I saw on the front page it said that second place Hay has a personal best in the 5000 of 13:57....but then, in the article, he is quoted as saying that in order to make the A standard of 13:18, he would need to take TWO seconds off his personal best to get it.
So does he have a pr of 13:57, or 13:20?
I saw the race live in Edinburgh, and from the start, Bekele was never really in it. He did not look like he was fighting terribly hard, so I don't think we can read much from it for the summer. At one point, he was stuck among a group of domestic runners, but he seemed content with the (slow) pace, and made no effort to break free of the group, while the race was heating up at the front. The club runners probably couldn't believe what was happening.
The course was hard to run on (very muddy, the invitational was the last race on the course of the day), and runners were occasionally leaving the optimum line, struggling to find drier patches. However, it wasn't really difficult in XC terms, certainly not by Edinburgh standards. Bekele did not lose his time avoiding injuries, he ran slowly, consistently.
The team races were much more exciting to watch - the mne's, because it was a really close one, and the women's race, because Britton probably ran the best race of her career. She didn't seem to care about just winning, but ran from the front with a real demonstration of her dominance. Worth every penny of her appearance fee!
Hereyougo wrote:
I saw on the front page it said that second place Hay has a personal best in the 5000 of 13:57....but then, in the article, he is quoted as saying that in order to make the A standard of 13:18, he would need to take TWO seconds off his personal best to get it.
So does he have a pr of 13:57, or 13:20?
I'm guessing it was a misquote from the newspaper. He clearly would have said 2 seconds per lap.
If he only had to take 2 seconds off, I would imagine he would be quite confident.
Bekele was a good investment. Beating him is like a life-time accomplishment for some British runners, giving them/their clubs a lot of good pr. Maybe more races should pay pros to come and phone it in. Didn't work out so well for Shoeless Joe though.