I can't wait to see what Graham Blanks can do once he's graduated and is living at altitude. 26:57 guy still in college doing a bunch of the work for a sub-27.
Graham Blanks is signing autographs and taking photos with fans.
Fan: "You have the best personality of any distance runner."
Graham: "Thanks. But I'd gladly trade my personality for a better kick."
Yes, he really said that.
Amazing.
PS. Doesn't this prove my point that I making earlier in this thread? There was some guy on here earlier saying only Quigley would sign autographs.
It’s most definitely a combination of what Noah Lyle’s work to make the sport bigger and a guy on TikTok called Erin Brown bringing track to the front pages.
after that 10K Elise Cranny now has to jump on a flight to Kingston to run a 3K and 5K next week. talk about putting your fitness to the test.
Or talk about having a dumb coach
Dumb coach? I disagree. Hit it and hit it hard.
The best workout is a race. Run the 10k. Do some shakeout strides on Tuesday/Wed, race hard next weekend.
Makes a lot of sense. Get in shape to pick up the standard and rack up some $$ at the first meet. With the new shoes, it's not like her cavles will be sore for a week.
I’m not sure if anyone has pointed this out but a significant amount of the hoka pros have been wearing Nike spikes lately. It was pretty obvious here with Adrian wearing the dragonflys without the logo. And a few other pros at the meet. BUT the bigger story is habtom Samuel’s spikes aren’t world athletics approved. They are over 20mm in stack and I mean technically could get DQ’d for this. He was wearing the HOKA cieloflyx which has 25mm of stack.
This post was edited 9 minutes after it was posted.
I’m not sure if anyone has pointed this out but a significant amount of the hoka pros have been wearing Nike spikes lately. It was pretty obvious here with Adrian wearing the dragonflys without the logo. And a few other pros at the meet. BUT the bigger story is habtom Samuel’s spikes aren’t world athletics approved. They are over 20mm in stack and I mean technically could get DQ’d for this. He was wearing the HOKA cieloflyx which has 25mm of stack.
He has the standard anyways, so I'm not sure if it really matters if they DQ him. Could have very well been a choice he made knowing they were too high just to see what happened.
Habtom Samuel was wearing a complete HOKA kit (shirt, shorts, socks, etc). Given he wasn't wearing anything New Mexico did he actually represent the university and should he be listed as one of the fastest collegiate athletes on the list? Or is he unattached?
The best workout is a race. Run the 10k. Do some shakeout strides on Tuesday/Wed, race hard next weekend.
Makes a lot of sense. Get in shape to pick up the standard and rack up some $ at the first meet. With the new shoes, it's not like her cavles will be sore for a week.
Too many coaches out there who believe in "magic workouts." They really want to believe the runners will be irreparably harmed if they have to take a couple weeks away from their well crafted training plans.
Not to say there's one size fits all there. But back to back weekends are fine.
Habtom Samuel was wearing a complete HOKA kit (shirt, shorts, socks, etc). Given he wasn't wearing anything New Mexico did he actually represent the university and should he be listed as one of the fastest collegiate athletes on the list? Or is he unattached?
IMO, high school records shouldn't count if you're racing kids above high school level. NCAA records shouldn't count if you are racing people above NCAA level. Nevermind the uniform stuff.
To me it's a similar line of thinking that women's record set in races with male pacers shouldn't count.
Laugh/criticize all you want about his age while still in college; Casey is likely now the 5th best US 10,000 runner, chasing Fisher, Kincaid, Young, Blanks.
At USAs this summer, if Graham chooses just the 5000 while Woody's age catches up with him, Casey could be going to Tokyo, WA rankings permitting.
Cannot call Casey the 5th best USA 10K runner until he proves he can kick with the big boys in a 28.xx race.
As of right now, I have Fisher, Nico, Woody, Blanks, Ahmed Muhmed, McGorty (hes made two teams ffs), Mantz (59:1x twice), Hunter (in a tactical race).
And should they choose to run it (which they likely won't), I think he'd struggle to deal with Wolfe and Murphy as well.
Hes about on par with Colley and Ford. Long way to go.
I’m not sure if anyone has pointed this out but a significant amount of the hoka pros have been wearing Nike spikes lately. It was pretty obvious here with Adrian wearing the dragonflys without the logo. And a few other pros at the meet. BUT the bigger story is habtom Samuel’s spikes aren’t world athletics approved. They are over 20mm in stack and I mean technically could get DQ’d for this. He was wearing the HOKA cieloflyx which has 25mm of stack.
Is it because the Hoka distance spike is now illegal (the wearing Nikes part)?
The best workout is a race. Run the 10k. Do some shakeout strides on Tuesday/Wed, race hard next weekend.
Makes a lot of sense. Get in shape to pick up the standard and rack up some $ at the first meet. With the new shoes, it's not like her cavles will be sore for a week.
Exactly. This is her livelihood, not just a sport. And honestly, when else will she get to make this sort of prize money? She has a GST contract, plus, she's guaranteed $40k even if she turns up and gets DFL every single race. No other track meet is paying her that sort of money, and she's not good enough to get major prize money on the DL circuit. This is the smartest move any US distance runner could make right now
after that 10K Elise Cranny now has to jump on a flight to Kingston to run a 3K and 5K next week. talk about putting your fitness to the test.
She’s racing too much. It was already becoming an issue indoors and she was inconsistent. She’s 28 yrs old and risks overtraining like she has in the past. It will also start to degrade her confidence too. There was no reason to go after AR record and just get World qualifier. She probably should not have run at all with 3/5 double coming next week. It all looks like potential unfocused disaster.
Hoka makes 2 legal spikes cielo x 3 LD and MD. Both with carbon plates and super foam. Maybe they aren’t as good as competitor spikes so hoka allowed athletes to wear what they wanted?
sorry I stand corrected, HOKA has one legal spike right now that’s not available to buy, according to the world athletics approved list. It’s the hoka cieloflyx elite (the update to the shoe Habtom was wearing)
Idk if you're on tik tok or if there's recent data on the amount of HS kids participating in track, but I can tell you from what I've seen, it seems the sport has absolutely exploded in popularity/participation. Pretty crazy tbh
I agree with you. What is causing this? Is it the kids that have just gone through high school, college and now Olympic cycle and all of it was out there on social media. Valby on the women’s side? Dominating the NCAAs and making the Olympics. Or a guy at an Ivy League school winning 2 xc titles and making the Olympic finals. Nico excelling at all levels? Lex and Leo YouTube?
Not sure where you guys are that you are seeing an increase in track participation. Around here track participation is way down over the last few years. Girls are flocking to flag football now. Between that and all the other club sports that convince the kids they can't do any other sports and the increased apathy of young people, track numbers are much lower around here.
Why is Woody on the list at this point? he hasnt run on the track since the Olympics right? and he just had a terrible HM
Woody's on here because he's been on every USA team for pretty much as long as I can remember.
Last year at the Trials he made the 10K team pretty easily, his spot on the team wasn't really in question for any of the 28 minutes.
His lack of racing isn't that concerning (Last year he raced a terrible 5K, ran the TEN, than ran the Trials)
He also ran 2 track races post Paris so idk where you're getting that from (won a 5K in 13:15, 4th in a bad Zurich 3K)
And a bad HM isn't really that big of a deal for a guy whose thing is closing in 54. Id be concerned if his plan was to break everyone from the front, but I don't see him having issues sitting in the middle of the pack and closing a 27:5x or a 28:x race in 54.