El Guerrouj VS. Brazier in a 1200

Phil, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You can't run 3:26 and not have wheels, and El Guerrouj was clearly capable of 1:43 as well. Let's stop pretending him losing to Ngeny once means he can't kick. Watch the 2004 Olympic 1500m final if you still don't get it.

As for the original question, anyone who thinks Brazier takes this 1200 is on more drugs than El G was. Guerrouj wins comfortably.

please stop dude wrote:

Phil, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You can't run 3:26 and not have wheels, and El Guerrouj was clearly capable of 1:43 as well. Let's stop pretending him losing to Ngeny once means he can't kick. Watch the 2004 Olympic 1500m final if you still don't get it.

As for the original question, anyone who thinks Brazier takes this 1200 is on more drugs than El G was. Guerrouj wins comfortably.

You are the one with no idea what he is talking about.

Mo Farah ran 3:28 - you really think he could have run 1:44? Haha. See his wheels here, competing and getting beat by a jumper and boxer (Farah 100m FAT 12.98):

El Guerrouj falls in the category of 1500-5000 runner, just like Mo Farah. I repeat - he is NOT a 800/1500 guy like Brazier, Makloufhi, Lewandowski or Ngeny who all had superior 800m ability and sprint speed (100m-400m).

The 1500 is an event that's between 76-84% aerobic (based on type of runner, muscle fiber %, finishing time, etc). El Guerrouj was an aerobic monster, look at his 3k and 5k times.

The 800 is MUCH more anaerobic than the 5k, with only being 60-65% aerobic (except maybe people like Kipketer and Rudisha, who are pure speed runners and might even get it down to 57% aerobic). That's why runners like El Guerrouj with their incredible aerobic systems (VO2MAX) can do so well over other highly aerobic distances (think 3k, 5k). Whether his VO2MAX was natural or not, is a different question but that is what made him so fast over the mile, not his "speed", 800m ability or anything else.

El Guerrouj and Farah are extremely skinny, they just don't have the same wheels and leg power that 800m runners have.

But no one is saying Brazier wouldn’t win the 800— of course he would. But the 1200 is closer aerobically to the 1500 than 800. The 1200 is 50% longer for Brazier and only 20% shorter for El Guerrouj. Fundamentally the 800 is basically a sprint that people hang on to for 700 m and just get to the finish. I think it would clearly be EG, by 1-2 secs.

Fragemeister wrote:

But no one is saying Brazier wouldn’t win the 800— of course he would. But the 1200 is closer aerobically to the 1500 than 800. The 1200 is 50% longer for Brazier and only 20% shorter for El Guerrouj. Fundamentally the 800 is basically a sprint that people hang on to for 700 m and just get to the finish. I think it would clearly be EG, by 1-2 secs.

Good points, but that's true if both would solo time trial the race or be in separate lanes. Championship races, which this competition would be (since they can draft off each other) go very differently.

Farah never came close to frontrunning a 3:30 1500m, same with El Guerrouj, he ALWAYS had his pacers in front. That makes it much easier. Cheruiyot in Doha last year front-ran a 3:29 which was probably the most incredible 1500m frontrunning in history and is still one of the most underrated performances (imagine what he could do with pacers).

In the hypothetical 1200m race, Brazier has no intention of setting the pace. If El Guerrouj decides to jog, Brazier will outkick him. So the likely scenario is El Guerrouj going out strong, and Brazier drafting behind him, waiting for the last 100m. If he is still in position with 100 to go, BAM - Brazier explodes and wins the race.

Even though it might seem like it, I'm not a big Brazier fan, I just think that the 800m ability and sprint speed of 1500/3000/5000 guys is vastly overrated, due to them being able to close these longer races very fast. Coe has shown what's possible in the 800 and 1500, but he would have never been able to hang with El Guerrouj or all the other guys in the 3k or 5k. But it also means that El Guerrouj wouldn't be close to Coe's level in the 800, that's how big the difference in speed (favor Coe) and endurance (favor El G) was.

Fair enough. I do get what you’re saying and if EG would have truly been unable to set a strong pace (need not be blazing WR pace) then Brazier would have a chance. Where I‘d disagree is that I think EG is capable of sticking the first two laps decent enough to take the gas out of Brazier‘s last lap.

Also, drafting is important, but less so with just one person. He could throw in surges too, which 800 m runners are less prepared for. In any case, would have loved to see it.

I am pretty sure that El Guerrouj has the fastest ever 1200m enroute to a mile time ever, so pretty reasonable to pick him. I think that he may have gone 2:44.75. If not, it would have been close to that. Jim Ryun ran the last 1200m of a 1500m in 2:46, I think. El G could basically run a 2:16 1k and close in 28. He averaged 54.8/400m for 1500m.

enroute to a 1500m or mile, I should have said.

You don't think EL G could've run 3:29 solo?? You're definitely overestimating how useful pacers are. Also Cheruiyot has run with pacers many times and has "only" run 3:28, if he was truly capable of 3:25 we would've seen something at least fairly close.

For argument's sake lets say that El Gerrouj is worse than Cheruiyot and can only solo a 3:30 (56 s / lap). This converts to a 2:43 1200 (54.3s/lap). Do you think Brazier will be able to run that with a pacer?? Given that it also converts to a 1:42.7 800, I'd have really hard time believing Brazier could almost equal is 800 performance in a 1200 when his 1500 is so much worse.

Marcin Lewandowski ran a 3:31.4, so he's not quite a 3:30 man yet. Still great for an experienced 800m runner.

I think it would take Brazier a few years to get to 3:31, and it may be at a slight expense to his 400/800 speed!

Deanouk wrote:

Marcin Lewandowski ran a 3:31.4, so he's not quite a 3:30 man yet. Still great for an experienced 800m runner.

I think it would take Brazier a few years to get to 3:31, and it may be at a slight expense to his 400/800 speed!

Brazier can get to 3:32-3:33, but the way how he would get there is different than Lewandowski. Even in the 800m, Lewandowski had big base phases with 100-110 mpw, coached by his brother under the Polish system. That wouldn't work for Brazier.

Brazier would need to train like Coe did, and get his 1500m times down that way (lots of harder intervals, and capping the base phase at max 70-75 mpw but at a more steady clip). If Brazier can get to 3:30/3:31, he would be extremely deadly in 1500m races due to his strong kick potential. Lewandowski is already a big threat and Brazier would have even more raw speed (I assume Brazier can do 100m flying in 10.3, which is 0.1-0.2s faster than Lewandowski).

Brazier's workout before Doha:

The session started with one 200-meter interval in 21 seconds, followed by four minutes of recovery. After the 200 meters, he ran 2x400-meter in 50-51 seconds, followed with three minutes of recovery. The final portion of the workout was 2x100-meter sprints in 10.4-10.5.

Of course everything is with flying start at max speed, but that's still impressive. Fully rested I don't doubt he can do 10.3 100m fly which is blazing.

No way El Guerrouj could do a workout like that, not even close. His 100m fly speed is probably only around 11 flat.

notCl0se wrote:

You don't think EL G could've run 3:29 solo?? You're definitely overestimating how useful pacers are. Also Cheruiyot has run with pacers many times and has "only" run 3:28, if he was truly capable of 3:25 we would've seen something at least fairly close.

For argument's sake lets say that El Gerrouj is worse than Cheruiyot and can only solo a 3:30 (56 s / lap). This converts to a 2:43 1200 (54.3s/lap). Do you think Brazier will be able to run that with a pacer?? Given that it also converts to a 1:42.7 800, I'd have really hard time believing Brazier could almost equal is 800 performance in a 1200 when his 1500 is so much worse.

I agree. I took a look at Brazier's 800m PR from college on MileSplit...

1:43.55

I took a look at an old thread titled "800-1200m conversion" and one of the posters wrote that he knew that to change 800m speed to a 1200m time you have to take 93% of that time. So I did:

1:43.55=103.55 seconds

103.55/2=51.775

51.775*3=155.325 (2:35.47)

That is his 1200m time in 800m PR speed. Now we just need to take 93% of that time.

155.325*1.07=166.19775

So his time for a hypothetical 1200m race at a PR race would be 2:46.3.

Looking at El Guerrouj at his PR pace for the mile world record (my favorite race), we can see that he goes through 1200m (or1320 yards) in 2:47.91. It is only fair to look at both athletes in their peak shape. Now if El Guerrouj was able to go through a 1200 in 2:47 knowing that he also was preparing for a 400m kick means that he probably could have gone faster in the 1200m.

So, concluding that Brazier's time for the 1200m would have hypothetically been 2:46.3; and that El Guerrouj's time before a 400m kick was 2:47.91, we can probably infer that El G would have taken gold in that race. He just needs to move his kick earlier into the race.

That is just my thoughts-EGF :)

ElGuerroujFan wrote:

Looking at El Guerrouj at his PR pace for the mile world record (my favorite race), we can see that he goes through 1200m (or1320 yards) in 2:47.91. It is only fair to look at both athletes in their peak shape. Now if El Guerrouj was able to go through a 1200 in 2:47 knowing that he also was preparing for a 400m kick means that he probably could have gone faster in the 1200m.

Again, he had a pacemaker (William Tanui, Olympic 800m champion, a 1:43/3:30 guy) all the way until 1200m. In the start he even had 3-4 pacemakers, as usual. El Guerrouj just had to run 400m by himself. It's a lot easier mentally to stick behind others and then when it's only 400 left to take off than to lead a race himself.

Vs Brazier, he would finally see how hard it is to front run a vast majority of a race. Farah would have been nothing had he not always been able to draft off people. It's not the wind breaking or physical benefits, but the mental aspects are huge. The one race that required El Guerrouj to front run a significant portion (Sydney 2000, El G had to start leading after just 900m), is the one he lost to Ngeny on the home straight despite having superior fitness and being the better 1500 guy. Unfortunately Ngeny had a car crash the following year and never got the same again, so the biggest threat was not there anymore in Athens for El G.

I also want to state once again - a lot of the pacemakers back then were caught dopers. They always ran exactly the splits asked for them, so even if El G and others like Komen were clean themselves, they benefited massively from the pacemaking.

If pacemakers are really so much of a big deal in this debate then why don't we throw them into the scenario. They really wouldn't be as much of a big deal if everyone would just use them. This does not mean that i would believe the same for doping.

El G would grind him to dust from the gun. 1000m would be closer but I'd still take prime El G.

please stop dude wrote:

Phil, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You can't run 3:26 and not have wheels, and El Guerrouj was clearly capable of 1:43 as well. Let's stop pretending him losing to Ngeny once means he can't kick. Watch the 2004 Olympic 1500m final if you still don't get it.

As for the original question, anyone who thinks Brazier takes this 1200 is on more drugs than El G was. Guerrouj wins comfortably.

This is what happens when you read a lot of books, but have virtually zero real-world experience.

Brazier's pb is 1:42.34, set in the World Champs in Doha last year, not 1:43.55. Albeit I seem to remember he was wearing a pair of Nike's protype carbon plated spikes! And the track was almost certainly faster than the ones even El G ran on. Neverless, even in normal spikes I think Brazier is capable of sub 1:43 now.

So, using your suggested method for calculating 1200m ability we get: -

102.34/2 = 51.17

51.17 * 3= 153.51

153.51 * 1.07 = 164.26

So, looks like Brazier could run 2:44.26!?

Personally, I think that's a little beyond him currently, and I would expect EL G to win more often than not over 1200m, especially if it were paced.

Have to admit that I think the recent revelations about Nike's carbon plated spikes and springs offering several % improved return of energy, I have to question whether or not Brazier is truly a 1:42.3 athlete based on traditional spikes!? Which is a shame.

He raced in regular victory elites . Not prototypes