The Baby Faced Destroyer vs the World

Tirunesh Dibaba doesn't sleep. She waits.  Tirunesh Dibaba can make a Happy Meal cry.  Tirunesh Dibaba can do a wheelie on a unicycle.  There are more fun facts, but we must move forward. Let's talk about the Baby Faced Destroyers (a nickname given to Dibaba because of her girlish looks) final 400 meters of the 10k this past weekend.  It was 59.96 seconds.  I need to reiterate that.  It was 59.96 seconds.  Maybe Dibaba was giving homage to Rudyard Kipling because that last sixty seconds or so was...unforgiving.  Tirunesh, the Ethiopian, took the lead with about 500 meters left to go and put 13 seconds on the previous race leader before the finish line.  It is safe to say Dibaba, who is five-for-five in World Championship or Olympic 10k's, is the model for which elite level track athletes, especially women, must look to exemplify.  Her, with her compatriot Meseret Defar, are rewriting the history books of womens distance running.

All is well when you can be a sprinter in a distance race.

There was a man almost fifty years ago who did something special in the city of Tokyo, Japan.  He was an American citizen as well as a fantastic distance runner. The gentleman, on cold and rainy October day, did what no American had done before nor has done since; Bob Schul won the 5000m at the Olympics.  A soaked and muddied cinder track could not hinder Schul from finishing the last 300 meters in a mercurial 38.7 seconds.  This was not the mondo tracks of today which are far faster, nor did he have the latest three ounce spikes, nor were the conditions prime for a fine performance.  Considering, the time is mind boggling.  There was also a curious man behind the scenes in the success Schul enjoyed that autumn eve.  A former Hungarian named Mihaly Igloi whose training program was rife with the stuff dreams are made of: hard, dirty work.  That work also happened to include really fast running.

David Rudisha puts his running shorts on the same way as you, one leg at a time.  Only when Rudisha wears his running shorts, he wins gold records.  David is a speedy fellow, clocking in the 400 at a modest 45.13 as well as being the only man to crack 1:41 in the 800 meters.  He is actually so fast, he set the world record in a non-rabbited race.  This race is what we like to call the Olympics and rarely are distance world records set there anymore.  Mr. Rudisha ran his first 200 meters in London in 23.4 seconds.  I'm going to let that sink in for a minute.  It is a shame David is injured at this World Champs and I still hope in the near future we get the Bolt vs Rudisha match-up, although I feel we might need to see a 450-500 meter race to make it even.

I hope you can follow the narrative.  Whether it was the 60's or the new millennium one thing has separated those at the top from those at the bottom: the ability to simply run faster than the competition when they needed to.  After you have your "duh" moment, think about it again.  When the Baby Faced Destroyer won the 10k this past weekend she did it looking like a sprinter who wandered out on the track after the rest of the field had done twenty-four laps.  I really enjoyed Hitomi Niiya's tenacity and wished strongly for her to medal after shouldering the load of work the majority of the race but it wasn't to be.  And in all honesty, I'm not sure that Niiya could run a 400 all out in 59.96 much less the last lap of a 10k.  And when Rudisha is healthy he can literally run away from the field considering very few 800 runners can run the first 200 as fast as he can (and still finish).  No one negative splits 800s on the world stage so his ability to separate (and maintain an industrious pace) on the first lap is similar to Dibaba and Schul separating on the last lap.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I moonlight as Captain Obvious.  I'm probably not telling you anything you didn't already know.  So if we rehashing middle school material here, my question is this: why don't more training programs reflect this understanding of elite level performance?  A few of the US elites have figured it out, or rather, their coaches have.  From Duane Solomon (4th in the 800 at the Olympics) who trains under Johnny "The Gray Zone" Gray (a direct coaching descendant of Schul's coach, Mihaly Igloi) to Galen Rupp (Silver medal at the Olympics in the 10k) who trains under Alberto Salazar, speed is a critical aspect of training.  The ability to run a 400 faster than the field precedes the ability to run the end of a distance race faster than the field.  That statement may seem counter intuitive, but you must consider this: How difficult would it be to train for a 4 minute mile if your fastest 400 was only a 57 versus if it was a 50?  The first guy has no realistic shot, but lets say they could both end up running a 4 minute mile.  The 57 second 400 runner has far less ability to match a fast finishing kick.  And there you have the secret to maximizing your potential on the track.  Be a better sprinter than the field!

Dibaba and other runners like her such as Mo Farah have maximized their ability to run away from the field due to great sprint mechanics at the end of a race, great training preceding the race, and a confidence in themselves that has developed a killer instinct on the track.  And to further establish the point, in many races Mo Farah lines up for on the track, he doesn't have the fastest PR.  Despite winning the World Championship in the 5000 meter today in Moscow, Farah had only the 7th fastest PR in the field.  It just goes to show you, athletes who train like the Baby Faced Destroyer have a better chance to win against nearly any field because no one can touch them at the end of the race.

Lastly, if I have left you scared that you are required a certain amount of sprinter in your or you will never be a top athlete in track, there is good news.  A lot of this no longer applies to races off the track such as marathon or cross country races.  Those are usually won by the craziest runners.  But that's another talk for a another day.