I've done it, I went and paid my entry fee, have the Puma Tech Tee, my number, and on Sunday morning I will be lining up for my first race of the year, the 8Km UCEMA Maraton (as they insist on calling virtually every race here). Today I ran a leisurely 4 Km on the dreadmill, at an even pace, and as I reported before I would love to run around 45 mins on Sunday - we'll see.
As I was leaving the gym, I picked up the May edition of Argentinas only running magazine, Atletismo Argentino. It's a monthly mag, obviously created by someone with a passion for running, and reminds me of something similar that was around in the North West of England back in the 80's, with race results and reports, a long way from the glossy Fashion Mag that Runners World (in all it's guises) has become.
This month's magazine has the Rankings for the country for last year, and I was surprised to see how shallow the depth of running is here. Now, I have never professed to be an elite athlete, but when I was younger and running seriously, I churned out a few decent times (see table to your right), and was a reasonable Club Runner, winning a few prizes over the years with my club.
Take for example the Marathon. The Number one ranked athlete, Miguel Barzola, has a very respectable time of 2:15:00 to his name last year. But, the 10th ranked Marathoner in the Country, Federico Braum, was there with a time of 2:42:42. Again, I never got near this, but I know a fair few members of my present club back in Athenry would find this time comfortable. Before anyone says that running is a low-participation sport, or that Argentina is a impoverished country, the local races regularly have 6 or 7 thousand taking part, and the country has a population ten times that of Ireland. One of my students is the Sales Manager for Argentina for Nike, and Argentina, and Buenos Aires in particular, is the fastest growing country in South America for running, and has overtaken Brazil (a much bigger population) as the Country deemed Number One for Athletic marketing - So why the lack of depth.
And it's not just in the Marathon. A look at the fastest on the track last year, sees a 100m best of 10.48, 200m of 21.43, and no athlete broke 48 seconds for the 400m at all. I am not 100% certain, and I will do some research now, but I don't believe that a single Argentine Athlete has broke the 4 minute mile barrier - ever!
What are the reasons? Maybe because Football is Religion here, there is no room for athletics to develop - but then again Rugby, Basketball, Volleyball etc., are all sports in which the Argentine national Team win medals, and Tennis has produced some wonderful players from my adopted country. Maybe it's a lack of government money being pumped into the sport, with resources going elsewhere, and kids not getting the opportunity.
Just to confirm the lack of depth, I looked at the results from a recent 10K Race here, one that had 7,000 participants. Taking my PR for the 10K, ran when I was 30, of 36:22, I would have finished 23rd overall, out of 7,000 - I know that is somewhat like comparing apples with oranges, but at that time I regularly ran under 38 minutes
so I don't think it's an unfair comparison - and I can assure everyone, that I have never finished that high up in a race with 6,977 behind me... And out of the 22 who would have been ahead of me, two of those were Kenyans, and three others part of the Fila Sponsored Brazilian team - Makes me wish I had come here 20 years to race :)
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