Dublin marathon, the elite results

Chivito550

Clum wrote: »

If Dublin it purposely inviting the D and E class Kenyans who will run with the top class Irish runners it would benefit the Irish runners a lot more if Dublin attracted A and B class Europeans who would also run with the top class Irish runners.

These are the guys Irish runners will compete against in championships. D and E class Kenyans don't go to championships.

At the European Championships this summer in the men's marathon (which wasn't flat and had a nice hill on each lap) the first 26 finished sub 2.20 with the winner home in 2.11. Those 26 runners will be some of the people the top Irish lads will compete against over 10,000m and marathons on the european circuit over the near future.

They'd also attract more publicity for the race if the top marathoners from European countries were competing rather than D and E class, previously unheard of, Kenyans.

I really like this idea. It would be far more interesting to spectators if you have Irish guys in the mix against a guy from France, a Swiss, a Portuguese woman etc. All Kenyans and Ethiopians, in the minds of the general public, sort of get lumped into one, but if you see a leading group of 5 runners, from Ireland, Spain, Russia, Germany and Sweden for example, then each runner becomes identifiable from the other in the minds of the general public. Perhaps encouraging the use of wearing country colours can help.

The only thing is that the Marathon is only on the European Championship programme in non Olympic years, so using the angle of "watch our best against our Euro Champ contenders" will only work in the leadup to an event that takes place every 4 years. This is actually why EAA have made the European Championships every 2 years for track and field events (not marathon and walks) because they are worried that some events that have no European representation on a world level will die a death over the years among European youngsters without more European competition. Maybe more of a European type events in the marathon is the answer?

RayCun wrote: »

(Same as with the national track and field championship. You don't always get the very best Irish athletes competing there, because as professionals they have to go where the money is. But you can keep studying the situation and seeing if there's anything that can be changed to make the nationals more attractive)

This is not true these days. To be selected for Olympics, Worlds and Europeans, you must fulfill the criteria of competing in the National Championships. This year, with it being European Championship year, and having more qualifiers than on other years, they went a step further and added a requirement that athletes must compete in the event that they were qualified to run in Zurich. This was a great idea. Instead of having Gregan running the 200m, English running the 400m, and having somebody who is not the best in Ireland claiming the 400m and 800m national title, we had these athletes running in their proper events. I'd love to see that requirement remains. It adds to the Nationals IMO.

RayCun

Clum wrote: »

If Dublin it purposely inviting the D and E class Kenyans who will run with the top class Irish runners it would benefit the Irish runners a lot more if Dublin attracted A and B class Europeans who would also run with the top class Irish runners.

I would guess that the Kenyans are more available. The top French, German, Spanish marathon runners are going to be in demand by French, German, Spanish marathons.

GoTheDistance

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Perhaps stirring the pot a little, but based on his Charleville performance, one would imagine that Fagan would have been competitive. Probably better for all involved that he wasn't there, but his recent times would suggest that he would have been right up there.

That pot has been stirred more than a little recently. Regardless of his past his Charleville 2014 performance would have seen him challenging for the outright win on Monday, and also the National Championship win. Can you explain how it would have been "probably better for all involved that he wasn't there"?

Krusty_Clown

GoTheDistance wrote: »

That pot has been stirred more than a little recently. Regardless of his past his Charleville 2014 performance would have seen him challenging for the outright win on Monday, and also the National Championship win. Can you explain how it would have been "probably better for all involved that he wasn't there"?

I'm not sure that the other athletes competing in the national championships would have welcomed his participation, and based on the furor when he does participate in a race, the post-race publicity, speculation and debate might not have been good for his personal well-being.

Peterx

Anyone who wasn't there doesn't matter. Half marathon times give an indication, running 26.2 miles on a windy day gives the answers. Form gives an indication and then the race decides who wins. that's the beauty of racing and in particular the marathon. That extra distance just hurts people in different ways.

The poster boy for having a positive attitude and just racing the competition to the very best of your ability is of course not a boy at all but the fabulous Maria McCambridge. If there was to be a poster boy at the domestic level it would be Barry Minnock, who is a clubmate of mine so I'm obviously a little biased.

I don't know whether or not the marathon organisers are deliberately bringing in Africans who are just a little faster but if so it's a brilliant policy. The Irish lads can look at Maria's run this year and see what they have to achieve to win, and that winning is possible.

GoTheDistance

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I'm not sure that the other athletes competing in the national championships would have welcomed his participation, and based on the furor when he does participate in a race, the post-race publicity, speculation and debate might not have been good for his personal well-being.

True. Agreed. And it might have taken from the wonderful achievements of Maria McCambridge on the day. If anyone deserved some spotlight it was her.

RayCun

Chivito550 wrote: »

This is not true these days. To be selected for Olympics, Worlds and Europeans, you must fulfill the criteria of competing in the National Championships.

A similar rule might be too restrictive for the marathon, but its an interesting thought.

Was just looking at this list of top marathon times. The same races come up over and over again
Berlin
Frankfurt
Chicago
Dubai
Rotterdam
London
Paris
Fukuoka

the odd ones out are
New York (Mutai 2:05:06)
Hamburg (Kipchoge 2:05:30)
Seoul (2:05:37)
Vienna (2:05:41)
Tokyo (2:05:42)

but anyone who thinks they can run sub 2:06 will run a race in the first list.

(Add Eindhoven, Prague and Warsaw and you have ten European cities, the only ones to have hosted a sub 2:07 race.)

youngrun

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I'm not sure that the other athletes competing in the national championships would have welcomed his participation, and based on the furor when he does participate in a race, the post-race publicity, speculation and debate might not have been good for his personal well-being.

Probably all true, and its been done to death elsewhere regarding bans etc , but he is allowed to compete and would certainly be well capable of winning a national marathon title . Hard to know if he will ever go for an Irish vest again ?

Krusty_Clown

youngrun wrote: »

Probably all true, and its been done to death elsewhere regarding bans etc , but he is allowed to compete and would certainly be well capable of winning a national marathon title . Hard to know if he will ever go for an Irish vest again ?

It's a moot point now, but I don't believe there's any restriction on where he can/can't compete, including the national championships (as long as he's registered with the AAI). Winning the national championships doesn't necessarily mean that you have to (or are offered the opportunity to) wear the green vest too, so he could have feasibly competed for the outright win in the Dublin marathon and/or the national championship.

Krusty_Clown

It really was a fantastic performance by Maria. How many National marathon championships has she won now? Has she matched/surpassed the hubby's record?

*Edit* Just read the AAI article on the win, and it suggested that this is her third national title in a row. So a win next year would have her tie with Gary Crossan's four title wins in a row. I wouldn't be betting against her. Some record between them!

average_runner

RayCun wrote: »

A similar rule might be too restrictive for the marathon, but its an interesting thought.

Was just looking at this list of top marathon times. The same races come up over and over again
Berlin
Frankfurt
Chicago
Dubai
Rotterdam
London
Paris
Fukuoka

the odd ones out are
New York (Mutai 2:05:06)
Hamburg (Kipchoge 2:05:30)
Seoul (2:05:37)
Vienna (2:05:41)
Tokyo (2:05:42)

but anyone who thinks they can run sub 2:06 will run a race in the first list.

(Add Eindhoven, Prague and Warsaw and you have ten European cities, the only ones to have hosted a sub 2:07 race.)

Add Amsterdam to that list also

wall.e

A little bit about the misconception of top times. So far this year 109 performances have been run under 2:10, 27 have been under 2:07. In 2013 174 under 2:10 and 29 under 2:07. 2012 199 under 2:10, 49 under 2:07. 2011 177 under 2:10 and 36 under 2:07. Safe to say we aren't looking at hundreds under even 2:10 in a given year and well south of 50 for sub-2:07 in any given year, except maybe an Olympic year. I took these numbers from the all-time athletics website. I didn't exclude repeat names, my numbers are simply the number of times a human went under 2:10 or 2:07 in each year. They haven't updated since the beginning of the month, but I think my point that the volume of performances in our minds (this is the case here in America as well) is overly exaggerated.

note: Leftism is drawing his top 30 on the IAAF top 30 list published early this month. I misinformed him that sub-2:08 would make their list, checking again I found it is sub-2:07. Still, doesn't change anything.

This brings up the incorrect use of the subjective labels 'D and E class' for the East Africans.

dna_leri

Listened to Eliud Too and Neil on 2nd Captains Podcast
https://soundcloud.com/secondcaptains-it-com/the-kenyan-and-the-irishman-bods-rugby-league-replacement-duffers-ankles

Too says he lived 10K from his primary school and ran there every morning.
He claimed to run home at lunch time 12:45 and get back for 2pm !
And then ran home in the evening with his books on his back.

That's 40K a day (almost a marathon), including 2x10K in about an hour.
Even taking some exaggeration into account that's unbelieveable.
But it does give you some insight into the mileage that kids run there and the motivation that they later have to get out of these "humble beginnings".
Even without any DNA differences, it's hard to compete with this.

wall.e

Through no fault of his own, Eliud exaggerates the distance from home to school a good bit. He's only started training with a Garmin in Kenya in June so his concept of actual distances is off. I would put his house at least 3km but up to 5km from school. I'm trying to remember the route and only a portion is coming to mind, also depends on if you cut through fields or take the road. Surely no further than 5km. Would put him around 12-20 km a day up to class 8 which is still very impressive.

dna_leri

@leftism & @wall.e
Thanks for coming in here and giving some background information on Eliud.

At the end of the interview he mentioned he hoped to make the Kenyan team for Rio in the steeplechase. Does he have a realistic chance of making that? I see his SB was only 8:45 and surely the Kenyan SC team is one of the most competitive.

It's also easy to understand the draw of the marathon for runners like this. The chance of making 10K euro in a race like Dublin v's little or no reward in T&F means that the best athletes are going to continue to head straight for the road.

yaboya1

dna_leri wrote: »

@leftism & @wall.e
Thanks for coming in here and giving some background information on Eliud.

At the end of the interview he mentioned he hoped to make the Kenyan team for Rio in the steeplechase. Does he have a realistic chance of making that? I see his SB was only 8:45 and surely the Kenyan SC team is one of the most competitive.

It's also easy to understand the draw of the marathon for runners like this. The chance of making 10K euro in a race like Dublin v's little or no reward in T&F means that the best athletes are going to continue to head straight for the road.

+1
I didn't do any checking up on his times like you dna_leri, but I heard him say in the interview he was a champion at the 3k steeplechase in Kenya.
Was that at a much lower level then?

leftism

dna_leri wrote: »

@leftism & @wall.e
Thanks for coming in here and giving some background information on Eliud.

At the end of the interview he mentioned he hoped to make the Kenyan team for Rio in the steeplechase. Does he have a realistic chance of making that? I see his SB was only 8:45 and surely the Kenyan SC team is one of the most competitive.

To be honest, this is definitely something that James (wall.e) and myself will continue to discuss with him over the next few months. Eliud loves the steeplechase and has spent most of his career running it. While he still has dreams of representing Kenya in this event, my opinion (based on his physiological profile) is that he is better suited to the longer distances.

His PR is quite a bit faster than the 8.45 that is listed online (James probably has more details on that), but he still has a long ways to go before he is certain of being selected for the Kenyan team. Yet, with less than 6 months of preparation he ran a debut half-marathon of 62 mins! If he continues developing at the rate he has shown over the last year, we are confident he could break 60 mins within the next 2/3 seasons.

I think the other reason Eliud has steeplechase in the back of his mind, is that his team mate (Abraham Kipkirong Chirchir) also works with James. Abraham made the final of the 3000m SC in Daegu and Eliud has been kicking lumps out of him in training camp over the past few months.

At the end of the day, it will be Eliud's decision what events he races. But he has a finite number of years to make money in the sport and i personally believe the best career option for him is to continue developing over the half- and full-marathon distances. I'm sure James can fill in more details and he is always happy to share his opinions.

wall.e

I believe Eliud was a steeplechase champion at the national level in primary and secondary school. Eliud's family didn't have money for him to attend secondary school so Kipchoge Keino gave him a scholarship to run at Kipchoge Keino High School, he had a lot of success there.

His best this year in the steeplechase is 8:36 at Nyayo stadium (in Nairobi), this might be his best ever, and you won't find any record of it. Nyayo is at 1500+ meters of altitude. His 8:45 was up in Nakuru, around 2000+ meters. I took all these altitude readings with my Garmin Fenix, not 100% accurate but these compare to other known reports and I have yet to see any reasons to question the watch's readings. The typical conversion from altitudes such as Nyayo are typically 15 seconds faster for sea level.

In March and early April he competed in a couple of the AK meetings and was placing alongside the top steeplechasers in Kenya. His accomplishments along with the influence of Abraham's accomplishments definitely keep Eliud's fire for the steeplechase lit.

I think it is realistic that Eliud could make an Olympic or Worlds team in the steeplechase. Though, to do this he will need to focus training for that distance's energy system. This would sacrifice at least one, arguably two, marathon seasons to be prepared properly. Financially this is very risky since the Kenyan steeplechase team is the hardest team in the world to make. Just because he is capable of making the team wouldn't mean he WILL make the team. You get one chance at the national trials, but even this can be overruled by an AK decision.

Neil and I provide him with all the pros and cons when we are planning for his future. We've told him how we feel and so have many of the Kenyans from the Cleveland and Dublin fields. That being said we really take each season at a time. We have a pretty set plan for the coming Spring, but at the moment the Fall of next year could go 5 different ways. It really depends on what progress we see in the next season. Eliud is a smart individual and I think if he makes a go at an Olympic or Worlds team it won't have been a hasty decision.

Krusty_Clown

Great informative posts. Just curious, are you guys coaches, or agents or sponsors, or a mix of all of the above?

wall.e

Coaches and managers.

ThePiedPiper

Very interesting thread this. I don't know why we as a people have the attitude that we can't have a world class event with a world class field. It's defeatist and self-fulfilling. If dcm wanted to have a race like Frankfurt, Rotterdam or Amsterdam they could. Money is the key. These races have BMW, ING or other huge institutions as sponsor, and can afford the necessary prize purse. Maybe dcm do court Diageo, Glanbia, Kerry, intel or the other huge multinationals, but it seems that if they had a sponsor of that type, then a faster higher profile marathon would ensue. Reading up on the history of the Frankfurt race was very interesting, not until they got a previous director of Berlin and really started thinking big, did they become big. They now expect fast times and the fast Germans go to it. Dublin could do similar if they really wanted.

However, the constant talk of 'the friendly marathon', and now trying to only attract 2:15-2:20 type men would suggest that this is their long term strategy. I personally think they can be more than that.

Ghost in Cratloe

wall.e wrote: »

Coaches and managers.

I am sure many on this forum would be interested in the marathon build up Eliud had leading up to Dublin. He is at a level beyond the Irish so I don't think you would be giving anything away so to speak by discussing some aspects of his long runs etc. Of course your obliged to tell me to mind my own business!

pconn062

Ghost in Cratloe wrote: »

I am sure many on this forum would be interested in the marathon build up Eliud had leading up to Dublin. He is at a level beyond the Irish so I don't think you would be giving anything away so to speak by discussing some aspects of his long runs etc. Of course your obliged to tell me to mind my own business!

+1
Would be great to get an insight into the training of a Kenyan athlete leading up to a big marathon.

Itziger

Missed the race but would like to point out the NYC leading times, 2 men under 2:12 I believe. Makes you wonder about those 19 year olds running 2:04 in Dubai these last few years. I know they're different courses and weather conditions but, jeez.

yaboya1

Itziger wrote: »

Missed the race but would like to point out the NYC leading times, 2 men under 2:12 I believe. Makes you wonder about those 19 year olds running 2:04 in Dubai these last few years. I know they're different courses and weather conditions but, jeez.

Today was a really tough day in NYC though (it's a beast of a course anyway). They even moved the wheelchair start to the Brooklyn side of the Verrazano-Narrowes Bridge for safety reasons. Very strong winds apparently. You're probably right though. Treat those results with a bit of scepticism until they're reproduced elsewhere maybe?

Netwerk Errer

Itziger wrote: »

Missed the race but would like to point out the NYC leading times, 2 men under 2:12 I believe. Makes you wonder about those 19 year olds running 2:04 in Dubai these last few years. I know they're different courses and weather conditions but, jeez.

45kph winds gusting up to 75kph in their face for the first 21 miles. The course is difficult enough without having to deal with those conditions. Throw in -1 at the start with a windchill. And we thought the DCM was tough!!

Itziger

Didn't know the conditions were that bad!!

Still a bit suspicious about the other marathon mentioned though.

rom

Much of the comments about the Kenyan runners is that we don't know who they are. DCM doesn't have tv coverage but having a short interview that is put on their site in text format would be great to raise both the profile of the race and the athlete. A simple Q and A. At least then when mainstream media pick it up also they have something to say about the winner. I liked today in New York that Mary Keitany is taking care of all her sisters children as she died of breast cancer in her early 30's, nice to know that she is human like the rest of us that is and hats off to how she can do it all. Currently the media represents African athletes as if the rest of the world is running against terminators. Between this and a-holes and english interviews when the athlete clearly has issues with it. Ok so you have 15 elites in a race and nearly all are from Kenya. How hard is it to hire an interpreter for an hour or two so more than the normal. How was the race and how was the weather questions can be answered.

ultrapercy

rom wrote: »

Much of the comments about the Kenyan runners is that we don't know who they are. DCM doesn't have tv coverage but having a short interview that is put on their site in text format would be great to raise both the profile of the race and the athlete. A simple Q and A. At least then when mainstream media pick it up also they have something to say about the winner. I liked today in New York that Mary Keitany is taking care of all her sisters children as she died of breast cancer in her early 30's, nice to know that she is human like the rest of us that is and hats off to how she can do it all. Currently the media represents African athletes as if the rest of the world is running against terminators. Between this and a-holes and english interviews when the athlete clearly has issues with it. Ok so you have 15 elites in a race and nearly all are from Kenya. How hard is it to hire an interpreter for an hour or two so more than the normal. How was the race and how was the weather questions can be answered.

Edna Kipligat is the lady who is raising her sisters children along with her own family.

wall.e

Ghost in Cratloe wrote: »

I am sure many on this forum would be interested in the marathon build up Eliud had leading up to Dublin. He is at a level beyond the Irish so I don't think you would be giving anything away so to speak by discussing some aspects of his long runs etc. Of course your obliged to tell me to mind my own business!

pconn062 wrote: »

+1
Would be great to get an insight into the training of a Kenyan athlete leading up to a big marathon.

Sorry or delaying a response. I have no problem sharing anything and everything, but I don't want to just give you his training without the information we based this on. I needed to check with Eliud about sharing his personal information before I could release it. He's given the ok.

I am thinking a different thread for this would be appropriate. Perhaps in the Training Logs section? Also, any suggestions for sharing files and websites (since I'm a new member) on a thread?