Mary Cain Just Misses World Indoor Junior Mile Mark By .01 – Sets New American Junior Mark Of 4:24.11
by LetsRun.com
January 24, 2014
Oh so close.
Mary Cain dominated the final 400m and pulled away from her teammate Jordan Hasay, who faded after running very aggressively on world record pace for the first three-quarters, to win the women’s mile at the BU Terrier Classic in 4:24.11, just .01 of a second off of the world junior mile record of 4:24.10 by Kalkidan Gezahegne from 2010.
Cain demolished her own American junior mark of 4:28.25, but was well short of Mary Slaney’s American record of 4:20.5 from 1982 (We only mention Slaney’s mark as this was hyped as an American record attempt).
Finishing second was Dartmouth senior Abbey D’Agostino who nipped Jordan Hasay just before the line (4:28.31 to 4:28.37).
Quick Thought #1: GREAT run for Cain – by far her best on the season.
Her mile today is equivalent to about 4:04.5 for 1500 which is essentially Cain’s pb (4:04.62). Very impressive for someone who coach Salazar says is behind on her mileage for the year.
Quick Thought #2: Not Too Shabby for Hasay and D’Agostino.
It also was a good day for Hasay and D’Agostino, who both need to improve their speed to be competitive in the longer distances on the international level. Hasay’s indoor mile pb coming in was 4:33.01 and her outdoor 1500 pb was 4:10.28. Today’s 4:28.37 is equivalent to about 4:08.5 for 1500 – so a lifetime best for her at 1500/mile for sure. Last week Hasay ran 2:08 for 800m, today she split 2:11 and kept going.
She actually had a five + meter gap on Cain midway through the race (and Cain in turn had gapped D’Agostino). So it was a great day for Hasay. Remember last year when she raced Cain and D’Agostino in the mile at Millrose, she was almost 8-seconds back.
Jordan Hasay and Mary Cain were happy after this one. Photo via twitter.
The only negative for Hasay is she still needs to work on her finish. While Cain pulled away from Jordan Hasay over the last two laps, the reality was Hasay was tying up big-time as Cain herself was slowing down. Cain’s last quarter was something like 68+ (she was behind Hasay at 1200) with a last lap in the 33.7 range so that means Hasay was 72+ for her last quarter. Update: Track and Field News has re-watched the race and has better splits than were given out during the actual broadcast. Hasay’s split at 3/4ths was not 3:15 apparently. TFN have Cain, who was behind Hasay, at 3:18.0 at 3/4ths of a mile so perhaps Hasay was 3:15 for 1200 meters and 3:16 high-3:17 at 1209 so Hasay’s last 400 was probably 71+.
As for D’Agostino, her indoor pb before today was the 4:30.03 she ran last year at Millrose (1500 pb was 4:11.94) so this certainly was a lifetime best for her at the 1500/mile as well.
What’s the collegiate record you say? It’s 4:25.91 so Abbey didn’t get that but she did get the collegiate leader by a long shot. The NCAA leader coming into the weekend was the 4:38.49 put up by Arkansas’ Dominique Scott.
Quick Thought #3: American Record Talk Was All Hype
For the second straight week, Alberto Salazar’s Nike Oregon Project female athletes came up significantly short of the American record (4:20.5 – Mary Slaney – 1982). They were 5+ seconds off in the 1000 last week and 3.6 off today. The American record not falling wasn’t a surprise to us. As we said going into it (here and most recently here), we felt the so-called six American record attempt was essentially false-advertising. Why? Because nothing indicated the women were in that type of shape. We appreciated this as a great early season mile race with some of America’s youngest stars. We hope you did too. The focus on American records isn’t a long term solution for the growth of the sport. A record can’t be broken every time.
Having said that one of the best things Alberto Salazar does is get his athletes to think they can break American records. If he used the American record talk to get them to push a little bit more in an early season race it worked. The more educated fans knew a record wasn’t going down. We just hope others didn’t go home disappointed.
Quick Thought #4: Great Rabbiting
The rabbit was bad last week but the two today – Rose-Anne Galligan and Stephanie Herrick – were pretty much perfect. 64.1- 2:10.5-3:15.9.
Quick Thought #5: What about Treniere Moser? She was a late scratch.
More: Messageboar Talk: CAIN v MOSER v D’AG v HASAY – Mary Cain misses WJR by .01 –
Results and Screencast Photos Below. Click on thumbnail for larger photo.
Results
D’Agostino and Hasay at the finish
Event 11 Women 1 Mile Run
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Name Year Team Finals
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Section 1
1 Cain, Mary Nike Oregon Project 4:24.11
2 D'Agostino, Abbey Dartmouth 4:28.31
3 Hasay, Jordan Nike Oregon Project 4:28.37
4 Browning, Charlotte Ragged Mount 4:33.80
-- Galligan, Rose-Anne Unat-Nike Or DNF
-- Herrick, Stephanie Cptc New Balance DNF
