Totally agree. Andrews and Wheating are probably in the wrong event. I don't think they'll ever get back to running their best in the 800 though at this point.
Totally agree. Andrews and Wheating are probably in the wrong event. I don't think they'll ever get back to running their best in the 800 though at this point.
I agree and think this happens all too often across the board. From what I've seen, coaches have some kind of biase towards "moving their athletes up" in distance with the same idea "he can use his 400/800 to be a great miler/2-miler."
How about you take a xc/2-miler and "move them down" so they can use their strength over 800m/mile? (sure, they have to have some innate speed ability)
Might be that they think that in the era of Rudisha, the 800 m gold is impossible. 1500 does not have a once in a lifetime athlete dominating like Rudisha. Just look at Manzano's silver.
Look at Manzano's silver? I was very well earned. Andrews is good but far from Leo's level. Leo is amongst the very super elite in his event.
I knew right away when seeing that training video of Andrews, Webb and Vig that he'd not be doing that well. For one thing, Vig kept yelling for Andrews to use his arms, which was a stupid suggestion. Andrews had a very relaxed arm action; pumping them threw off his form, caused him to waste a lot of energy, and took away energy from his legs.
The results were a self fulfilling prophecy, and Webb was doing the same thing.
Well of course Lydiard had/has the answer....Is Robby fast enough (leg speed) to be a true 800 meter runner? If he does have the speed then he should stick with the event he likes best.
You probably need to run 23 for 200 meters in order to compete at world class level.....
OK, I'm with you on Andrews, to an extent. However, anyone who runs 3:30.9 should run the 1,500m. Wheating is in the right event, he just needs to figure it out again. He ran 3:37 at Oxy, so he's definitely on the right track.
#$# wrote:
he should stick with the event he likes best.
No matter what event he does, he will forever be known as the 400 man.
Well who knows what he would have run for 800 had he made a few more attempts late season while in 3:30.9 shape.
Had he run 1:43.4 - which I do not think us out of the question at all because his 800 had consistently been equal to or better than his 1500 for his entir career - we might not be entirely sure he is a better at 1500. If we did we would just be falling into the "everyone that has is fast and can move up at all should move up completely" fallacy. Look at Coe. He may have won two Olympic golds at 1500, but he was a faster 800 runner, it was his better event despite the fact that he could move up VERY well.
Now I'm not saying that wheating's best event is necessarily not the 1500, in fact I think there is a very good chance that it is. However if he can run 1:43, I really believe the smart choice would have been to take that 800 as far as it could go in 2-3 years and really work on his ability to cruise 52-54 second laps. Also training and racing 1k and mile indoors to prep tactics and prepare him for that kind of training at age 24-25
Andrews just jumped into at event and simply wasn't prepared for the confidence, tactics, and strength of world class 1500 fields. Wheating has had injury problems likely resulting from the change to longer training, and in all honesty he just does't look like the same runner. His form has lost the fluid power and natural ~47 second quarter speed. Gotta think that sometimes the distance training hurts the turnover ability of some of these natural speedsters, especially the tall ones.
And to the guy who said you need 23.0 speed to be competitive at 800 on the world stage - you're probably right, but what people seem to be missing is that this is a trainable element! We all know that sprint speed is more dependent on genetics that distance ability, but that doesn't mean one can't improve himself, otherwise sprinters wouldn't train...
Think about what taking a half second off of your 100 time could do for your ultimate Well who knows what he would have run for 800 had he made a few more attempts late season while in 3:30.9 shape.
Think about what taking a half second off your 200 time could do for yohr ultimate, and even immediate 800 ability.. But distance runners and even 800 runners do almost NO sprint training, and they think they're just stuck at one 200 time forever. None of them ever even consider that these times could be improved. It is possible to take a few months, or a year if you're really long-term oriented, to train your top end speed and raise your ceiling at longer distances.
The Champ wrote:
Look at Manzano's silver? I was very well earned. Andrews is good but far from Leo's level. Leo is amongst the very super elite in his event.
haha, this made me laugh. Manzano amongst the very super elite in the 1500. hahahaha. that's not even close to true. I'd rank him around 20th at best.
#$# wrote:
Well of course Lydiard had/has the answer....Is Robby fast enough (leg speed) to be a true 800 meter runner? If he does have the speed then he should stick with the event he likes best.
You probably need to run 23 for 200 meters in order to compete at world class level.....
Leg speed? Leg speed? What about arm speed? Nose speed? Belly button speed?
SPEED IS SPEED, MORON
(...unless, of course, you are talking about leg speed velocity. Now there is a special speed indeed.)
silly kid wrote:
The Champ wrote:Look at Manzano's silver? I was very well earned. Andrews is good but far from Leo's level. Leo is amongst the very super elite in his event.
haha, this made me laugh. Manzano amongst the very super elite in the 1500. hahahaha. that's not even close to true. I'd rank him around 20th at best.
What an idiotic thing to say. He has a SILVER MEDAL. At the worst, he's top 10-15. That's super elite.
He wasn't going to beat out Solomon for that third Olympic spot in the 800.
Thundercats_GO wrote:
silly kid wrote:haha, this made me laugh. Manzano amongst the very super elite in the 1500. hahahaha. that's not even close to true. I'd rank him around 20th at best.
What an idiotic thing to say. He has a SILVER MEDAL. At the worst, he's top 10-15. That's super elite.
top 10-15 is not super elite. Using the words super and elite together implies that someone is right near top of the world, like is a force to be reckoned with (not just another 3:32 guy that has nothing below or above the 1500 that is very impressive). Manzano is not even close to that. The only male USA runners at this point that can be considered super elite in anything 1500 and up is Rupp and maybe still Lagat. That's it, and they are playing on a whole different level than Manzano ever has. He did great getting a silver, but as you said you consider him top 10-15, and that's being generous, I would never put him near 10th. His medal was a big surprise and nobody would ever expect him to ever win a medal again precisely because he's not super elite.
Anyway, on the topic, I think Andrews will be fine in the 1500, he'll just need some time to grow into it, he probably should have stayed at 800m for a few years and slowly transitioned into the 1500 as someone already said.
Man Robby ran like crap today. What a shame. Did he even break 1:50?
He should be racing at NCAA east regional this weekend . Him and his family made a big mistake to think he could run at this level.
By the way I remember when he dropped out of college Vig said he promised he was going to finish college. Did that happen?
Well actually I believe he is continuing with his degree. And I think with some of the times he's run, he could be running better and justifying that decision. But he's not. And it's not looking good for Moscow at all right now.
Andrews never engaged in this race, he ran same style he did last year a and this year was dead last with 150 to go and picked up some guys fading coming in.
However, if you look at it time wise, he was one second back of Rutt who just ran 1:45.08 last week, so maybe worth about 1:46 mid for this effort? You figure Rudisha was at least 1:43.5 fit?
He did pick up, Brannen and Manzano on the way in, both who ran 3:38.x or better last week. Maybe not as bad as I initially thought for Robby.he looked really sluggish from 400-600 and finished well.
Soemthing is clearly amiss though. Anyone can see this by now.
You'd have to be completely daft about context and language use not to understand that a reference to "leg speed" concerns whether the athlete can run a fast 200m, e.g. what his or her maximum running speed is.
in theory it wasn't such a bad idea to move up to the wide open 1500m, i mean look how the og final played out.
leo won gold, centro won a bronze.
but andrews now is not right as they say. it could be a bug, it could be he over-trained. he might be a lagat type guy that thrives on moderate mileage - still with a large quantity of quality of middle distance stuff. and middle distance stuff here means 53-58 seconds a lap.
andrews should back off from big volume and run the 8 until he's "right". after the season, take it easy. even next season, moderate the intensity until the 145 8 is a regular thing.