Fastest last 400m of a 1500m-10000m race ever?

michael furey wrote:

bernie > mo wrote:

there is no human i'd rather watch run than bernard lagat. he is the most graceful/powerful/smooth/efficient runner on earth

i'm thankful i got to watch him race while he was in his prime

he is also a freak of a human in terms of musculature - wow

Agree. I've always thought that Lagat - not Bekele, not El Guerrouj, not Rudisha - was the most talented distance/middle distance runner of all time. His light training schedule, stride (the best I've ever seen), build, and effortless speed are what make me think this. That he had so light of a training schedule has enabled him to have a long career but he could have burned a little brighter if he'd trained more like El G or Alan Webb.

Despite the fact they all beat him and ran faster and won more medals.

Les wrote:

The thing to keep in mind is it's not necessarily the WINNER who runs the fastest last lap of a race. For example, in Cacho's race El Basir ran the fastest last lap.

Ryun insists he ran the last lap of the 1967 US vs West Germany 1500m in under 50 seconds. Unfortunately there was no 1100m split taken. He did run the last 300 in 36.

I've seen the footage with the onscreen clock and he goes through the bell in 2:47.7, so his last 400m was indeed 50.5 and not under 50 secs. His penultimate lap was 60.0 flat (1:47.7 at 700m) which goes some way to explain his burst of speed at 1200m.