Geb's Cramping Problems

[SQUACKEE]

What do youz guys think about Bekele's stride for future marathon running. It looks pretty marathony to me.

I doubt we will see him do a marathon before Beijing but he's a bit stocky which could be a slight downfall if he would step up to the marathon.

That's the first time I've heard a 5'5" 121 pounder (55kg) called "stocky"!

My man gots sum thighs but the rest is kenyan thin. There have been great "stocky" marathoners.

[nevetsllim]

What do youz guys think about Bekele's stride for future marathon running. It looks pretty marathony to me.

I doubt we will see him do a marathon before Beijing but he's a bit stocky which could be a slight downfall if he would step up to the marathon.

That's the first time I've heard a 5'5" 121 pounder (55kg) called "stocky"!

I'm talking about in terms of other distance runners.

[nevetsllim]

What do youz guys think about Bekele's stride for future marathon running. It looks pretty marathony to me.

I doubt we will see him do a marathon before Beijing but he's a bit stocky which could be a slight downfall if he would step up to the marathon.

That's the first time I've heard a 5'5" 121 pounder (55kg) called "stocky"!

My man gots sum thighs but the rest is kenyan thin. There have been great "stocky" marathoners.

Actually, I suppose it would help because lots of the top marathon runners nowadays are strong and muscular such as Gharib and Baldini. Thinking about it, it might be more of a help than a hinderance.

[Braavo Furgi]

Re: Geb's Cramping Problems

Story on the front page:

http://sport.independent.co.uk/general/ ... 359802.ece

Haven't heard anyone say anything about this yet. Thoughts?

Gebrselassie, Ethiopia's multiple Olympic and world champion, found the cold cramping his calfs and hamstrings shortly after the halfway point as he struggled to adapt his habitual tippy-toe running style to the slippery surface.

Running economy destroyed by a slippery surface, this seems quite plausible to me based on what malmo had to say in another thread. If geb was cramping from the half way point, as the article claims, I have to wonder why he bothered to finish the race. It seems a little pointless to kill ones legs further just to gut it out. I think he would have been better served to pull put and live to run another day.

Either that, or he needs to eat more bananas.

1) Some runners are predisposed to cramping in marathons. If that is the case for Geb, then the rain would only accentuate the problem. Why? Because a cold rain reduces blood flow to the outer musclature of the legs, leading to more cramping than usual.
2) Geb does not have a "marathoner stride". He has an extreme "bounding stride". This does not mean that he bounces too much vertically, only that he is very good at "storing" the energy of each strides "landing" before each "bound". The "bounder" runner naturally uses his foot extension for more power than a "floater" runner (John Treacy, '84 Silver OG and extrodinare cross country runner). The floater uses the glutes and hamstring muscles more so than the bounder. The problem with using the foot extension more so, as a bounder is that the body's center of gravity is in front of the foot by a foot or 2 by the time the foot is fully extended......Thus if a road is wet or a CC course is muddy, the bounder looses traction in this important stride phase.
The other reason that Geb's stride is not condusive to marathoning is the bounder runner exhausts his leg muscles earlier than a floater as he has stronger "landing muscle contractions" (eccentric). Eccentric contractions are more exhausting because muscles naturally like to shorten while contracting. However during "landing muscle contractions" the leg muscles are lengthening.

[SQUACKEE]

Re: Geb's Cramping Problems

[quote=Braavo Furgi]

Story on the front page:

http://sport.independent.co.uk/general/ ... 359802.ece

Haven't heard anyone say anything about this yet. Thoughts?

Gebrselassie, Ethiopia's multiple Olympic and world champion, found the cold cramping his calfs and hamstrings shortly after the halfway point as he struggled to adapt his habitual tippy-toe running style to the slippery surface.

Running economy destroyed by a slippery surface, this seems quite plausible to me based on what malmo had to say in another thread. If geb was cramping from the half way point, as the article claims, I have to wonder why he bothered to finish the race. It seems a little pointless to kill ones legs further just to gut it out. I think he would have been better served to pull put and live to run another day.

Either that, or he needs to eat more bananas.

1) Some runners are predisposed to cramping in marathons. If that is the case for Geb, then the rain would only accentuate the problem. Why? Because a cold rain reduces blood flow to the outer musclature of the legs, leading to more cramping than usual.
2) Geb does not have a "marathoner stride". He has an extreme "bounding stride". This does not mean that he bounces too much vertically, only that he is very good at "storing" the energy of each strides "landing" before each "bound". The "bounder" runner naturally uses his foot extension for more power than a "floater" runner (John Treacy, '84 Silver OG and extrodinare cross country runner). The floater uses the glutes and hamstring muscles more so than the bounder. The problem with using the foot extension more so, as a bounder is that the body's center of gravity is in front of the foot by a foot or 2 by the time the foot is fully extended......Thus if a road is wet or a CC course is muddy, the bounder looses traction in this important stride phase.
The other reason that Geb's stride is not condusive to marathoning is the bounder runner exhausts his leg muscles earlier than a floater as he has stronger "landing muscle contractions" (eccentric). Eccentric contractions are more exhausting because muscles naturally like to shorten while contracting. However during "landing muscle contractions" the leg muscles are lengthening.[/quote:3i3m7x9a]

Great post! What do you think of Bill Rodgers stride. Is he the best "bounder" ever?

[trackhead]

shoes

I think his problem is in his shoes. He does much of his training and casual wear in high heeled shoes (Supernova Cushion, Gigaride), and then tries to run 26 hard miles in a flat. The added leverage is killing his calves. If he trained and raced in the same shoe, his calves would be 100% accustomed to the extra work.

[Daisy]

Re: shoes

I think his problem is in his shoes. He does much of his training and casual wear in high heeled shoes (Supernova Cushion, Gigaride), and then tries to run 26 hard miles in a flat. The added leverage is killing his calves. If he trained and raced in the same shoe, his calves would be 100% accustomed to the extra work.

This is a great point. Now who has Gebs e-mail, seriously.

[DrJay]

Re: Geb's Cramping Problems

The other reason that Geb's stride is not condusive to marathoning is the bounder runner exhausts his leg muscles earlier than a floater as he has stronger "landing muscle contractions" (eccentric). Eccentric contractions are more exhausting because muscles naturally like to shorten while contracting. However during "landing muscle contractions" the leg muscles are lengthening.

There must be some interesting science about eccentric muscle work, though I'm not familiar with it. Two little vignettes, though. A couple of times, when I was fit enough that hiking uphill 5000 feet was a piece of cake, we did a climb in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison here in Colorado that required descending a steep gully to get to the start of the climb, about 1800 vertical feet in an hour. We got down there and my quads were quivering, almost toast, from the less familiar eccentric work. Then I have a friend, a doc, who has been a biking fiend in the past, road 400 miles in 24 hours once. Concentric work (muscle shortening) is no problem. But if he does eccentric work, he gets rhabdomyolysis, which is injury to/death of skeletal muscle cells, documented in his case by a very marked rise in muscle enzyme levels on blood testing. He gets a mild degree of this if he so much as descends three or four flights of stairs (eccentric work). He went to see some world-famous neuromuscular specialist at Wash U. (St. Louis) or somewhere like that, walks in, tells the guy his story and the guy says, "I've been waiting for you my entire career." They did muscle biopsies and ran every test known to man, but, unfortunately, couldn't find anything to explain my friend's condition.

[SQUACKEE]

Re: shoes

I think his problem is in his shoes. He does much of his training and casual wear in high heeled shoes (Supernova Cushion, Gigaride), and then tries to run 26 hard miles in a flat. The added leverage is killing his calves. If he trained and raced in the same shoe, his calves would be 100% accustomed to the extra work.

This very true. Ive run really hard workouts in my training shoes and felt fit enough to run a time trial in my racing flats. The next day my calves were kaput. I would be surprised if Geb is not aware of this.

[trackhead]

Re: shoes

I think his problem is in his shoes. He does much of his training and casual wear in high heeled shoes (Supernova Cushion, Gigaride), and then tries to run 26 hard miles in a flat. The added leverage is killing his calves. If he trained and raced in the same shoe, his calves would be 100% accustomed to the extra work.

This very true. Ive run really hard workouts in my training shoes and felt fit enough to run a time trial in my racing flats. The next day my calves were kaput. I would be surprised if Geb is not aware of this.

As far as I know, he and his camp subscribe to the standard philosophy of doing most of your training in standard shoes and then race specific work in your racing shoes. But for some (myself included) that's not enough. It wasn't until I started doing all my training in my racing shoes that my calves and soleus were strong enough to do the job w/o any cramping. I've known many other people with similar issues. I just hope that Geb can get it together next time around.

[figo]

Geb will go 2:02 some day unless there is major injury / illness.
Regarding what happend in London, cramps or whatever......
Everyone and I mean everyone has a bad day at that event.
Surely sophisticated analysis helps predict things but semi-sophisticated analysis leads to crap.
Geb is basically trained to lap at 60 seconds and his running form is adapted to this pace. The marathon is 70+seconds pace and I suppose the challenge is to adapt the form to this much slower pace.
Maybe I'm out of my mind here, but I wonder if the fellow might be better off to run stretches of 65/lap second pace 1-3 km here and there where he is naturally more comfortable and perhaps efficient and work different muscle groups, rather than the same pace the whole way?

Most analysts are after the fact, such as MJ's style is all wrong (before) and they tried to change it..... to everyone elses, then change their tune once the records come in. The cliche analyst/coach can ruin the unique athlete and it is the unique athlete that sets records.

These "sophisticated" analysts as coaches would have surely destroyed Coe (more mileage), MJ (don't run upright), Warriner (gain weight),Juantorena (too big for 800), Mottram.... I don't know what they'd do to him, maybe have him run 10000?

What is interesting is that there are so many styles that work, for example
Rudy Chappa ran toe to heal back to toe......

I suppose it really is tough to decide what to do exactly with the unique elite specimen.

[bekeselassie]

Geb will go 2:02 some day unless there is major injury / illness.

Let me make this public announcement: figo is now my new best friend!


Hey, these are some great posts. Talking about the training shoe/racing flats dilemma, let me give you this story for a very rude illustration. 1990. 2:00am. I'm on HW 316 in the Atlanta suburbs heading home from the Goergia Tech homecoming concert my brother invited me to (his alma mater). I'm in the 11th grade, 16 years old. If I may say so, I was in great shape, ready to take on anyone who came along (unless they could dip under 5 for a mile or 2:10 for an 800 ops: ).

The junkmobile I'm in - '76 Buick Century station wagon - gets a flat. I'm 3 miles from my exit and about 5 miles from home. 2am remember!! Well, Im wearing those leather moccasin type of loafers that were popular in the 80's. Remember? The ones with the thin white soles? Anyway, I could walk (BTW there was no spare; that's why I have to head on my way) and take forever, or I could get to the exit and to a phone in 20 minutes easy. So I run.

You can imagine the sight of some teenager running on the side of the highway at 2am with a jacket and jeans on. :lol:

Anyway, my point is that the next day, this invincible, injury/ soreness proof kid felt pain in his calves that he had never felt up to that point in his life, and it took about three days to diminish significantly.

[Runnerdave]

The junkmobile I'm in - '76 Buick Century station wagon - gets a flat...

this kid is worse than I thought :shock: