I have the games dvr'd. I predict she doesn't win. I bet it's a repeat for the current champion.
I have the games dvr'd. I predict she doesn't win. I bet it's a repeat for the current champion.
Armstrongleave wrote:
John Wesley Harding wrote:
Is this what you call “eating crow”? Talk about dissatisfying.
Well, my friend, I came back, didn’t I? Which is way more than most here would own up to.
But, yeah, there literally is no finish time to evaluate. We all made predictions assuming she would finish (or, I guess, trip in the second lap) and she didn’t.
She decided to actually race and go for a top finish rather than more conservatively hit optimal pacing for a PR. She was in 5th place with 400 to go in a solid time. At some point about 200m later, she stepped off. She’s hardly the first person to blow up running at a pace that exceeded her present ability.
If she goes out in 67, 2:14, and 3:20, instead of 66, 2:10, and 3:16, who knows? But she ran for the front and that had consequences. So kudos to her for stepping up to a challenge and going for it but it clearly didn’t work.
She patently wasn’t running literally all-out for 1200 with the intent to step off or she would not have run another lap beyond that (duh!). And with what she did show today and her having at least 4 seconds over any other woman in today’s 800 for her 400 speed, it is absurd to claim she was scared to race an 800 that was predictably slow.
She put her body in uncharted territory and didn’t make it. It was entertaining. And, yeah, I’ll stick with tantalizing but unsatisfying.
Great post. I knew the naysayers would be in full force if she failed, but it's great to see her at least give it a go, rather than run conservatively.
People calling out on her DNF might as well have said the same thing about Bekele. I bet they called him a 2:03 marathoner and thought it's the best he could muster before he dropped a 2:01. lol
ContextisKing wrote:
It's amazing that you have no clue that you're an absolute idiot. She didn't finish the race. Stop defending her and saying she could have ran a great time. She ran all out and couldn't finish. You're a fool if you think this is a good result that shows that she could beat anyone in this race who finished. She is a 438 miler. No more
It would help me if you could tell me where I said 'she could beat anyone in this race". I just said she clearly had 4:25 in her if you analyze the race carefully.
But how can she be so badly prepared by coach or own knowledge to not run more defensively?
After the DNF I seriously doubt 4:25 but 4:28 *might* have been possible with more defensive pacing. Either she was very naive or kidding herself that she could really run 4:22-23.
Sledge_Hammer wrote:
Armstrongleave wrote:
Well, my friend, I came back, didn’t I? Which is way more than most here would own up to.
But, yeah, there literally is no finish time to evaluate. We all made predictions assuming she would finish (or, I guess, trip in the second lap) and she didn’t.
She decided to actually race and go for a top finish rather than more conservatively hit optimal pacing for a PR. She was in 5th place with 400 to go in a solid time. At some point about 200m later, she stepped off. She’s hardly the first person to blow up running at a pace that exceeded her present ability.
If she goes out in 67, 2:14, and 3:20, instead of 66, 2:10, and 3:16, who knows? But she ran for the front and that had consequences. So kudos to her for stepping up to a challenge and going for it but it clearly didn’t work.
She patently wasn’t running literally all-out for 1200 with the intent to step off or she would not have run another lap beyond that (duh!). And with what she did show today and her having at least 4 seconds over any other woman in today’s 800 for her 400 speed, it is absurd to claim she was scared to race an 800 that was predictably slow.
She put her body in uncharted territory and didn’t make it. It was entertaining. And, yeah, I’ll stick with tantalizing but unsatisfying.
Great post. I knew the naysayers would be in full force if she failed, but it's great to see her at least give it a go, rather than run conservatively.
People calling out on her DNF might as well have said the same thing about Bekele. I bet they called him a 2:03 marathoner and thought it's the best he could muster before he dropped a 2:01. lol
Ha! Lots of internet knuckle-draggers calling Bekele a washed up has-been soiled their shorts that morning watching him approach the finish line ever so close to Kipchoge’s record.
Anyone who thinks that splits and pacing strategy don’t matter is an idiot. If Purrier went out in 63 and 2:06, she’s toast, too. But she knows her ability and has a lot of mile-specific callousing in her body given that she’s currently training as a miler and got tons of experience racing against the best in big-time races. Mu is far from either of those things and still was a second back and in the mix with 400 to go. She made a decision to go for something big and got in over her head. A more conservative pacing strategy certainly gives a different result. But what that would have been is debatable.
I was highly entertained if unsatisfied in the end. But definitely left hoping that more big-time athletes would race more often and sometimes outside their comfort zones. The world is more interesting and fun when they do.
At any rate, I have had my semi-annual fill of LRC knuckleheads who think bodies are static non-adaptable non-trainable entities, that race performances can be adequately interpreted with no context, and other absurdities, so I’m bowing out for a few months. Peace all!
With all due respect, the judges score this round as Armstronglivs gets the win.
Armstrongleave wrote:
You are identifying yourself wrote:
Only a small number of posters bring up D. Brazier and his down hill 400m splits. Unless 400m split is first leg, it doesn't count. D. Brazier is not a 400m/800m guy. D. Brazier is not an elite 800m/1500m guy. D. Brazier is an 800m specialist. I wish posters would leave him alone to specialize in 800m. D. Brazier, is Ivo van Damme 2.0. D. Brazier could earn a 1500m Olympic &/or W.C. medal if 1200m were to split slower than 3:01.5. I wish A. Mu the best. I doubt she will race faster than 4:30 one mile. Did Europeans in 20th Century try to make their star female 800m runners 1500m runners? Usually not. Can posters appreciate A. Mu for being a legit 400m & 800m athlete?
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Repeat after me: block start times do not matter when we’re talking about one’s speed for 800 and above.
All that matters is how fast you can go once in motion. Hence, a flying start 400 time is far more relevant in assessing a middle-distance athlete’s long sprinting ability since it removes the technical element of block starts.
Starting from blocks is a highly technical skill that sprinters spend hundreds of hours working on each year.
No one in the 800 or mile uses blocks.
Brazier doesn’t practice block starts for the vast majority of any year. He doesn’t even race the open 400 very often so has very little experience with it in the pro setting. When he does, including his current official indoor PB, it is pretty much always an early season opener (as with today). And racing the 400 indoors is even more complicated and technical because you have the additional factor of tactics with multiple laps, changing lanes, pole position, etc.
(See last year’s NCAA Indoor 400, the only race Mu lost the entire season. She didn’t get pole position at 200 and then ended up running significantly extra distance in lane 2 for the entire race and finished with a time—51.03–that didn’t come close to reflecting her actual 400 fitness that day. This was confirmed when she soon after ran the fastest indoor relay split of all time in 49.54 and absolutely destroyed the woman who beat her in the open despite being behind at the relay exchange.)
So here’s the rub: if you think that an early season, block start, lane-changing, indoor two lap 400 tells you the full measure of what Brazier or anyone else could run for 400m outdoors in a single-lane, flying start, single lane race when fully sharp and peaked, then you’ve fundamentally disqualified yourself from the discussion. And certainly from coaching or advising any level of runner.
But, you know, all of you saying that Brazier is just an 800 specialist who lacks world-class 400 speed and could never be competitive in global 1500s have convinced me.
I mean, when most pure 800 specialists were 17, they probably also ran 15:25 for a XC 5K (in Michigan conditions) beating the time put up the same day by a guy (Morgan Beadlescomb) who just finished 5th at NCAA XC for a 10K.
They probably also later ran a 1500 in 3:35 (off of 30 miles per week training!) closing in 38 flat for 300 and in 25 flat for 200. And then walked off the track like it was nothing.
I mean. those guys are a dime a dozen!
A world-class 1500 coach would have to be a TOTAL IDIOT to want to coach a Donovan Brazier who wanted to go all-in on the 1500!!!
What a waste of time!!!
I mean it is SO OBVIOUS that there is NOTHING there to work with!!!
And as all of us know, if you undertook the best mile-specific training in the world for a year or two it absolutely wouldn’t work!!!
Bodies don’t change and can’t adapt to new stimuli!!! They have to fit into one of three (and ONLY three!) categories and then can never ever change!!!
There are NO training adaptations that could be produced by taking a guy who runs 30 miles a week and “long runs” of 8 miles and gradually increasing his volume and changing the inputs of his training!!!
My declaration that Brazier is just an 800 meter specialist makes it so!!!
From Gault:
“He is impossibly talented. As a high schooler, Brazier displayed unthinkable range, running 15:25 for 5,000 meters in cross country and splitting sub-46 on the 4×400 relay. Only eight Americans, period, have ever run faster for 800 meters than what Brazier ran as a 19-year-old college freshman…”
https://www.letsrun.com/2016/12/growing-pains-donavan-brazier-went-breaking-50-year-old-ncaa-record-bombing-olympic-trials-21-days-later/
Let me know when he beats 46.91.
Tommy Smith's shades wrote:
With all due respect, the judges score this round as Armstronglivs gets the win.
I did expect her to finish. After all, that's what Olympic champions generally do if they aren't injured. So far she remains a (great) 400/800 specialist with a 4.38 mile pr. But racing a longer distance than her specialty is a lot harder than she apparently realised.
Armstrongleave wrote:
Sledge_Hammer wrote:
Great post. I knew the naysayers would be in full force if she failed, but it's great to see her at least give it a go, rather than run conservatively.
People calling out on her DNF might as well have said the same thing about Bekele. I bet they called him a 2:03 marathoner and thought it's the best he could muster before he dropped a 2:01. lol
Ha! Lots of internet knuckle-draggers calling Bekele a washed up has-been soiled their shorts that morning watching him approach the finish line ever so close to Kipchoge’s record.
Anyone who thinks that splits and pacing strategy don’t matter is an idiot. If Purrier went out in 63 and 2:06, she’s toast, too. But she knows her ability and has a lot of mile-specific callousing in her body given that she’s currently training as a miler and got tons of experience racing against the best in big-time races. Mu is far from either of those things and still was a second back and in the mix with 400 to go. She made a decision to go for something big and got in over her head. A more conservative pacing strategy certainly gives a different result. But what that would have been is debatable.
I was highly entertained if unsatisfied in the end. But definitely left hoping that more big-time athletes would race more often and sometimes outside their comfort zones. The world is more interesting and fun when they do.
At any rate, I have had my semi-annual fill of LRC knuckleheads who think bodies are static non-adaptable non-trainable entities, that race performances can be adequately interpreted with no context, and other absurdities, so I’m bowing out for a few months. Peace all!
I'm not sure if that's what you call "bowing out gracefully".
Armstronglivs wrote:
Tommy Smith's shades wrote:
With all due respect, the judges score this round as Armstronglivs gets the win.
I did expect her to finish. After all, that's what Olympic champions generally do if they aren't injured. So far she remains a (great) 400/800 specialist with a 4.38 mile pr. But racing a longer distance than her specialty is a lot harder than she apparently realised.
Folks can laugh or snicker all they want and think they’re so smart. But consider the following.
Only 6 American women EVER under the age of 20 have run sub-4:10 for 1500m.
The NCAA 1500m championship in 2021 was won in a time of 4:08.53.
Mu just ran 1409m in 3:50 (4:22 mile pace).
91 more meters in 18 seconds (basically, 5:20 mile pace) and she runs faster than last year’s NCAA champ and becomes the 4th fastest American woman ever under the age of 20.
There is LITERALLY no other 19-year old American woman alive right now who can do what Mu just did today for 1409 meters. (If you think I’m wrong, post the name and fastest 1500 or mile time of another 19 year old or younger American woman.)
And that comes 5 months after running 48.32 for 400 meters and without the 1500 training that every other woman on the list had.
Or maybe she was so spent that she was starting to red line. She was visibly fading after trying to run with the front group, which suggests that the pace caught up with her. It was obviously bad enough that she DNF. Chances are the hypothetical last lap would have been very slow. You cannot just extrapolate a 1500 time when a runner blows up.
astro wrote:
Or maybe she was so spent that she was starting to red line. She was visibly fading after trying to run with the front group, which suggests that the pace caught up with her. It was obviously bad enough that she DNF. Chances are the hypothetical last lap would have been very slow. You cannot just extrapolate a 1500 time when a runner blows up.
Well, sure. Today that may have been the case. Or it may have just been she panicked when all the unfamiliar alarm bells started going off and prematurely shut it down. According to some accounts, she actually ran about 30 meters into the final lap before stopping and may have only been 60 meters shy of a 1500. (Remember that at that point she only needed another half lap for that, not a full lap.)
But all of that misses the two big points of my post.
(1) There still is not a single other American woman under the age of 20 who could reach 1409 meters as fast as she actually did today in trying to run a full mile. No other 400/800 runner. No other 800 specialist. And not even another fabled 800/1500 specialist. (And, to cover all bases, no 1500/3K/5K woman.)
That seems pretty impressive and notable to me. If it doesn’t impress you, I really don’t know what you’re doing here.
(2) Even if she could not have under any circumstances ran another 60-91 meters at 5:20 pace TODAY, it seems pretty obvious that if she can do that in January off of 400/800 training that she could manage to get that final 91 meters in check before turning 20 and (if hypothetically still eligible) NCAA Outdoors if she trained like a miler between now and then and got more race experience at the distance.
To dispute (1), provide names and times.
To dispute (2), deny the fundamental tenets of distance coaching and training adaptations.
Off the top of my head, most top 1500m runners are excellent to descent in distances above 1500m. Hicham (5000m), Dibaba (5000m), Wang Junxia (3k, 5k 10k), Lagat (5000m), Kiprop (World junior cross country champ), Kipyegon (2 world junior cross country golds plus 6th in senior plus 14:31 5k), Morceli (3k, 5k), Ingebritsen ( 5k, cross country), Aouita (3k, 5k), Simpson (steeplechase). A good number of these are competitive in the 800m but would get smoked in the 400m. Being great at 400m and 1500m is very difficult. Can only think of Semenya as one of very few to be competitive in both.
This is old news and had been rehearsed ad nauseam further above in this thread. The division into (speed based) 400-800m runners, 800-1500m runners and strength-based 1500-5000m runners has been a cliché for ages. Sure, there are exceptions, but overall it is quite reliable. What has changed a bit in the last decades is that the 800m, especially with the deeper fields of men, have become a specialty of their own. Now Mu is already one of the top 3 400/800m females in history which should be an argument for her to be not great at 1500/mile but people wanted her to be even more of an exception, not only one of the best females in two neighboring distances but maybe the most exceptional runner in t&f history, namely excelling both in 400 and 1500/mile, something nobody has done before. I think Harbig was the last world class in 400-1000m and he was already much weaker in the 1500m. But the modern era 1000m best list is dominated by 800+1500m runners.
I can see Mu running a world class 1000m eventually, although one should keep in mind that Semenya could not break that WR (set by a 1500m runner and Kipyegon came closest among active runners)
Armstrongleave wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
I did expect her to finish. After all, that's what Olympic champions generally do if they aren't injured. So far she remains a (great) 400/800 specialist with a 4.38 mile pr. But racing a longer distance than her specialty is a lot harder than she apparently realised.
Folks can laugh or snicker all they want and think they’re so smart. But consider the following.
Only 6 American women EVER under the age of 20 have run sub-4:10 for 1500m.
The NCAA 1500m championship in 2021 was won in a time of 4:08.53.
Mu just ran 1409m in 3:50 (4:22 mile pace).
91 more meters in 18 seconds (basically, 5:20 mile pace) and she runs faster than last year’s NCAA champ and becomes the 4th fastest American woman ever under the age of 20.
There is LITERALLY no other 19-year old American woman alive right now who can do what Mu just did today for 1409 meters. (If you think I’m wrong, post the name and fastest 1500 or mile time of another 19 year old or younger American woman.)
And that comes 5 months after running 48.32 for 400 meters and without the 1500 training that every other woman on the list had.
One thing that a lot of other young runners would have over her is they can run the full distance. In which case they would all have beaten her.
Mu has just shown what anyone should know - she is a 400/800 runner. She is not and never will be a miler.
[quote]industrial wrote:
I’d predict her running something in the 4:22-4:24 range, I think that you are underestimating her aerobic capabilities quite a bit. Like an earlier commenter made for comparison, Raevyn Rogers has run a 4:29 mile. Ajee has run a 4:05, equivalent to about a 4:23 or so.[
DNF'D--You have great insight.
Clayton Murphy ran 4:05. Do you think that is the best he will run this year? One race silly.
Starts to sound like a Coe type. A 46.xx 400m/45.xx relay runner, who ran very respectable x-country in high-school.
Coe might be a little stronger aerobically, given his road victories over very strong opposition - McLeod, Spedding, Coughlan (breaking Foster's race-record for 4 miles) and (admittedly not yet peak) Alberto Cova.