Congrats to Shalane Flanagan...

YES--a 4 minute PR by IAAF ecognized standards.

She is inching closer to a major marathon title. Love her guts, but she could think about dialing back the first half and aim for negative split.

Iowakidscanrun wrote:

She is inching closer to a major marathon title. Love her guts, but she could think about dialing back the first half and aim for negative split.

Oh, that's what happened? Still she ran a great race!

What did she run??????????/

Marathon. In berlin

I cringed at her half split. Has Jerry not studied marathon WR splits at all?

Yeah Way wrote:

I cringed at her half split. Has Jerry not studied marathon WR splits at all?

Clearly Jerry nor Shalane fully understand what its takes to do what they have hoped would happen. We saw it at Boston , we saw here at Berlin.

Maybe if she kept her mouth shut , not shoot off her lips out winning Boston , setting a american record , be humble , be prepared , be patient.

This was her best shot , it will not happen again for her to run this fast.

Yes! (Applauds)

Nice run and attempt at a the AR.

Who knows how many chances she will get to go after the AR. If healthy and fit I applaud her for reaching out to testing her limits and for seeing what she could do. She did not reach the goal but still a very good run that should be appreciated as a fan..

Chicago next year? Bigger appearance fee. Not quite as fast a course, but still doable (though that is weather dependent). Get out of Boston and run London. Thats the logical choice, but not gonna happen.

You know, I'm not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed but it occurs to me that maybe she was actually planning a negative or even split and got tired.

Sciatica Road wrote:

...on another PR today.

What? We are celebrating losers now?

Shalane was gonna FVCK SH/T UP!!!!

Now Shalane can start yakkety yakking about how she'll kicksomeass in the next race.

I, too, am not the sharpest tool in the shed, but it seems obvious that Shalane's approach is problematic. She was too aggressive at Boston. I could not believe it when I saw her in the lead, mile after mile. I could only think: why is she doing this? and how could she possibly hold on, wire to wire?

I wish her all the best, but I hope she will use a better strategy. She should just train hard, say nothing, and, when the race comes, let the other ladies pull her for a while.

I like that she said what her goal was, it was a reasonable goal and it made it more exciting as a fan. Sometimes goals don't happen, as all runners should know. We criticize Jerry for being to close-mouthed about his team, and then when they let us in we sh!t all over them...

On a board that so frequently condemns other pros for ducking the competition, I figured there would be more respect for the way she pushes herself to achieve at the highest possible level, even when success isn't completely assured. I think it's admirable that she lets the public know what she's trying to accomplish even though this leaves her open to a lot of criticism if her race doesn't go as planned.

But it is all TALK. She never had a chance to run the AR. She knew it (or at least should) and yet runs her mouth. She did the same thing going into Boston before fading to a distant 8th. It is incredibly disrespectful to her competitors and all those that have come before her.

bash bros wrote:

But it is all TALK. She never had a chance to run the AR. She knew it (or at least should) and yet runs her mouth. She did the same thing going into Boston before fading to a distant 8th. It is incredibly disrespectful to her competitors and all those that have come before her.

How do you know this? Have you been monitoring her workouts? And if failure was assured from her workouts, then that's on Schumacher for not modifying her goals, not her.

It would have been "all" talk if she didn't go out at record pace, which she did, and maintained through 30k (at least). So it's not "all" talk, it's also guts.