which on closer look at the race results showed that he was 100% correct. I would say that 15-20 of the top 30 runners in race were vets and many well over the 50 mark.

I think its very sad that this is the case and that there isnt the quality/quantity of younger people running, The furhter down the field you go the more younger people finished .

It's faairly sad that I felt I ran a good race but was really in a battle with 65 year old men .

Racing Flat

shels4ever wrote: »

It's faairly sad that I felt I ran a good race but was really in a battle with 65 year old men .

Not if the 65 year old is good! I think people too often use age as an excuse. One fellow in particular whenever I beat him he goes on about the 15 year difference, but if he beats me it's all about his superior training . Don't expect to beat older people and don't accept getting beaten by younger people purely due to age.

e.g. Bekele with a VO2max of probably around 85 or so, will have a natural fall-off in this with age, but at 65 he'll probably still have a much greater VO2 max than most fit 20 year olds. Similarly a 20 year old with a very low VO2 max should be behind you in races...

The Irish over 50 record for 5000m is 15.15. Not bad at all.

shels4ever

Thats a good point, But I'm guessing that if you compare the average times of 50 year olds now, and when most of us are 50 I think there will be a major difference.

One the plus side last year I was having battles with 65 year old women , at least thats a plus.

thirtyfoot

You could argue the opposite though. Lets look at our underage qualifiers to the European age group champs this year:

Youths: 17 or so
Junior: 18 or so
U23: 15 or so

Pretty good you could say. Maybe less young people running road races but we have a massive amount of elite kids compared to 10 years ago. Across so many events also. Obviously not of all these kids are road runners but their equivalent performances to get these standards would be around maybe at least a sub 30min 10k road run if they were male (for all the juniors and U23 at least and many of the youths too!). Our underage athletes are on fire.

ecoli

shels4ever wrote: »

The title of this was taking from something that someone said to me on Tuesday night at a 2 mile race that I was running. 10-15 years ago there were a few guys that I used to battle it out with over 3-5k road races at that point he was in his late 40's .

On Tuesday night I had yet another battle with the same guy (Not much of a battle he dropped me after 1 mile) , But now he's 65 years old . Still running 2 miles sub 12:30 and loving it.

In a chat after the run he had some fairly harsh words about the youth of today which on closer look at the race results showed that he was 100% correct. I would say that 15-20 of the top 30 runners in race were vets and many well over the 50 mark.

I think its very sad that this is the case and that there isnt the quality/quantity of younger people running, The furhter down the field you go the more younger people finished .

It's faairly sad that I felt I ran a good race but was really in a battle with 65 year old men .

Most road races if this was in fact a road race have an over 16 policy which exclude youths. Other factors are that some could be out due to the European Juniors coming up shortly. Others at World Youths and others may be on there break after the National Juniors/ u 23 so that they can start to gear towards their cross country season. Many factors can have resulted in this and i think it is not fair to judge off one race.
Another thing like some have mentioned is juniors are reluctant to do road racing sometimes as there bodies havent developed fully and pounding on the roads they feel can be detremental.
All in all i feel that the state of the youths is better than it has been for a while as year after year the standard of under age competition ( Track and Cross Country mainly) seems to be getting better.
I am only out of junior ranks myself and made nationals year in year out yet at the moment i would be lucky to make it out of the u18 or junior county

shels4ever

ecoli wrote: »

Most road races if this was in fact a road race have an over 16 policy which exclude youths. Other factors are that some could be out due to the European Juniors coming up shortly. Others at World Youths and others may be on there break after the National Juniors/ u 23 so that they can start to gear towards their cross country season. Many factors can have resulted in this and i think it is not fair to judge off one race.
Another thing like some have mentioned is juniors are reluctant to do road racing sometimes as there bodies havent developed fully and pounding on the roads they feel can be detremental.
All in all i feel that the state of the youths is better than it has been for a while as year after year the standard of under age competition ( Track and Cross Country mainly) seems to be getting better.
I am only out of junior ranks myself and made nationals year in year out yet at the moment i would be lucky to make it out of the u18 or junior county

Yep thats a good point, Actually the title may have been a bit wrong it's not a go at the "youth" but basically younger people so senior included. . Might have taken it out of context. I think there was a debate on here before along the same lines with that runners from teh 80's if i remember correctly.

cfitz

Tingle wrote: »

Obviously not of all these kids are road runners but their equivalent performances to get these standards would be around maybe at least a sub 30min 10k road run if they were male (for all the juniors and U23 at least and many of the youths too!). Our underage athletes are on fire.

Not trying to take from your point here, but I don't think many of the junior performances would be equivalent to a sub-30 10k. We all love McMillan's calculator (and it seems to be sympathetic to shorter distances if anything) and here are the equivalents that it gives:
800 - 1:52
1500 - 3:52
3000 - 8:16
5000 - 14:27

But if your middle distance guys are nearly all worse than our sprinters and field eventers then you could be right.

thirtyfoot

cfitz wrote: »

Not trying to take from your point here, but I don't think many of the junior performances would be equivalent to a sub-30 10k. We all love McMillan's calculator (and it seems to be sympathetic to shorter distances if anything) and here are the equivalents that it gives:
800 - 1:52
1500 - 3:52
3000 - 8:16
5000 - 14:27

But if your middle distance guys are nearly all worse than our sprinters and field eventers then you could be right.

Its friday, its lunch and I have a bit of time on my hands.....

On the above the youngest guys who are faster than the Mcmillan equivalent of a sub 30min 10k are:

800 - 1:52
Mark Patterson - aged 18 - 1:51
1500 - 3:52
Shane Quinn - Aged 17 - 3:50
3000 - 8:16
Davis McCarthy - Aged 20 - 7:56 (Shane Quinn has a 8.21)
5000 - 14:27
David McCarthy - Aged 20 - 13:42

The sprinters would be of similar or better standard to Patterson and Quinn.

IAAF scoring charts are probably a better example of comparing standards across events as the McMillian charts would be flawed for that purpose. A 10km road run of 29:59 is 964pts for a man. The equivalent of this in a sample of other events is as follows:

Mens 100 - 10.72 - 5 guys have done this
Mens 1500 - 3:51 - 20 guys have run this - youths, juniors and U23
Womens 100 - 12.39 - 18 women - youths, juniors and U23
Womens 400 - 57.31 - 14 women - of all ages.

How many 10k road races have been won in Ireland this year in 29 mins?

We have loads of great young athletes but none of them are doing road races or are road runners. Granted some events above are some of our strongest but there are the equivalent of 30 women sprinters and 15 women middle distance who are running times equivalent to a mens 29 mins 10k road run in Ireland this season. Thats impressive and with a few big guns missing! Our young men are even stronger and have more depth.

Point being, all our best runners and athletes don't do road races or the middle distance ones that do will pick and choose as there are so many road races now and you are never gauranteed a good race. I know this is slightly off to what the 65 year old was saying as he is only talking about road races but it may explain why so few young people are at the front of road races.