The story of Alistair Cragg - an indictment on SA running

In the post directly above this one, I used the example of a runner called Sipho Ngomane to show how SA is losing out on potentially talented runners because of a desire to push runners into marathons and ultras well before their time. So in Sipho Ngomane, we have a 23 year old who was running 2 marathons, 2 Ultras and a half marathon in the space of 6 months. He ended up injured and is likely to never realise his full potential - he should be running 28 min 10km, 61 min half marathons and could have been our next world class marathon runner.

On the other end of the extreme is Alistair Cragg, pictured right. Who, you might ask? Well, if you are South African, you may be interested to know that Alistair Cragg is the fastest South African runner ever at 5000m! Yes, faster than the SA record holder, but unfortunately, he was running for Ireland at the time when he ran 13:11 (the SA record is 13:14!). He has since run 13:07, making him the fastest SA runner by 7 seconds, but he was wearing the wrong singlet at the time!

Cragg was born in Johannesburg in 1980, and was a successful high school runner - he was clearly talented. Yet all through school, he battled a little to make it competitively among SA's juniors. He was good, but nothing suggested "great". I happened to be at school in the same district as Cragg, and so knew his name, and knew many of the local African runners who were beating him regularly at 3000 m and 5000 m at school level. I even watched races where he was outrun by these guys - you'd have put good money on them becoming great athletes and Cragg becoming an average 'trier' one day. How wrong you'd have been!

Invited to leave

I have it on good authority from a coach within the SA structures that it reached a point where Cragg was told that he'd never be quite good enough compared to the runners he was racing against. So with this 'incentivization', combined with the fact that his brother was already in the USA, Cragg decided to leave SA for the USA. I've no doubt that this was a lifestyle decision as well, made in the best interests of his future (in his perception), so he went off to Southern Methodist University in 1999. The rest, as they say, is history.

With the right guidance from coaches in the USA, he became one of the great NCAA runners. He started relatively poorly, but soon picked up and became a dominant runner in the USA. A few blips in the road, a change in universities, but still he excelled and won NCAA titles at 3000m, 5000m, 10000m and at cross country! He would be one of our best ever track runners, but was able to obtain an Irish passport through ancestry, and so soon became an international caliber runner. He finished in 12th place at the Athens Olympic Games - not a single South African could even achieve the Olympic qualifiying to compete, let alone race the final - and has continued to excel. As mentioned, his current 5000 m PB is 13:07, 7 seconds better than any other SA born runner.

So the question we should be asking is how did a guy whose initial talent suggested he'd never really make it go on to be about 20 seconds faster than the next best South African between 2004 and 2007? Sure, he may have been a late developer, and may have achieved this had he stayed in SA, but somehow, I doubt it. Rather, the answer is that the coaches and structures he left behind in South Africa were unable to take talent that was AT LEAST AS GOOD AS HIS and turn it into anything closely similar. Cragg was a success in the USA, but what he left behind in South Africa was a failure of coaching, support and science.

Our coaches and officials invited him to leave, preferring to work with the more 'talented' runners who were beating him at school. Where are they now? Well, I suspect they are either retired and not running anymore, or if they are, they're probably run 2:24 marathons and winning R1000 a weekend in obscure races around the country somewhere.

So well done to Cragg, for making the most of his talent and realising a dream. He's the poster-boy for SA athletics gone wrong...

R & J

Bonds breaks the record, but for how long?

After all the hype, all the pressure, and all the steroids, Barry Bonds finally surpassed Hank Aaron as the all-time home run leader in Major League Baseball. On Wednesday night, as the Giants squared off against the Washington Nationals, Bonds stepped up to the plate in the fifth inning. With the count loaded at 3-2 he hit the payoff pitch and swung his way into history, if not infamy at the same time, sending a shot deep into right center field at AT&T Park in San Francisco. He was met at the plate by his godfather Willie Mays while a pile up ensued in the stands over the ball. The game was stopped for 10 min of fireworks and ceremony before the Giants went on to lose the game.

So Bonds will likely hit a few more home runs this season, finishing perhaps with 760-765 for the new bench mark. But how long will Bonds be able to remain the home run king? Many fans, including commissioner Bud Selig and Hank Aaron himself, are already looking forward to the day when Bonds is dethroned. And who is the likely successor? All signs point to Alex Rodriguez, otherwise known as “A-Rod,” currently of the New York Yankees. The Mighty A-Rod recently hit his 500^th home run at the age of 31, in his 14^th major league season. Compare this to Bonds, who hit just 445 home runs in his first 14 seasons.

To date A-Rod is averaging 36 dingers a season to Bonds 34. This average together with his faster pace to 500 predict A-Rod will surpass Bonds in approximately seven years when he is 38 and in his 21^st major league season (Figure 1). While entirely possible, this is actually a big ask as it means A-Rod must average close to 36 home runs a season between now and then, and furthermore he appears to have had his peak home run season five years ago in 2002 when he was 26 and hit 57 home runs (Figure 2). It also means he must keep playing well past 20 major league seasons, and while there are a number of players who have not only done this but gone on to seal their place in the Hall of Fame after 20+ years, this is a long career and A-Rod (or any player) might find it challenging to keep the competitive fire burning for another 7-8 years. In addition he must remain healthy enough to keep his up output.

For now Bonds takes the spotlight and shares it with no one. The Commissioner of baseball was not even there to witness the record, instead sending a vice president to stand in. However Hank Aaron, who recently has shunned Bonds, pre-recorded a video that was played during the celebratory game stoppage. In it he expressed hope that Bonds breaking this momentous record would inspire many others to chase their own dreams.

Keep chasing, A-Rod. . .keep chasing. . .

Marathon speed Chapter II: Why Paula runs 2:15, and South African men don't

So last Saturday, we did a post looking at how the track events, and in particular, the 'golden era' for track running of the mid-1990's because the catalyst that has reshaped your typical marathon runner-profile. In that period between 1993 and 1998, the world record over 10000m was broken 9 times, bringing the best time down by 45 seconds! It was inevitable that when this generation (the likes of Tergat and Gebrselassie) stepped off the track and onto the roads, there'd be fireworks!

And sure enough, it's not unusual to see four or five guys racing like track runners over the final kilometer of the marathon, at a pace of sub 2:08. And our point from our previous post was that the physiology of the elite marathon runner has evolved - no longer are they the steady "tortoises" with all the slow twitch muscle, they are as comfortable in a 5k race as a 21 km race as a marathon. The example of Paula Radcliffe is even more emphatic - here is a runner who, in years gone by, has been Commonwealth and European record holder over 1500m, 3000m, 5000m, and 10 000m! A competitor for many years over the track distances, until eventually, she stepped up and raced the fastest marathons ever seen. But we should have seen it coming...And our message was that there is a lesson to be learned from this for all of us mere mortals. And that is what this post is all about...

The example of South African marathon mediocrity...

Here's a hypothetical example, which comes from South Africa, my (Ross') home country. Perhaps you have examples of this wherever it is you are reading this, but it's something close to home:

Sarah is a 16-year old girl, capable of running a 10km race in 34 minutes. That's not bad, when you consider her age, and that she can win, or at least get top 3 in most local races. So what she realises very soon (with the right 'guidance' from greedy agents and coaches) is that there is a little bit more money running marathons, and she'll be quite successful over that distance too.

So she races a few 21 km races to pass time until she's 18, and her 21km performances are also not bad - with her 10 km best of 34 minutes, she can run 21km in about 74 to 76 minutes, good enough for the win and some more prize money.

So time passes and she steps up to the marathon - here, with her best 21 km time of 75 minutes, the best marathon she can possibly run is 2:40, and that's pushing it. But that's good enough, in the smaller races, to at least win some prize money, and there's more money here than there was for running a 34 minute 10km race and winning it. So she sticks to the marathon, until her 22 year old legs are either injured or unable to sustain the pace of racing a marathon twice a month (seriously, it happens here in SA) and she 'retires' into anonymity, only to be replaced by the next talented 16 year old who can run 34 minutes for 10km.

The logic behind speed for the marathon

So what does this have to do with Paula! And what does it have to do with you?

Well, you have to remember that there is a logical, natural progression in time as you move from 10 km to 21 km to the marathon. In otherwords, if your best 10km time is 34 min, you CANNOT run a 21 km race in 70 minutes - that's a faster pace, for double the distance! And if your 21km time is 70 minutes, you WILL NOT run the marathon in under 2:20 - it's just not possible! So you run 2:50, and your first response is to say that you "need more training", so your training runs get longer and longer, which means slower and slower. And you start to think of 10km races as warmups, which means your 10km best time gets worse and worse, until eventually, your marathon is hitting three hours, and other 18 year olds are running past you!

And for the men - comparisons with Paula Radcliffe expose the problem

And what is worrying, and embarassing even, is that this is what is happening to South African men. Our best male runners are winning money by running 10 km in 30 to 31 minutes. They then run 21km races, finishing in about 65 to 67 minutes, and then jump to marathons at 21 years of age, finishing in about 2:18 to 2:20. Note that these are almost exactly the same times Paula Radcliffe is running! So the problem for these guys is not that their marathons are slower than Paula's, it's that their 10km times are too slow! They need to get their 10km time into the 28-min range, and then they can begin to compete in 2:10 marathons.

Paula Radcliffe - the RIGHT way to engineer a marathon

So what Paula Radcliffe did with great success was to delay stepping up to the marathon for as long as possible, focusing instead on getting her speed developed. And she was successful on the track, make no mistake, but she was not the greatest. This must have taken enormous foresight and discipline.

You see, what Paula Radcliffe lacked was the ability to kick. So when you look at her major champs performances, she was a regular 5th, 4th, 6th, 3rd place finisher. What that does not tell you is that she probably ran in the lead for about 9600m of a 10000m race, or 4700 m of a 5000m race, only to be dusted over the final lap. But she stuck with it...Her reward - a 30 minute PB over 10km, a 14:30 PB at 5000m, and a 1500m PB of 4:05! Most of these times were recorded between 2000 and 2002, part of the buildup to what would become the greatest period ever for a woman marathon runner.

So the take home message for all of us, and for administrators in South Africa (and no doubt other countries) is that marathon success starts with speed. In the men's division, you simply cannot hope to compete in a race at sub 2:07 pace unless your 10km PB is 27 minutes, and preferably, you have the ability to run 5000m in under 13 minutes.

So you're not a potential record holder - what does this mean for you?

What does this mean for the rest of us, who have targets of 4 hours for the marathon? Well, the same logic applies. If your 10 km best is only 50 minutes, then your 21 km best will be no faster than about 1:50, which means your marathon best will be 3:50, at best. More likely, you'll be running 4 hours. So if you want to get your performance over the marathon down, it's not more endurance you need, it's more speed.

At this stage, a disclaimer...there are of course people who can sustain more or less the same speed. I recall once meeting a girl who had a 10km best of 38 minutes, and a 21km best of 80 minutes! That's the same time over twice the distance!!!! She said it was because her endurance was her biggest strength. My interpretation would be that her speed was inadequate, and if she spent a couple of months on it, her 10 km time could come down to 36 minutes, and then with some more training, her 21km best would drop to 78 minutes.

So practically applying this should tell you that one possible secret to success over the marathon is to be patient, work at speed, realise that the natural progression from 10 to 21 to 42 km means that a faster runner over the shorter distances means a faster performance over the 42 km distance. So your next question is "OK, I'm prepared to be patient, now how do I go about improving my speed over the shorter distances?" And for that answer, join us again over the coming weeks, where we'll talk about training and speed work for everyone, whether you're Paul, Paula, or just hopeful!

R & J

Correction: Baseball's most current drug testing penalties

Recently in a post about Barry Bonds quest to break the home run record, we listed the schedule of penalties for baseball's drug testing policy. However, it has been brought to our attention that Major League Baseball (MLB) has since strengthened their drug-testing policy. The penalty schedule we published was introduced for the 2005 season. The current schedule below was ratified in November 2005 for the 2006 MLB season, and now been look like this:

1. First positive test result: 50 game suspension
2. Second positive test result: 100 game suspension
3. Third positive test result: lifetime ban

Note: All suspensions are without pay.

This updated policy has some teeth, as a 50-game suspension is equivalent to approximately 1/3 of the season. Although it is encouraging that they appear to have adopted a "three strikes and your out" approach, this policy is still weak when compared to international sports sanctioned by the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA), which mandates a two-year ban for the first offense and a lifetime ban for any subsequent offense.

It is our hope that when the policy is next updated, it will fall in line with the more stringent international standards, because a tougher policy will only serve to legitimize baseball and elevate its integrity.

See also:

Time line of drug testing in baseball from mlb.com

Meanwhile, on Friday night (3 Aug), Bonds hit a home run in San Diego to tie Hank Aaron's record at 755 home runs. Reactions were mixed as one fan threw a ball back onto the field, although it was not the home run ball, and others booed him and held up asterisks signs when he took up his left-field position. Bonds did receive a standing ovation from Giant's fans when he left the game in the eighth inning, though.

Fortunately Bonds' reign at the top of the home run ladder will likely be short lived. Earlier on Friday, Alex Rodriguez (NY Yankees) hit his 500th home run at the age of 32, which puts him far ahead of Bonds at the same age. If A-Rod can stay healthy he could become the new home run king in as little as five years. This would relieve many baseball fans as public opinion of Bonds is low, although it is likely that he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame with little resistance when his time comes.

Like him or not, Bonds is a natural and exhibited immense talent and promise right from the start of his career. We welcome your comments on the Bonds issue here at the Science of Sport, so please weigh in with your opinion on this debate!

Ross and Jonathan