Hall's Slow Mile Proves We're Not Like Swimming

am i the only one amused by the fact that he was only 13 seconds faster than his wife????

haha... I'm also amused.

He probably took time off after the marathon and is at the beginning of his next training cycle. He's probably done little or no speedwork since the marathon.

Regarding swimming, I think it's completely outrageous and ignorant that we're comparing running and swimming. With 4 different strokes that are completely different technique-wise- each of which requires the use of different muscle groups and ranges of motion- it's necessary to have multiple events. Should we lump all throwing events together just because they all involve throwing objects?

If the OP and the other critics have ever swam consistent workouts using all 4 strokes, they'd realize that each stroke is completely distance from the others.

Also, as somebody mentioned, if you took a long distance swimmer and asked him to swim a 100, he'd probably be nowhere close to a world class time. Before anyone tries to get finicky and post some swimming times, remember that the shorter distances of swimming races compared to running means that a difference of 1 or 2 seconds can indicate vastly different levels of talent.

I love running, but as an ex-swimmer, I think it's preposterous to suggest that swimming is somehow invalid because it has multiple strokes. Think of it as a heptathlon with individual events rather than combined scores. Until you've swam at a highly competitive level, don't knock it. I tell swimmers the same thing when they say that running somehow isn't as valid of a sport since it only involves one kind of movement.

Why can't endurance athletes just all get along?

i am GLAD ryan hall sh-t the bed!

thank god he's not in good shape this close after boston, or else his next marathon buildup would be a chicago repeat.

different strokes for different folks

did that happen in the same season and/or year??

I recognize that the swim strokes are all different and it takes hard work and dedication to master any one of them. If someone is particularly good at breast stroke or whatever, great, go for it. But I still think it is an artificial distinction within the sport (similar to racewalking - thanks to the poster for reminding me of this). Competitive swimming is racing and racing is about who can cover the distance fastest.

haha YO wrote:

blahha wrote:

I ran an all out marathon on April 30, and I am just starting to shuffle through 8:30 pace 3 mile runs (I ran 2:40 in the marathon). My race was 12 days after Boston, but still, in 12 days I see myself just barely having my legs under me again for the first time. Another 2 or 3 weeks after that would make all the difference.

You must not have trained well at all, that is pathetic.

Bill Rogers was running a 140 miles one week after Boston. That may be excessive but for well trained (high mileage) runners you can be back to regularish training fairly quickly.

Yeah, I'm no Bill R but I ran Boston hard this year and the TCM mile last night. My legs were fine. Of course I had no feel for correct pace and no turn over. But my crappy time was due to lack of mile specific training. Not tired legs.

Ryan got in over his head the first 1/4 (which is slightly uphill) ran out of gas, realized it was over and cruised home (I watched him go by with 200m to go and he had clearly given up and was waddling home).

socalcush wrote:

am i the only one amused by the fact that he was only 13 seconds faster than his wife????

Well you have to factor in that he gave up.....on a 1 mile course.

Why aren't any of you mile specialists talking about how he just totally gassed himself on that first 200 and then proceeded to keep the pedal down when he was already in the red?

Granted, it was @ 60 seconds, which shouldn't waste him, but still, he just wasn't ready to hang with anything faster than 62-63. He led the darned thing with a pretty talented field. I realize with all the hype and the ego, he didn't want to just hang in the back and drift away to a 4:10, but I think that he would have finished in 4:08 or so if he'd just run a bit more judiciously. And seriously, this is on marathon training and after a sub 2:05 Boston, so give Holmes a break.

I've busted on him for a lot of his weirdness, but after Boston, I will bust on him no more. Dude can roll.

I was about to post something similar. He just went out too fast, probably overestimated the pace at which he could run...that's all. Just because he is an elite athlete, doesn't mean that he can go into the red early and somehow maintain it.

Hall went out very hard on the slight uphill and blew up. Every competitive runner has a race like this, and it is usually when they jump into a distance they haven't been training for specifically. The difference with Hall is that when he has the same experience, the entire nation is watching and it is in a championship race.

Rotate the crops. If you plant the same thing every year in a few years the fields will be ruined. The same is true with running. In college Ryan Hall raced all distances year round. Very fast at the mile as well as CC. When he finished college he was close to his limit for power and what could be achieved as far as lactate threshold. In the following years a steady diet of long tempo runs cooking at exactly the right temperature produced huge improvements. But..... as with the fields at some point you have to change things up. After the constant racing of a collegiate athlete two years of tempos will produce stunning results. After that if you continue your sharpness and power will start to fade. Just a tiny bit but that is enough. Ryan Hall could use a year of college type training and race schedule then rotate every year between marathon training and track racing. I have no doubt that Ryan could break 13 min for the 5k if he spent two years with that as his focus. Then it would only take 6 months of marathon training for him to reach a new level at his prime event. It's easy to think you are doing sharpening but there is nothing like the feeling of kicking in a mile. Now imagine the 10-12 races a year in college where you have to do that. There is no substitute for racing.

I think Hall could have run 4:05 range but backed off when he realized how fast they were racing. He was not ready to run 4:00. The 4:17 is not his present ability.

I raced 4:24, 15:39, 32:38, 1:12:32 and 2:33:39, all on the roads, when I was 37 (began running at 27) which were all pr's. I am not sure Hall will ever break 4:00 but needs to keep it in the back of his mind if he plans to race the marathon with the big dogs!

Sean Nunn wrote:

there is also no equivalent to the 10000 or the marathon (at least not in the Olympics at this time).

The 10Km marathon swim was introduced in the 2008 Olympics.

Winning time for women was 1:59, and for men 1:51.

That's very close to a marathon in duration.

Such long swims aren't held in pools. The Beijing event was held in the Kayak/Canoe park. Most are held in lakes or the ocean.

Just an off day.

There's no argument here!

Someone specializing in Marathon and doing it well there, can hardly match the best Milers in a Mile race, but with time and training anything is possible.

Ryan has all the potential to run a decent mile, but the mistake he did compared to Sarah was that he went all out in the first half and paid the price. Having not run such a distance competitively for long, he might have been nervous and lack the strategic mind in such a shorter distance. Also if you look at the last time Ryan ran such a distance well, is about 10 years ago.

Ryan's PRs: PRs:1,500m - 3:42.70 (2001); 5,000m - 13:16.03 (2005); Half-Marathon - 59:43AR (2007); Marathon 2:04:53 (2011)

Sarah on the other hand is not a Marathon specialist, but rather 3,000m to 10,000m specialist with the following PBs: 4:28, mile; 8:55, 3000m; 15:21, 5000m

Another point to consider, it is unusual for runners to make a U turn from long distance to middle distance. The case is always from middle distance to long distance as in the case of Haile. If Haile ran a mile today with the best milers, he won't be as sharp as he used to be them days.

Actually, the butterfly evolved from the breast stroke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_stroke

I used to watch swimming in the Olympics and think "are they still at it" until my girls were in swimming. It actually breaks up quite neatly (for the most part) into 100/200/400 of breast stroke, backstroke, butterfly and crawl (freestyle) with an extra 50m freestyle. The other thing to spice things up is the individual medley where one swimmer swims all 4 strokes. The 400 IM is THE tough race - kind of like the mile. At least in club swimming, kids often develop into one of two types - those that excel at breast stroke and those that don't. Amanda Beard was an example of someone who was just a killer at breast stroke yet average at other strokes early in her career.

Back to running, does anyone else observe that Ryan Hall looks like he lacks core strength? In my eyes he tends to slump.

Blowing in the Wind wrote:

This just shows us how much an advantage the downhill/wind aided course was in Boston. Hall is actually in shape to be a 2:20 - 2:24 marathon runner. So the wind was worth almost 20 minutes at Boston.

Exaggerate much? Hall's time at Boston was equivalent to at least a 2:15 on a course like London without wind assistance. Maybe even 2:10.