Arciniaga, Nicholas 2:11:30

old school indoor move, rabbit hanging on. good stuff

Nick has had a very steady improvement curve since 2008.

2006- 2:16:58

2007- 2:17:08

2008- 2:16:13

2009- 2:13:46

2010- 2:11:47

2011- 2:11:30

If he keeps this up, I see a potential sub-2:10.

^I see a potential for him in the U.S. Olympic Trials

Nice to see him get after it in the first half and hang on.

1:04:17/1:07:13

Press reports also said they ran the 14th mile in 4:29.

I'm very impressed with his run.

I'm impressed also he ran the XC race in Scotland a few weeks ago. Very old school to run XC and then run a marathon although he may have intended to just rabbit.

Wejo,

Your marathon pb comes from serving as a rabbit as well, doesn't it?

Pressures are different when someone elses race is your focus.

Fagan also looked better in pacing at Chicago than he did focusing on Houston.

Fagan must be hurt, right, to have dropped out so early?

Now that Arciniaga has a 2:11 on an IAAF legal course, I wonder if he'll be on the U.S. marathon team for Daegu this summer.

true or maybe a little false wrote:

Wejo,

Your marathon pb comes from serving as a rabbit as well, doesn't it?

Pressures are different when someone elses race is your focus.

Fagan also looked better in pacing at Chicago than he did focusing on Houston.

The mindset it completely different. Not hitting the pace isn't an option. But also you don't have to think about finishing.

Having the responsibility of someone else's performance in my hands helped me, but my situation was a bit different.

My pb came the time I paced Paula. In my training I was thinking I'd have to be able to do 16 miles at 5:15 pace max. I wasn't 100% fit but figured that was doable, but it wouldn't be easy. Then when I got there, my contract gave me a bonus for doing 20 miles, I got a bonus if she broke the world record, and if I finished (the idea was to finish near her but not with her). She ran a lot faster than I thought she would when she threw down 5:09 miles.

Nick's run made me think however of berhaps my best pacing job, when I paced Rod Dehaven to his PR in 2001. I ran 20 miles at sub 5 minute pace. I think that day I got paid some amount for 13, 16 and 20 miles. When I was at 10 miles I was thought, "no way am I making it 20." At 13, I tried to just get to 16. At 16, I figured I could do one more mile. At 17, I figured I should make it to 18, and then I was like, "ok now I have to try and do 20." I felt totally maxed out from say mile 10 on but I kept running really, really consistent miles.

So while running yesterday I was wondering what I could have run if I tried to finish. If I ran 6 minute miles instead of 5 minute miles all the way in I still would have run 2:17. What I could have done 5:20? However, it never entered my mind as I was doing NY in 3 weeks and I felt totally maxed out.

bobby e. wrote:

Fagan must be hurt, right, to have dropped out so early?

Now that Arciniaga has a 2:11 on an IAAF legal course, I wonder if he'll be on the U.S. marathon team for Daegu this summer.

I hope not. Nick has a legitimate chance to make the Olympic Team. Running in Daegu in the heat of the summer would hurt his chances considerably.

wejo wrote:

Press reports also said they ran the 14th mile in 4:29.

I'm very impressed with his run.

I'm impressed also he ran the XC race in Scotland a few weeks ago. Very old school to run XC and then run a marathon although he may have intended to just rabbit.

I'm really impressed with Nick's toughness. It makes guys like Ritz look bad. Dathan gets a mild ankle injury and scraps running the London marathon which is 2+ months away citing that it would ruin his training cycle. Same thing happened to him preparing for World Cross last year. There was still a considerably good amount of time to get quality work in for that race after US Cross but he dropped out of that too. Here we have Nick who didn't do a marathon buildup and guts out a solid race in which he could have easily run a minute faster had it not been for the whole rabbiting situation. Nick is a competitor and wants to be out there - Ritz, not so much.

^I agree.

good stories Wejo. I think most would agree that 20 miles in sub 1:40 has to be "worth" at least a 2:14 or 2:13 equivalent in the full....obviously for some maybe even a 2:12.

For those of you that don't know Nick, his 5k PR in college was over 14:20, but he has/had 52 or better 400m speed...he's worked for years getting his mileage up to 140 consistently and now it appears to be paying off. It's great to see such a hard worker run well! Props to both McMilan guys for finishing (don't forget Nick finished Chicago in 2:18 when he had a bad day). That shows character.

asdjklasf wrote:

nice job...considering he went out in 1:04:17 through the half...

a 2:11 800 meter race isn't very good....

Nonsense

Weldon. Don't kid yourself. In all of my marathons I've never felt anywhere near maxed out even through 18 miles and my slowest marathon was 2:13:44. I've split 48:15 before and was pulling back on the bridle the entire way, chatting it up with runners as I passed them. If you were maxed out at 10 miles (50:00), then you weren't a player. You were in over your head. There's no way you could have gone 5:20s from 20-26 if you were already all-in at 10. As it was, that race in NYC 3 weeks later you were 31:45 at 10k (5:07/ 2:14:00 pace) and you were already beginning to fade. 2:15 pace at HM, 2:17 pace at 20 miles, and you ended up running 2:21:41. It's obvious that you have fuel problems in the marathon.

What happens in the marathon is the fuel variable takes over right around 30k, that is, even if you are completely at ease with the rhythm of running, the gremlins take over and start grabbing at your hamstrings and quads. The more likely finishing scenario of your 2001 pacing job for Dehaven would have had you looking like The Terminator's arm clawing and scraping at the foundry floor, wishing that someone would just throw you into a white hot cauldron of molten steel to put you out of your misery.

Toughing it out wrote:

I'm really impressed with Nick's toughness. It makes guys like Ritz look bad. Dathan gets a mild ankle injury and scraps running the London marathon which is 2+ months away citing that it would ruin his training cycle.

I just don't see the London Marathon being a good idea at all from a strategic point of view.

If the plan was to run London, what was the plan afterwards? Make the WC team, then try to run some track races in August, then turn around and start preparing for the marathon trials, then after that prepare for the track trials? If you think that jumping from fire to fire is a good idea then that's the plan for you. It seems a bit reckless to me.

Not running London is a huge blessing (not at all in disguise) and gives him time to ramp up for track properly, then switch over to marathon training for the OT. Then choose track or marathon for the OG. That's not so stressful on either the body or mind.

"What happens in the marathon is the fuel variable takes over right around 30k, that is, even if you are completely at ease with the rhythm of running, the gremlins take over and start grabbing at your hamstrings and quads. The more likely finishing scenario of your 2001 pacing job for Dehaven would have had you looking like The Terminator's arm clawing and scraping at the foundry floor, wishing that someone would just throw you into a white hot cauldron of molten steel to put you out of your misery."

been there done that....ouch. " oh i am not gong to drink anything from the half marathon point until after heartbreak hill because i dont want to feel bloated running uphill"...stupid boston marathon.

A cool photo of Weldon from the archives:

Wow! There were nothing but ugly singlets during that time period. Fila, adidas, New Balance etc......all ugly!

stop wejo

^ nice touch