I agree too Witton - it's really great to get to watch our own athletes in events and having more diversity can only be a good thing.
I agree too Witton - it's really great to get to watch our own athletes in events and having more diversity can only be a good thing.
Around 490 photos from the Edinburgh World Cross Country added here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisupson/sets/
Mr U - you seem to have a nice new camera! Photo's look really good - quite a few of RR in there....
Now I'm going to have to get a better camera pah!
Excellent photos Chris from Edinburgh.Originally Posted by ChrisU
Thanks guys! - I was trying to get the leaders, plus making sure I snapped the GB runners as well. I was using my Nikon D80 with 70-300mm Tamron lens.
I didn't fancy rushing round the course getting different vantage points since: a) it was very crowded, and I'd found a good bend as the runners crested the Haggis Knowe hill, and b) more importantly I was suffering from an horrific variant of Spanish food poisoning that meant running around would have been a very bad idea!
Witton, i don't know what the answer is. We seem to have become largely a nation of fun runners with only a very few at the sharp end.....and to be frank that sharp end is getting increasingly blunter! How come years ago we had 'loads' of men who could break 2.20 for the marathon and now we've got a handful? How come bar Mo Farah we don't have anyone capable of getting anywhere near the worlds best?
Its not just the rise of the Africans, look at this for a statistic of the top 50 UK 10,000m runners by pb not one of them was born in the 1980s and only 5 of them in the 70s (1971, 1972, 1972 and 1974) and of them to my knowledge only 2 of them are actively running still!!!
There have only been 2 times posted this decade that are fast enough to get in the top 50 and they were 5 years ago and 8 years ago
Of out top 10 10k runners of al time (based on pbs) 2 were born in the 40s, 6 in the 50s, 1 in the 60s (1964) and 1 in the 70s (1971)
Not to labour a point...but I will... there hasn't been one half marathon time since 2001 good enough to get in the top 50and only 2 men (brown and Steinle) make the top 70 marathon list from this decade.
I don't know what the answer is, its not my job, but surely someone should be asking the powers that be at UK Athletics what is being done to turn this round.
Perhaps we need to poach David Brailsford??!!
better quickly add thsoe stats are 1 year out of date so may have changed slightly, although I don't remember many distance times from last year?
I think you make great points Bladerunner.
Even ten years ago there were teenagers who could run close to 2 minutes for 800 metres on no formal training because they weren't handicapped by non-competitive ideology and sedentary lifestyles. In my class of about 30 kids in the late seventies there were three fifteen or sixteen year old boys who ran that fast.
I think the 800 metres is a good benchmark for showing basic distance running talent.
In the seventies I sometimes went to Crystal Palace to run in open meetings. 150 kids would turn up to run three heats of 3000 metre races. There were 2 or three heats of senior men's 10,000 meters.
In those days BF was an idol every single one of us looked up to. Something went wrong though.
By the way, when I say three kids in my class could run 800 metres in 2 minutes, what I mean is these were boys and half the class were girls. Also, I wasn't one of the kids who could run that fast- I am 44 years old and it is still my ambition to do 800 metres in two minutes!
some great points on this thread! awesome pics too, enjoyed looking through them
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