Valby lost b/c she was horrible with the tangents

Do you have any guesses as to why I haven’t heard much debate about the tangent running ability of Nico Young and Charles Hicks and who is a better runner? Or who has more marketability? Or god knows what?

Absolutely agree.

It blows my away how terrible people are at running the shortest line. So often you see elites running on the far shoulder of a roadway on a very long bend. I suspect that some of these runners often unnecessarily run an extra 200-400m throughout the entire race as a result.

Surely this is first grade maths. (Small circles have a shorter perimeter than big circles).

If they understand it on the track - that running a single bend in lane 2 is an extra 3.5 metres, then why don't people understand it on the roads or the country?

Mu runs in lane 2. Some runners aren't good at figuring things out.

Long legs are a factor for negotiating curves, also in front-running v. pack-running. Ask Jim Ryun.

Nico and Charles took correct tangents every time and obviously have immense understanding of course tactics and racing in general.

Neither is that marketable because no male distance runners are ever "marketable". Male distance runners bodies aren't exactly what's celebrated as the ideal male, meanwhile female distance runners are the better/healthier version of what female models typically are.

God knows that Tuohy and Valby are more talented vs the overall world-wide talent base than any of the men are in the field currently. Therefore they are bigger potential threats to have a real impact on the global racing scene.

I can answer all your questions, keep them coming and I'll help you understand all this better.

Katelyn has run 15:14 and Parker has run 15:20. Are they more talented than the men? I am not sure about that.

Yeah that makes sense considering 2e beat her by 3 seconds twice in a row in the spring and now beat her by 3 seconds again in the fall! So apparently she is not improving at all compared to tuohy

And honestly if tuohy didn't hold back in the beginning she probably could have beat her by closer to 10 seconds

This might be true but I also don't really like Valby's strategy. When did she make her rivals hurt and have doubts. Never because no one went with her. Then Tuohy just did her normal last 2k pick-up and won. Kudos to Tuohy for having the faith to trust she would be able to pull her back. I find it difficult to see how Valby will be able to win though without a stronger base. Maybe the cross training is effective but I find it hard to see how she will gain the kind of endurance she needs to win. Incredible talent to be able to perform as well as she did.

She obviously made everyone else in the field (except Katelyn Tuohy) hurt and have doubts, as none of them could go with her, and none of them could run her down.

If she doesn't have a kick, this is her best strategy to win. She didn't throw in any silly splits, and she didn't die - she was just beaten by someone who was slightly stronger on the day.

If she'd sat with the pack - and not forced the others to red-line - she may well have been burned in the last k by a few other runners with stronger kicks.

I don't know what sole ski did, or if he/she was close at all, but it's very possible to estimate the extra distance. The extra distance in a turn is pi*(extra radius) for a turn that doubles back 180 degrees. Adjust proportionally for the angle of the turn. For example, if it's a 90 degree turn, then the extra distance is 1/2*pi*(extra radius).

To eyeball it, you can estimate that if she's running in lane 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 on any particular turn and then the extra distance is like the extra distance in those lanes on a track for every 360 degrees of turning. (lane 2: +7 meters, lane 3: +15 meters, lane 4: +22 meters, lane 5: +30 meters, lane 6: +38 meter, lane 7: 46 meters, lane 8: 53 meters). For example, if someone runs what looks like lane 5 for a 90 degree turn, then lane 4 for a 180 degree u-turn, the extra distance is 1/4*30+1/2*22= extra 18.5m for those two turns.

Not certain how this helps measure a failure to take the best tangent, since the point of that is not to follow the curve closely but take the best line to the next curve.

Sole ski had a much simpler calculation. Touhy won by three seconds. If one wants to say that Valby could have won by four seconds, and the runners were traveling at 5.1 meters per second, then the distance lost to poor tangents had to be 36 meters. 37 sounds more exact, so go with that.

I noticed a few times that she was following the lead cart and quickly realized she was taking the wrong line. Maybe a mental trick is to lock in on the cart and she got carried away?

She made one noticeable error, it cost her a couple of yards that's all.

Good stuff. This was helpful.

You follow the curve closely from the point you reach the curve in the forward tangent until you back tangent out to the next curve. The estimate I'm suggesting takes that into account by including how many degrees of a curve you are following (the central angle from forward tangent to back tangent), thus the examples of a 180-degree u-turn (a track has two 180-degree central angle turns for example), a 90-degree right angle turn would have half the extra distance at the same extra radius, a 30-degree curve 1/3 the extra distance of a 90-degree turn at the same extra radius. Maybe I need illustrations for you to understand what I mean by measuring a curve by the central radius? I'm using the easiest geometry: 2*pi*r=circumference of a circle, and then taking into account how much of a central angle each curve covers. The curves don't have be exactly circular (could be increasing/decreasing radius...).

"If one wants to say Valby could have won by four seconds". That's no "measurement" of distance or even an estimate. That's just made up in your mind. What's the reasoning?

What I provided was a way to estimate actual distance longer if someone were willing to first measure the central angle of each curve from the course map, put that in a spreadsheet, then rewatch the entire race and estimate how far out from the inside she was on each curve (maybe using ratio of height to distance out from inside to help estimate distance out), entering that for each curve on the spreadsheet. Then do the calculations for each curve and sum all that up on the speadsheet. That would be a lot of work depending on how accurate you are trying to be, so no one is likely to care enough to do it. But it would provide a pretty good estimate of extra distance run.

Watch the video and do the math. 37 meters. She would have won if she ran a shorter distance.

Nonsense. Watch the video yourself.

Valby made a lot more than one error. The fact that only one of her errors was "noticeable" by you means that you weren't paying close attention.

I was watching to see what all the fuss was about. Conclusion: you people are weird and bad at geometry.

It was a great race and lived up to the hype, so I'm glad I watched it all.