Should American milers hang their heads low in shame? Second best is 3:36 (3:35.90)? Seriously? Second best is 3:36 (3:35.90)?

If lame is defined by a measure of capacity, then it is lame. American milers have the ability to run much faster than 3:35.90. There are plenty of guys with the talent to do this. On the high school level, there are far more guys every year who are running sub 4:05 than in the past, even in the 1970s and early 1980s. That talent is not disappearing in college and there are a lot more post-collegiate groups than there used to be. What is limited is apparently the opportunity more than anything. Kenyans take up most of the spots in European circuit races where the many American 3:35/3:36/3:37 guys cannot get a slot. The other slots are taken by Europeans and the occasional Centrowitz or maybe Blankenship. So, guys who would be hoovered to a 3:34/3:33 or better never get in races run that fast. There have been more opportunities in recent years to have fast races on American soil with pacers in good conditions but obviously not enough. It shouldn't be too difficult to get a couple guys to set a pace of 57/1:54. It's harder to then get someone to go 2:51 but hardly out of range of a lot of guys if they have another pacer to draft off through 800m. Then 3:33-35s should be more common. 3:35 is 57.33 pace per 400m.

Get them to 2:51 with 57s and a 42 to 43 close gets you 3:33-34.

So, either blame the fact that Kenyans are taking most of the 1500 slots, whether clean or not, or create more opportunities for fast races in this country.

USA people have better things to do than run miles.

The concept is old and moldy, done by Bannister et al 60+ years ago.

But Kenyans have a different country where running is a way out for many.

Plus the drug testers are not so savvy (in USA, you need to have gravitas to avoid).

Then you coach some milers to run faster.

there aren't many US distance runners outside of Bowerman Track Club, the Army Group and Oregon Project that are serious medal threats on the global scene. the best guy in each of those groups is an absolute medal threat (Chelimo, Centro, Jager, Centro, Murphy, Rupp). In that group, we have a medal contender in every event from 800 to marathon. It's been decades since that was a statement you could make.

aside from that top group, however, there isn't a whole ton of depth if you are basing it entirely on being a medal threat. robby andrews is really the only name that comes to mind as a guy who could win a medal and he was hurt all last year (and probably won't ever run 3:31 in the first place). Drew hunter might get there, but he's still so young and may be more suited to the 5k long term. guys like kyle merber, eric jenkins, craig engels, ryan hill, ben true, riley masters, pat casey, etc all have what it takes to be solid US pros but nothing more. keep in mind, running 3:31 gets you in the top 10 all time for US runners over 1500 meters. outside of centro, no one in the current crop of top US 1500 meter runners is that good. 3:35 is a pretty darn good time -- not that many white guys ran under it this year (the ingebrigtsens, chris o'hare, charlie grice, jake weightman, ryan gregson). we probably should have a few more guys running 3:33, but that's probably pushing their absolute limits.

difference is the world record didnt fall in the mile. Not that many guys ran under the american record either.

because our best athletes go into basketball and football. nobody really cares about the mile except for track nerds

A few weeks ago a thread brought this fact up and someone pointed out that the US had more sub 3:40 1500m runners than Kenya did in 2018.

3:36 is pretty quick for a mile....or so I've heard.

they're just not very good wrote:

there aren't many US distance runners outside of Bowerman Track Club, the Army Group and Oregon Project that are serious medal threats on the global scene. the best guy in each of those groups is an absolute medal threat (Chelimo, Centro, Jager, Centro, Murphy, Rupp). In that group, we have a medal contender in every event from 800 to marathon. It's been decades since that was a statement you could make.

No there's no medal contender in the marathon in that group unless you give them a mile head start...then maybe.

McMillan might be correct, but "a second a lap" could also mean that US marathoners should be 105 seconds behind the world leader.

I think we'd all be happy if we had a mid-2:03 guy out there, but we don't.

rojo wrote:

...

Rojo

PS. I put my thread as a question I don't believe they should hang their heads in shame. ...

Actually, you may have meant to pose it as a question but you didn't, you made a statement.

Try putting a "?" after the word "shame".

... and lose the 2nd "should" just because you care.

Agreed, would also add hockey (especially up north), and soccer Baseball and tennis questionable but I'm sure there's some talent getting sucked up there as well. The US has way too many sports to dilute the talent pool,

the end result is track (especially distance) gets many kids who weren't athletic enough for other sports. If you can't do cross country, you basically have to join the marching band.

However development seems to be an issue too. Besides the very top-tier runners, the rest of the US mid-D pros seem to stagnate around the 3:35-3:40 level and often move up in distance. Did they reach their potential, were they not properly trained, or not getting into the right races (as the other poster above mentioned)? I don't know, probably all of the above.

1. It's very difficult for most American pro runners to break 3:36/3:35 without EPO/other blood boosters. Testing data, word of mouth, and results suggest not many American milers (any?) are doping. Makes it nearly impossible to compete in Diamond League meets, seriously did any American miler besides Centro even get into one?

2. The NCAA 1500m times this year were very fast and deep (12 on TFRRS sub 3:40 during season). There's very few opportunities for post collegiates, and this shows. We need more groups with competent coaches...and more track meets not sponsored by universities, as almost all opportunities in America happen in April, when the training weather is abysmal across most of America. Summer is a much more ideal time for track meets, we are wayyy to dependent of NCAA football money.

3. The training of top US 1500m runners is not on the sub 3:30 level. This may be due to lack of doping but also a lot of subpar coaching and 100% dedication in training groups. That and it's really difficult to average 57 sec/40m around a track three times and then kick it in. But yeah, on a whole, embarrassing year for US 1500m running.

US high school XC is friendly for 3000m to 5000m runners. NCAA male XC is friendly for 5000m and 10000m runners. If US high school XC were 3000m and NCAA XC were 5000m for both male and female, XC would be more friendly for US 1500m runners. US high schools should race 1500m as a standard event. US high schools could make middle distance running more friendly to high school sub-52 400m boys. 4x800m in all states for high school as a standard event would be helpful. To be great as a college 1500m runner, usually one needed to be an 800m specialist in high school.

threads like this are not helpful tbh. can't we just be fans of the sport? support our runners? ya'll bring a lot of negative vibes to the scene. it's ok to be critical but it seems like you're always walking that line. a lot of our top milers are young and have bright futures.

Mahavishnu1500 wrote:

1. It's very difficult for most American pro runners to break 3:36/3:35 without EPO/other blood boosters. Testing data, word of mouth, and results suggest not many American milers (any?) are doping. Makes it nearly impossible to compete in Diamond League meets, seriously did any American miler besides Centro even get into one?

Absolute rubbish. The UK with our 5x smaller population and similar demographic, culture and development to the US managed to produce 5 guys under 3:36 last year, with Chris O'Hare running 3:32.1, Wightman running 3:33.9, Grice ran 3:34.2 and Kerr 3:35.0. In total we had 7 guys run 3:36.

And on the 800m side of things we had 3 sub 1:45, 6 under 1:45.2 and 8 under 1:46.

rojo wrote:

a 3:35.90 1500 is equivalent to a 2:11:40 marathon

Kawauchi ran 3:50.51 and 2:08:14 marathon

Yes, last year was just a shitty year for American 1500 guys. Blankenship, Murphy, Andrews, Engels and Jenkins probably all physically capable of 3:35 or faster, but had mediocre years/didn't run high-level 1500s.

ex-runner wrote:

Absolute rubbish. The UK with our 5x smaller population and similar demographic, culture and development to the US managed to produce 5 guys under 3:36 last year, with Chris O'Hare running 3:32.1, Wightman running 3:33.9, Grice ran 3:34.2 and Kerr 3:35.0. In total we had 7 guys run 3:36.

And on the 800m side of things we had 3 sub 1:45, 6 under 1:45.2 and 8 under 1:46.