The Truth about Jakob Ingebrigtsen

high school xc coach wrote:

very interesting . 25-26 seems to be the biggest concentration of PRs.

looking at best 5 year stretch from some of the guys: ElG from 24-28, Lagat 26-30, Kiprop 23-27, Morcelli 22-26, Kiplagat 21-25, Willis 28-32, Tim C. 22-26

I figure a guy like Jakob who has been training for as long as he has will peak at 24ish - best five year stretch probably 21-26, so starting now. He can probably maintain that peak for a while, a la El G or Lagat, but I would be surprised to see him run beyond 2032

jabouko wrote:

high school xc coach wrote:

very interesting . 25-26 seems to be the biggest concentration of PRs.

looking at best 5 year stretch from some of the guys: ElG from 24-28, Lagat 26-30, Kiprop 23-27, Morcelli 22-26, Kiplagat 21-25, Willis 28-32, Tim C. 22-26

I figure a guy like Jakob who has been training for as long as he has will peak at 24ish - best five year stretch probably 21-26, so starting now. He can probably maintain that peak for a while, a la El G or Lagat, but I would be surprised to see him run beyond 2032

being that he has been at 3:28 for two years, you are most likely right. Possibly even started last year.

Filip just ran 3:30/2:16 last year. He ran 7:34 pr this year. He's had some health issues, that is all.

jabouko wrote:

high school xc coach wrote:

very interesting . 25-26 seems to be the biggest concentration of PRs.

looking at best 5 year stretch from some of the guys: ElG from 24-28, Lagat 26-30, Kiprop 23-27, Morcelli 22-26, Kiplagat 21-25, Willis 28-32, Tim C. 22-26

I figure a guy like Jakob who has been training for as long as he has will peak at 24ish - best five year stretch probably 21-26, so starting now. He can probably maintain that peak for a while, a la El G or Lagat, but I would be surprised to see him run beyond 2032

On the other hand Kipchoge beat ElG & Bekele for the 5000m WC at age 18 in 2003.

....Kipchoge is 36 now so this whole 5 years of peak performance is bogus!

The 10000 hour "rule" may very generally apply, that to reach your limit takes 10 years and "10000" hours. I have also been presented to the theory that runners have just so much to spend until they will stagnate or have had enough of the beating. No one really knows and it might be impossible to prove. The body of anyone at any age will be renewed, it is just that older bodies renew to something less and less perfect, but nevertheless renews. That should really tell us that given proper recovery even runners with the impact load should be able to go on all life, of course with the limits aging set on us.

Compare to a few others, Jakob is very special, but still one of several being young and performing extreemely well. I guess starting that 10 years period very early gives the benefit of a young body capable of recovering extreemely fast compared to adults, and that might give not just a head start, but extra years of increasing performance one would not get to if starting later.

But experience shows that general aerobic conditioning from being active in sports and not necessarily do targeted and serious training through young years might be good enough to excel at an older age.

Jakob has not stagnated yet and I suspect they have been anticipating it could soon happen. It is obvious that when you are so close to historical WR-times stagnation would soon happen. Nothing grows into heaven, but Jakob has had of course much larger improvements earlier when he was growing (very natural for a young boy that can increase the VO2 max just by growing some inches). He has been platouing for some time, of course.

We do not know his genetic limit and if he improves just a couple of % it means a lot. He can run 3.28 and have not had a perfect race to set a WR. 1% improvement is 1.4s so we talk of very little before he has the WR well in reach.

m t p wrote:

"Most of what you said is sensible but we just watched Cheptegei win the gold medal in an incredible performance (sub-13:00, 3:58 last 1600) and then win the 2-mile at Pre over all of the top guys from the 5k and 10k in Tokyo. Jakob is in fine shape but Chep is without a shadow of a doubt the man to beat at 5k. "

----------------------------

I disagree about Cheptegei dominating the 5000m!

If Jakob had chosen to run the 5000m instead of the 1500m at the Olympics I feel quite certain he would have won.

Don´t you think Jakob could run sub 13 with a last 1600m in 3:58?

Jakob sat on Tim when Tim was running 55 and 56 laps in the 1500m final. Don´t you think Jakob could have sat on Joshua when he was running 59.5 laps (in average) and then outsprinted him on the home stretch?

The only uncertainty I can see in Tokyo was the hot weather.

And as you know Jakob beat Joshua quite easily in the DL Florens 5000m.

I don´t think, however, we will know with certainty this year who are best ( Jakob will probably not double in the finals in Zürich since the 5000m is run the day before the 1500m).

But we can come back to this thread next year if they compete in the DL Rome 5000m in June or in another 5000m..

J A G wrote:

"The 10000 hour "rule" may very generally apply, that to reach your limit takes 10 years and "10000" hours. I have also been presented to the theory that runners have just so much to spend until they will stagnate or have had enough of the beating. No one really knows and it might be impossible to prove. The body of anyone at any age will be renewed, it is just that older bodies renew to something less and less perfect, but nevertheless renews. That should really tell us that given proper recovery even runners with the impact load should be able to go on all life, of course with the limits aging set on us.

Compare to a few others, Jakob is very special, but still one of several being young and performing extreemely well. I guess starting that 10 years period very early gives the benefit of a young body capable of recovering extreemely fast compared to adults, and that might give not just a head start, but extra years of increasing performance one would not get to if starting later.

But experience shows that general aerobic conditioning from being active in sports and not necessarily do targeted and serious training through young years might be good enough to excel at an older age.

Jakob has not stagnated yet and I suspect they have been anticipating it could soon happen. It is obvious that when you are so close to historical WR-times stagnation would soon happen. Nothing grows into heaven, but Jakob has had of course much larger improvements earlier when he was growing (very natural for a young boy that can increase the VO2 max just by growing some inches). He has been platouing for some time, of course.

We do not know his genetic limit and if he improves just a couple of % it means a lot. He can run 3.28 and have not had a perfect race to set a WR. 1% improvement is 1.4s so we talk of very little before he has the WR well in reach. "

-----------------------------

You are making it too complicated Jon Arne AND even as a Norwegian patriot you are a bit conservative in my opinion.

As an objective (and not Norwegian) observer I would say:

1. Jakob is possible at least low 3:27 already! If necessary Jakob would have gone well under 3:28 in the 1500m final in Tokyo. But he prefered to play it safety sitting on Tim until the last turn.

Also Jakob would probably have won in the DL Monaco 1500m hadn´t he had a recent throat infection. And potentially run well under 3:28 there as well.

2. Jakob has improved his 1500m times steadily the last many years and I see no reason why he won´t continue for several more years following his normal mainly aerobic training.

3. I my opinon Jakob will - barring injury and illness - not only break the WR at 3:26 but he will go well under.

Jakob is the current alpha.

No doubt

So much depends on the individual as well as the technology and the training. Someone like Jim Ryun who ran before there was a strong professional circuit or corporate sponsorships peaked by 21 mainly b/c there wasn't much opportunity for any runner to train full-time in the late 60s. Even college athletes still had to maintain their academics. Also competition plays a role, the rivalry between Coe and Ovett let to world records dropping multiple times in a period of days.

Someone like Bernard Lagat kept setting PRs into his late 30s and most PRs were late 20s but part of that was switching distances and part natural ability and part great training resources.

Roger Bannister peaked at 25 but also retired at 25 so its hard to tell how much faster he could have run had he not quite to go to medical school.

Today many runners are setting PRs later in their careers as a result of improved shoe technology.

Averaging things together its most typical for middle to long distance runners to peak in their mid 20s (24-27) but some later.

Edwin Moses set his first WR and won the gold medal at the 1976 olympics just shy of his 21st birthday but set his PR 7 years later in 1983 at the age of 27

Seb Coe first broke the world record in 1500 meters at age 24 but didn't set his PR until he was 29 in 1986

Steve Ovett held the 1500 WR at age 25 but didn't set his PR until age 28.

I'm confident Jakob will have another 5 solid years of PRs ahead of him possibly more but Cheruiyot probably does too as they are similar age. Ovett had Coe's number head to head from 1977 to 1980 until he didn't and Coe retired with the better times in 800, 1500, and mile.

Doped Up Real Estate Broker wrote:

I think that it explains why many teenaged phenoms don't last long beyond college and why we see athletes go from world beaters one year become also rans the following year at around age 26 - 28. My pet theory is that the human body can only take so much hard training and truly elite athletes "age" much faster than moderately talented runners that do moderate workloads.

So how do you explain Kipchoge? Haile G, etc.

Or is the marathon different due to your improving running economy late in life? I asked John Kellogg if Kipchoge trained for a marathon when he was at his track peak say in 2003-4, would he be better than he is now? He said no. He might be able to equal what he does now as he could train harder than he can now but his running economy was worse then. YOur running economy builds up over time.

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

1% improvement is 1.4s so we talk of very little before he has the WR well in reach.

In the 1000m it is. It’s over 2% in the 1500m.

Marathoning is different.

Lagat was elite from 25 to 34 over the 1500m, 27 to 36 for the 5000m.

Looking at the data I've collected, the best of the best 1500 runners peak around 24 - 26 and can sustain 3:30s or better for few years. Most ELITE runners can run sub 3:34 for almost a decade! But I agree with the poster above.

5000m/10000m guys moving up to the marathon are able to sustain over the longer distances.

So someone who ran well from 20 - 26 over the 5/10 can perform well from 28 - 34 on the roads, given injury free training and adaptability to the roads like Kipchoge

Yes he is very young, but he has been training very hard since pre-teen so he might not improve much at all. Realistically he has another 3-5 years max to set PR’s after that extremely unlikely.

The greatest milers ever had from 5 (MOrceli and Kiprop) to 9 (ElG) years of sub 3:30 performances, with Lagat right in between them at 7 years. THere are several SEVERAL more guys who only had 1 or 2 years under 3:30.

Will Jakob be 2 and done, or hang on for another 3 to 7 years like the greatest of all time?

Kiplagat and Tim C. also had (have) 5 seasons from first to last season under 3:30.

high school xc coach wrote:

The greatest milers ever had from 5 (MOrceli and Kiprop) to 9 (ElG) years of sub 3:30 performances, with Lagat right in between them at 7 years. THere are several SEVERAL more guys who only had 1 or 2 years under 3:30.

Will Jakob be 2 and done, or hang on for another 3 to 7 years like the greatest of all time?

Kiplagat and Tim C. also had (have) 5 seasons from first to last season under 3:30.

It is a fun fact that El Guerrouj on that 9 years with sub 3,30, never had a season best from Monaco. 4 years from Zurich and 3 from Bruxelles!

18rabbittskiing wrote:

"I'm confident Jakob will have another 5 solid years of PRs ahead of him possibly more but Cheruiyot probably does too as they are similar age. Ovett had Coe's number head to head from 1977 to 1980 until he didn't and Coe retired with the better times in 800, 1500, and mile."

--------------

Tim is almost 5 years older than Jakob! Tim at 25 is at the age where most 1500m runners peak.

kartelite wrote:

"

In the 1000m it is. It’s over 2% in the 1500m. "

--------

I suppose you mean over 2 seconds in the 1500m.

People forget that one of the greatest miler / 1500 m of all time. Some say the GOAT, retired at 22.

Herb Elliot.

True CHADs hold their peak for at least a decade.