Did Sowinski mess up the pacing for once?

Huh?? Sowinski had never broken 4:00 back in his prime. Best 1500 is like a 3:45. He would have gotten smoked!

I know that he has never broken 4:00, and I have little reason to believe that he could do so now. I specifically stated my skepticism about his ability to beat these guys "unless they simply ignored him and let him go so they could actually focus on racing each other." I'm not sure why you're having difficulty understanding what I said. Perhaps you're not familiar with cases in which a pacer has ended up winning a race against much superior runners who simply decided to ignore the pacer to focus on a slow tactical race amongst themselves. (The classic case was, of course, Tom Byers's 1500m victory at the 1981 Bislett Games over strong favorite Steve Ovett and the rest of the field.) To avoid those embarrassments (which is how they are often viewed), race organizers have routinely had either express agreements or implied "understandings" that designated pacers will not try to win the race even if they find themselves in a position to do so. And, as I mentioned, even when a pacer has no such agreement or understanding, pacers who win races are at risk of losing future business as pacers and fake competitors.

Sowinski seems to be the only pacer it ever occurred to that you should, at some point and possibly more than once, look over your shoulder and see if people are actually going with you.

Damn Sowinski has never broken 4!? Crazy he can comfortably run what he does for pacing.

They could always call Sage Hurta. Her pacing record is pretty good about now.

Matt Scherer is above Sowinski on the GOAT pacer list right now, in my humble opinion.

Sowinski could get there though.

This is the first time in history I ever got 28 up votes and zero down, thank you so much..and as much as I think I might know, I am kidding..of course. No one other than Webb could run this other than Ryun in a set up for sure, or Kessler if you saw his last 100M in his 3:34.x race which he would have easily gotten in in 18 additional secs for 3:52.x at the very least. It converts to 3:51 mid to high. Many have no idea how patient a race Webb ran without panicking and finished 5th in an almost Golden League type field. It was 20+ years ago. The fractions were fine the other night if you had already run 1:48.0 or better as Webb had done. I don't think any of those guys yet had run sub 1:50.00 There are very few guys in HS if any that could run 8:45 yards avg flat track indoors 3:53.x and relay 47.7. I mean just as a note Webb ran 1:43.86, 3:46.x /3:30.x 13:11 and beat Ritz at 10K, the talent level from years ago was astonishing. None of those guys, were running 3:53.

Conor was 59-1:59-2:28

Those are perfect splits.

Webb was 58-1:58 - 2:28

Was Sowinski supposed to push the field from behind? Apparently the OP hasn't seen the gap he had at 100, running at maybe 60 second pace.

I don't think Sowinski lumbers at all. He actually looks very efficient at the paces he runs. The lumberjack in that race was the kid who won. Yikes.

Agreed, you could see him pulling on the group. He almost went through 1200m. This kids ran great, they were lucky to have him.