it's frustrating that good, college runners take so long to realize that success on the world stage is all about meeting the raw-speed requirements of the chosen race.
if you can't close with the speed necessary to succeed in olympic or world champ events, why are you even training for them, and sacrificing so much of your life? you wouldn't enter the lemans car race against ferrari, porsche and aston martin, when you drive a volkswagon gti.
if you aspire to run in the highest-level events, it's really very simple: calculate your raw speed, then calculate the raw speed other runners have demonstrated at the front of olympic races, and see where you fit in.
if your raw speed is not near what olympic 10K finalists close in after running a legit pace then, my dear, you are a marathoner.
if you don't mind being a mediocre 10K runner, you can stay at it, but if you see yourself as an olympian, then you are in the wrong race--you got the wrong car.
just analyze your 400m and 800m PRs--that's the proof in the pudding. it's mathematical; there's no place for applying your individual magic to make it work for you.
53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 seconds...those 400m times tell the whole story.