WEBB VS RITZ AT STANFORD 10k SUNDAY

Actually the further emphasise my point I firmly believe the 5k and 10k record will fall to 12.30 and 26.00 and the 3k record will remain 7.20.

anotehr issue is that there are less 3k's being run these days, and less especially with a 7:20 target in mind. that really hurts chances of going after the record in the first place.

Yeah, that 7:20 might last longer than Coe's 1:41. 10yrs now, eh?

There are less attempts on it but that is because I think it is such a strong record. Back when Geb was running his best 5k's he made several serious attempts at it and came up 5 seconds short.

I think El G could have come close but did not attempt it when he was at his absolute best.

I think the person who is going to break it is not going to be someone like Bekele who is moving down in distance but it will be someone who can comfortably break 3.30 but is also a sub 12.45 5k runner. Geb ran 3.31, I think Bekele could break 3.30 but he is not what I would call a comfortable sub 3.30 runner.

xc04 wrote:

Actually the further emphasise my point I firmly believe the 5k and 10k record will fall to 12.30 and 26.00 and the 3k record will remain 7.20.

wait, you left out an important part of your prediction: WHEN will the 5k and 10k record reach 12:30 and 26:00, and HOW LONG will the 3k record remain at 7:20??

Because I honestly doubt someone will run 26:00 before someone runs under 7:20. As others pointed out, El G could have absolutely come close to 7:20. He ran 7:23 on one try before he seriously moved up in distance. So we already have had one guy within a few seconds. But 26:00??? 17 seconds is a long way off, and Bekele is an absolute freak of nature, probably the greatest ever right? I truly think his 26:17 is as good as Komen's 7:20. For example:

(admittedly this a random comparison, but bare with me) - Nine guys are within 7 seconds of Komen's 7:20 record (ie, 7:27 or under). The 3k is 3.333 x shorter than the 10k. So.....how many guys are within 23.3 (3.333 x 7) seconds of 26:17 (which is 26:40) ? Exactly NINE. (you can do the same thing with some other time relationships too). Now Komen's 2.4 second differential over the next best runner is better comparitively speaking than Bekele's 5.2 second gap over the next best 10k performer, BUT.....as we already said, it is QUITE likely that if El G had taken another attempt or two at the 3k he would have at least gotten closer, and both Komen and Bekele would have similar gaps over the number two all time performer in their respective events.

In conclusion......26:17 is as astonishingly good as 7:20. No one is gonna see anything near 26:00 for a loooooog while, don't kid yourself on that one.

xc04 wrote:

Geb ran 3.31, I think Bekele could break 3.30 but he is not what I would call a comfortable sub 3.30 runner.

How many runners in the world can "comfortably" break 3:30? Any runners out there that can break 3:30 bust their ass to do it.

I def agree that a confident healthy Ritz is a major threat BUT you are using Ritzs ability to get far ahead of his competition in HS to gauge how far he will be ahead of his competition at the elite level. It doesn't work that way.

You almost sound like you never ran competitevly ever. In high school people have different bodies. Some bodies are more mature and some bodies are less mature. Hall ran close to a four minute mile in high school. He is more mature now and his body is getting more and more used to running fast.

Ritz is not going to be able to drop Hall no matter what pace he runs. He is just not that talented to stick it to hall like he could do in high school. Do I think it is a toss up between the two for who will be better in the long run? YES but ritz will never kill the competition like he did in high school.

Have you ever watched the videotape after the NCAA XC championships when Ritz barely beat Hall. Hall stated how he was running a team race and could have broke early and how he raced for the team. He could have ran away from Ritz that day and never given him a chance, but he ran a team race. Ritz went out slow that day and moved up. Afterwards Ritz states " THIS IS NOT HIGH SCHOOL ANYMORE. IT'S A WHOLE DIFFERENT BALLGAME. I JUST CAN'T RUN AWAY FROM THESE GUYS ANYMORE."

Flagpole, cut the crap about Ritz being SOSOSO much more talented than the rest of the guys. Hall and Dobson ccan go under 1310 this year!

You say Ritz doesn't have Hall or Dobson on his mind. We will see.

good point, look what happened at usa xc this year. There is no doubt that ritz is a great runner and I respect him a lot, but who is to say that someone else won't come out and beat him. I personally think that ritz will run sub 13 in the near future(2-3) years, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he is and always will be a 10,000 runner. I wish all of you would quit your bitching and bickering and realize that whoever wins wins, and that he worked the hardest that day.

anyone who thinks that they know who is going to win just by looking at the start list is full of shit and obviously doesn't know the nature of track. It could turn into a kickers race and be over 29:00. Then you would all look like assholes.

quarters wrote:

You almost sound like you never ran competitevly ever. In high school people have different bodies. Some bodies are more mature and some bodies are less mature. Hall ran close to a four minute mile in high school. He is more mature now and his body is getting more and more used to running fast.

Ritz didn't mature early, if that's what you're suggesting. Look at pictures of him in high school as compared to now.

Hall is incredibly talented. So is Ritz. They'll both do great things. They probably both have more potential than Kennedy ever did, and that's saying a lot. Kennedy was not close to a 3:42 1500 in high school, or a 13:27 as a college freshman.

will they trade laps (after the pacers drop)?

wouldn't it be funny if daniel kipchirchir komen ended up breaking daniel komen's world record 3000m time of 7:20? daniel k komen is a 3:30 1500m runner- does anyone think he could do it? has he ever shown any aptitude towards slight longer distances?

wow this thread fell to the second page...bump

"PS dont forget Alistar Craig is in the field..."

That's correct, and Alistair Cragg can win that race. I say Cragg and Ritz dump Webb and turn it into a two man race. No way Webb is going to beat either one of those guys at 10K.

"Does anyone know if Joe Falcon every ran a 10k on the track?"

28:34:20, 7th on Arkansas' all time 10,000 meter list. Record is held by Boit, 28:07:27.

the pace maker (bolota) will win the race

go pace maker go wrote:

the pace maker (bolota) will win the race

With a winning time of 30:00.

xc04 wrote:

I think the person who is going to break it is not going to be someone like Bekele who is moving down in distance but it will be someone who can comfortably break 3.30 but is also a sub 12.45 5k runner. Geb ran 3.31, I think Bekele could break 3.30 but he is not what I would call a comfortable sub 3.30 runner.

Good thoughts -- I agree.

I would also tip Shaheen as a possible contender for this mark!

OK. I did not realize I had to be so precise. By comfortably under 3.30 I mean someone who is a 1500m runner regularly runs at GP meets running times of 3.27/8 and then decides to run a 3k smack bang in the middle of the season.

xc04 wrote:

I think all those equivalency tables are now null and void when you see people coming through 3k only 5-10 seconds slower than they raced it open. People used to talk about 4 seconds per lap as you move up in distance. still works up to 3000 but past that not working.

800 WR is 50.5

1500 WR is 54.9(4.4)

3000 WR is 58.6(3.7)

5000 WR is 60.5(1.9)

10K WR is 62.8(2.3) I guess the point of all this is that Webb's 5k time means nothing nowadays where as his Mile time is legit top 5-10 in teh world.

The tables are null and void for blood-doped runners. The difference between tables and reality for times in the 800/1500 and 5k/10k/marathon get more distorted the longer the distance gets. The change in the top-end of the 800m has been very slight since 20-25 years ago. Mainly there was an improvement in the WR and lots of quality times added by

Kipketer. Same thing with the rarely run 1000m. The 1500/mile/2k has been overhauled but many times from the golden oldies are still there (or reasonably close). Lots fo 3:29's from guys who ran 20 years ago.

Move up to 5k/10k/mara and the WR's have been improved by 23 seconds from Moorcroft's huge-WR of 13:00.42 and about 1:05 now from Rono's longstanding 27:22. you can use different dates and different WR's but the result is the same: a MUCH greater improvement as you go up in distance from 1500 to 3k to 5k and to 10k.

The marathon is harder as there is confusion as to who really had the WR and what it was but i think it is fair to use DeCastella's 2:08:18 at Fukuoka in '81 as the WR for 25 years ago. So that is about 3:23 for an improvement. Not as much as you would think from an improvement of :56 in the 10k WR (if you use Mamede's 27:13 to KB's 26:17), but close. Still it is ahead of what the 23 second improvement in the 5k predicts.

If you look at published tables from the 80's and compare them to the actual times that runners who specialized in the 5k AND the 10k at the time (Lopes, Treacy, Salazar, Schildhauer, Kunze, Mamede, Vainio, Rose, Virgin, Antipov, Ryffel, Aouita, Hagelsteens, McLeod, Rono, ...) they performance tables hold up and work well. Now they don't.

In fact if you look at the tables that I have in books they don't even list 7:20, 12:37, 26:17, 2:04:xx ... those times were considered otherworldly.