By Rameshon
Marathon Best Performance - 2hr 22min 24sec (Chiengmai SEA Games - 1995)
(Masters in Education - University of Western Australia, 2005 to 2008)
When light bulb was discovered, it was shared throughout the whole world, and all countries could see at night. There was this great sharing of knowledge between countries of the world.
Running knowledge also has a history of sharing of knowledge between countries so that the worlld record keeps getting better. In the past, there were African coaches who have travelled to the west to learn on modern methods of coaching in running. Countries like Kenya and Morocco and Ethiopia improved tremendously from have coaches who were knowledgeable, as opposed to the coaches of the past. One such runner who emerged as one of the top runner in middle distance was Hicham El Guerrouj.
Hicham El Guerrouj, from Morocco, broke the world record for 1500m on July 1998, with a time of 3min 26.00sec and he broke the 1600m (1mile) world record on July 1999 with a time of 3min 43.13sec. These two world records are, till now, still standing without being broken.
Seeing this, El Guerrouj coach was invited to England to give a talk around late 1990s. After the talk, the coaches who attended the sharing session on training methodology, told that what El Guerrouj shared were all the knowledge that the English coaches already know. They were wondering what was the secret that, may be, made El Guerrouj to run this fast. They felt that the Moroccon coach was not revealing the secret behind the great success of El Guerrouj. They wanted the coach to tell what they don't know rather than what they already know.
The Moroccon coach answered that what he did with his runner, El Guerrouj, was all the knowledge which from the west, nothing else. And he told that he is sharing, in fact, what has been espoused by the western coaches. There are no any differences.
So, the coaches asked, then what is the difference that made El Guerrouj to do such kind of phenomenol performances in running and that no one can do.
To this, the Moroccon coach answered that he once went to a place where some british athletes were training and it was a hill workout. He say he saw the British runners running up the hard ground, which was a tarmac track, road. To his surprise, there was a grass slope side by side with the tarmac track going up. He say that the hill workout performed on a grass, reduces the impact on the leg, while running tarmac track will put a lot more impact and it will take some time to recover back.
This difference alone, the Moroccon coach said, is enough to see which one brings in higher returns, making of progressive improvement in running in the future. He told that he would choose the grass, not the hard ground. Hard ground can slow down one's recovery from a bout of workout done and may make the athlete to be vulnerable to injury and thus slow down the progress of a runner.
