Cooper Teare thinks he's a miler, Jerry Schumacher thinks he's a 5000 guy. What do you think?

What’s strange is that you would think Jerry and Teare would have hashed this all out and be on the same page in terms of short term and long term plans BEFORE Cooper joined the group. Why would you join a group and then find out you and your coach don’t even agree about your primary event? How does that happen? It’s not like either Teare or Jerry were unknown as to their strengths and weaknesses before the agreed to partner.

Why can’t Cooper run both? For a 1500/5000 runner, the training for the 2 distances are identical. Jakob and El Guerrouj have proved it’s possible to simultaneously be the best in the world at both distances.

I think Jakob has proved the risk of trying for both. I think if he focused on the mile/1500 he would have better top end speed. He lost the 1500 because he wasn't capable of soloing a time that no one else could handle, Wightman HODL and was able to use his speed the last 100 to win. I think if Jakob was fully concentrating on the mile, his top end speed would have been better, and he would have held off Whightman.

Teare could maybe pull off this double successfully at the level of USAs, but I’m sure his ambitions are far greater. NO chance he’d be in the medal mix doubling at a global championship. He needs to carefully consider where he has the best chance of medalling on the world stage and devote himself to training towards that goal. I think the answer is the 5000, not the 1500 (can’t comment on the sc). If Teare thinks the answer is the 1500, great, go for it. Right now there are a lot of 3:28-3:29 guys. Can he be one of them?

If Cooper focuses on the 1500m, will some hill repeats and shorter intervals weaken him from a strength perspective? If he keeps doing some speed workouts, will maintaining high mileage, running longer intervals and tempos reduce his top-end speed? Farah won the WC 10000m just 20 days after his 3:28 PR.

What specific workout could Jakob do to increase his top-end speed while reducing his strength. Doesn’t it require maximum fitness to win WC and Olympic medals at 1500m.

Strange that you use Jakob as the example of the downside when the consensus is that he is the best distance track athlete in the world.

Pre Classic where Hocker easily beat Teare and if not for some poor positioning might’ve finished even further up?

You could argue that, but most people were already focused on USAs by then. And since Hocker beat Teare by a few meters and then spent most of June biking because he couldn't run, that doesn't convince me that he can compete with him this year.

It’s all about health^

That’s what I’d think. I think copper is a better 1500 guy if he’s training for 1500 and vice versa. His true talent is 3k.

He’s also pretty tall, which helps a lot in the steeple. I personally think he should focus on the faster event while he still has the speed, and then be a really good 3k-5k guy in a few years.

He's probably a better 5k guy, but making a 5k team now means finishing top 3 in a field with a 12:46, 12:51, and 12:54 guy (and maybe Nuguse too who can probably run in the 1240s). So he needs a 12:50 PR with kick to have good chances.

In the 1500m he's been a clear cut top 3 the last couple of years. Some more guys are coming up, but it seems like it would be easier for him to make the 1500m team.

Still, I think he should be going for the 5k. If he can make the team, he's a medal contender, capable of racing against 12:50 and below guys and utilizing his kick which is solid for the 5k. In the 1500m he perhaps makes more teams but has less of a shot at medals.

But then there is the final factor, the 1500m is a more prestigious event, so maybe he runs it even if it isn't his best event because he can make more money running 1500m races.

I don't know enough about him to know if he can steeple, but I think we'll be seeing some fast steeplers coming up now that it takes a low 12:50 PR to be a contender for the 5000m team. Few likely remember that a year or so before Solinsky's breakout season, there was a lot of talk of him moving to the steeple. I've always been curious how that would have worked out.

Athletes should follow their hearts, particularly for talents like Teare. If he thinks he is a miler then go for the 1500. It's his career not his coach's. Coaches help you reach YOUR goals but they should not decide your goals.

I don't buy that. The US trials are usually slow enough that Teare's 1500 speed could see him top-3 in the 5000. It's unlikely to be a sub-13 race so he could be in the mix. I could certainly see him beating Klecker in kick.

The other question is not just where can he best make the US team, but which event is he most likely to compete in the final at Worlds? A lot of good guys go out in the heats and semis of the 1500 (Hoare, Teferi, Gourley in 2022). If you're in Heat 2 of the 5000 semis, you usually just need to be top-8 or even top-10.

Well wise old man, if you listened to his interview it’s pretty clear how this happened. He spoke about how easy it is to join a group in terms of process. He didn’t have to sign anything. Basically just told JS he wanted to join. Those conversations all probably happened at the same time. He also talks about how easy it is to leave a group and go back to his old coach or whoever

This was exactly my thought: He'd probably finish higher at worlds in 5000 but has a better chance of making US team at 1500

I think Teare potential on 1500 and 5000 are :

- 3:29

- 12:45

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From this, you can deduce what you want.

^^^
This is why we can’t have nice things.

To the Wise Old Man's point though, even if you can join a group this quickly maybe you shouldn't. Especially with Bowerman's churn rate at the moment. I think the training is not actually bad for Teare, who seems to have a good deal of aerobic ability and has run relatively high mileage. He's faring much better than most first year Bowerman guys with a solid 3K and a mile that with context (1 second+ too fast first 400) was pretty good. It would've behooved him to hash out his event focus beforehand, though if this is to become something adversarial with Jerry. It doesn't seem like it's going to get to the point, but he should push Jerry to let him race 3+ 1500/miles before USAs to demonstrate how fit/competitive he is there, even if Jerry just wants him to run the Bowerman mile and one 5K.

Jerry Shumacher would tell you that Usain Bolt is a 5000/10000 guy.