Alberto Salazar
Alberto Salazar
Alberto Salazaris an American track coach and former world-class long-distance runner. Born in Cuba, Salazar emigrated to the United States as a child with his family. They moved to Wayland, Massachusetts, where Salazar competed in track and field in high school. Salazar is best known for his performances in the New York City Marathon in the early 1980s and his 1982 Boston Marathon victory known as the "Duel in the Sun." He held American track records of 13:11.93 for 5,000...
NationalityCuban
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth7 August 1958
CityHavana, Cuba
CountryCuba
We may train or peek for a certain race, but running is a lifetime sport.
I run four miles most days, at about 8:00 to 8:15 pace. It's totally relaxed.
I think in running, to be honest, that even though athletes are very dedicated and are willing to train and do whatever they need to do to prepare, more often than not they're not in a very professional environment where you've got a high performance director and a coach that are really monitoring your daily activities.
I'm doing great heart-wise. I get a complete stress test once a year, and those have gone well. I have stents in two arteries, and they are holding up. My other arteries haven't shown any additional clogging.
I'm interested in Dathan Ritzenhein's future in the marathon, and I believe that's where we need to address some issues he seems to have. He's had good marathon coaches - both Brad Hudson and me. He's figured out the fueling. He's got this incredible aerobic engine. But something's still wrong.
You learn to run like a sprinter, you'll be a great distance runner
I've never enjoyed my running more. I also do 200 sit-ups a day, 60 push-ups, and a lot of stretching. I've had some back issues. I think the stretching helps with that.
Trust me, my runners aren't going to run one event while looking past it to the second event. When they get on the line for the 10K, that's a do-or-die situation for them.
Winning times in the New York City Marathon have not dropped all that much over the years, but rather U.S. runners went backward. In 1983, there were 267 U.S. men who broke 2:20 in a marathon, and by 2000 that number was down to 27.
With my runners now, they get two month-long breaks during the year.
I didn't give myself enough breaks during the training year to recover. I didn't understand the power of periodization.
The marathon is like a bullfight.
I can't tell you why a particular athlete would leave a certain coach, but I can tell you there could be many reasons. They could have personality conflicts. They could have misunderstandings. Lots of stuff can happen.
You have to change things in order to get to where you want to go. And things might get worse. But if you're not getting where you want to be, already, in a sense, it's as bad as it can get.