Gary Martin vs Colin Sahlman

Based on the way he ran his 4:01, I believe Martin would prefer to set a fast pace against the NP brothers and get a PR rather than being out kicked off of a slow one. If he can manage 3:58 pace, he’s likely to drop everyone but Colin.

Sahlman, but why are we limiting a solid race to these two boys when realistically 6-8 guys are ready to go sub 4?

Also to be fair if he was in 3:55-6 shape with sub 14 endurance and 1:48 speed I think it wouldn't have been an issue to run a few seconds faster at arcadia

colin

/thread

So you think Aaron beats Gary at 800m AND 5k but Gary somehow beats him in a mile race?

Considering Aaron did beat him in a 5k at RL and has a faster 800 PR, yeah I do. Gary is still 5 seconds faster over the mile. Why are you outraged?

I am not "outraged". I just don't think that's how running works. In my opinion there are 3 possibilities :

- Gary hasn't had the opportunity to show his 800m speed like Aaron did.

- Gary has made some big progress since runninglane and would beat Aaron right now over the 5k distance, (maybe he isn't a cross country runner, I don't know, but then he would certainly beat him in a 5000m on the track).

- Aaron is ready for a big pr over the mile.

Personally I think there's a bit of 2) and a lot of 3) because 8:01 3000m and 1:48.9 gives you 3:59.48 for the mile according to ventolin's calculator.

Anyway, just taking the PR isn't an accurate way to say who is the better runner (we saw that with Hocker last year), and especially with highschool kids who improve very quickly and don't always have the same opportunities to run a fast time.

Both kids are great, I think they both have a sub 4 mile in them, and I would put them both ahead of Lex and even Leo for the moment, despite his 4:00 mile. But again, I'm just interpreting numbers, if you want to talk about their current PR, we all know you're right, but I just don't think that's right to think Aaron can only run a 4:05 mile when we saw him run 1:48 and 8:01i.

Didn't see it mentioned but Gary ran 1:49 last week in the 800.

Yeah, he did. John Heins Invitational. Featured former PA state record holder Drew Magaha pacing through 300m (looked like he pulled up lame around that point), John Lewis who ran at Clemson and was also a PA 800m record holder, Rob Downs (also local) as well as Berna and Kisker from Ridge.

pa.milesplit.com

Open Boys 800 Finals Section 1 | The John Heins Invitational (FKA Upper Moreland Invite)

Dan Beck

The John Heins Invitational (FKA Upper Moreland Invite)

Open link

Not sure how them running with no super shoes or mondo surface would change which one of them would win. Nobody runs on rubberized outdoor tracks 😂. Aside from your absurd guidelines for this, it’s gotta be Sahlman all day. Forget about rabbits, when he ran 3:58 he beat guys that have run 3:36 for 1500. Martin is a beast but he’s just not quite on Colin’s level, plus his 1:48-8:33 range makes him pretty unstoppable in a mile. Plus Leo Young actually ran faster than Gary Martin this season so I’m not sure why he’s not in this convo (also throw in Rheinhardt Harrison having run 2:22 for 1k indoors and 1:48.0 just recently).

Bump

I'll still say Sahlman - he's go a lethal kick, don't forget he closed in 55 and change for his last lap in his recent 3:39. That's better than what I think Martin can do at this point, but a duel between the two would still be an extremely close and exciting race.

Agree. Great run by Martin today, 3:57 is insane for a higher schooler. However, I still say he's not dropping Sahlman and I just can't see him contending with Sahlman's kick.

Cherry-picking one or two races doesn't tell you much. You could either do an energy cost calculation or you could run the numbers from a lot of paced races. What is obvious is that paced races are faster. There are psychological and physical benefits. And now we have Martin running sub-3:58, still without pacers to draft off of and to push him. Who would bet that he is capped at this time, winning by twenty seconds in a local scholastic meet?

The other thing to consider is peaking. Brosnan has kept Sahlman & his other runners at a very high level of performance from XC through indoors through early season meets whereas Martin seems to be reaching a higher peak now. Of course it could be that Colin Sahlman is an outlier to the rest of the NP runners that have been going through state meet qualifying. The majority of them are now running slower than in March and April.

I think you are saying that Sahlman can easily go 3:54 - 3:55. He has to have that monster kick off of 3:57 pace, because that is what Martin just did solo. The pace won't be any slower, most likely faster, with someone on Martin's back. I agree this is possible, but I don't think it is a given that Sahlman is in 3:54.X shape. Only time will tell. I'd say its 50:50 after Martin's 3:57 today (note with the wind Martin's 4:00/4:01 times were equivalent to the 3:57 today so fairly consistent running!).

Possible, although its also possible that they are running at below 100% effort in qualifying.

Sahlman wins. If Leo Young ran 4:00.xx back in the third week of March...who knows what CS would've done that night...in a high school only meet....other than a 1:48.

3:55 seems reasonable considering his 3:39 1500m with awful tactics last week. We'll see at Pre assuming he doesn't spend half the race in lane 2 again.