Deena Kastor Calls Out Bates and D’Amato

That was in 2007 when Boston was run during a Nor’easter. Then men’s winning time was 2:14 that day. Obviously you didn’t know this.

Well said. We all can be guilty of jumping to conclusions without having all the information.

But Bates didn't crash and burn. She ran 33:30ish for the first 10K, about the same for the second 10K, and was 70:50 at halfway en route to finishing in 2:24:00. At no point was she running like someone in 2:18/2:19 shape. Which is fine. But it's not what she wanted everyone to think two days before the race. And if she was hampered by tendinopathy, that didn't develop between Friday's press conference and Sunday's first mile.

You just confirmed what I said, and I remembered it from her autobiography where she said exactly that. The only reason why I added it is to say as to why she didn't announce before the Olympics that she was injured. Her foot broke during the race, and she gave some vitamin D deficiency reason for it.

Except its not true. Television has moved to ONLY talking about times, which is one of the main reasons that pacers are everywhere because no one (except us) wants to watch a real competition. The TV heads have decided that the general public can only get behind marathons if they use easy-to-comprehend numbers as the selling point.

So, everything is set up to be a WORLD RECORD attempt when there are plenty of running fans that would love to see a great race. And, frankly, thats one of the reasons I think that we all enjouy the Worlds or Olympics: no pacers. Racers who have to make decisions on who takes it out, who leads, who sits back. But the NFL decided long ago that casual fans HATE tight defensive games that are won 12-9 with field goals, so they've made the rules to truly favor the offense. Same thing essentially.

This is mostly true, although Boston + NYC are the exception. No one talks about world records or AR there because they aren't fast courses and the racing tends to be more championship style. These races are much more interesting to watch due to tactics and navigating a challenging course, but I personally think it's still fun to see how fast people can run with pacers on a fast course. Although the coverage when Sisson got the AR at Chicago was embarrassing.. we didn't see her at all until the finish and even then the announcers seemed confused if she got the record.

Re Bates- I have to admit I have to eat my words a bit. In my experience my Coros race predictor data is extremely reliable, and the fact she was able to hang with Obiri in Boston until mile 25, had me thinking she is actually capable of running 2:18-2:19. I still do think she probably hasn't had a marathon perfectly come together since that Boston performance, but I would rather her just admit to not having the day she wanted than blame her hamstring tendinopathy that wasn't mentioned prior to the race.

Yep. My apologies. There is truth to what you said, which wasn't the relevant point you were making anyhow.

This is part of the reason I get so frustrated that only the lead pack of men/women are ever shown during the broadcasts of these races. It brings the attention only to the best time, rather than showing some people duking it out a few minutes behind the leader.

Obviously, covering the marathon live is a logistical nightmare, but could we not have an extra camera showing the top Americans? (It’s 2024, and youtubers get better coverage of their races often times with cameramen following along on ebikes than we get from a major sports broadcasting company.)

I can understand why it would be annoying at this point that Bates keeps hyping a 2:18/2:19/AR type time. Especially if I were Emily Sisson, I’d probably be rolling my eyes.

In D’Amato’s case, I gotta say I can’t fault her for not disclosing a foot problem that just popped up at the end of her training cycle, or for saying she’s “not ruling out” an AR type run. Even if you really wanted to see her run well, you’re 100,000 times less invested in it than she is, and I understand why she’d be playing psychological games with herself going into the race. By keeping mum on the foot concern she’s trying to not speak it into existence while praying for the best, and by “not ruling out” a PR she’s, well, doing exactly that: keeping the door open to having the race of her life. It’s easy to criticize after the fact, but I can relate to what she was doing as should other competitors with even the most basic running neuroses.

Yeah - I’m not so sure about lumping them together. I think Keira has been a bit more honest and explained more. I think she only felt tightness in her foot on one of her last runs so was hoping it was nothing. The issue is that she’s had quite a few races recently where she’s had to drop out for some reason. In fact it’s been a while since she had a good race..

Whereas for Emma ‘dealing with hamstring and glute tendinopathty’ sounds like an ongoing thing and something that she knew could affect her race. Maybe she hoped it wouldn’t. But it seems like she was off pace from the start. And then says those issues were why ‘they’ ‘couldn’t go as big as ‘they’ wanted’. Well why say you had a great build up and were in that kind of shape then?

She is a coward to stay away from the obvious doping going on....pick on the Americans is a easy way out!

Think about what you just said.If Deena was the best for a decade that means the others were worst and sucked !

Other than my utter lack of training and talent, I too am in condition for a PR.

I don't care that she ran a 2:35 at Boston which is awesome..the woman ran a 2:19:36 with non-super shoes. GTFOOH with that disrespectful "she only ran a 2:35 at Boston". Do you even know how fast and fit a man OR a woman needs to be to even drop a 2:35? GTFOOH.

Lindsay Flanagan, not Shalane. I think her and Sullivan are the future...

Can someone say exactly what the quote was calling Bates and D'Amato out?

Emma’s first race recap is out. She explains why she says she talked about 2.18. She lists all her times for previous marathons.

She also says she picked up the tendindopathy at the Falmouth 10k.

I don’t know, I still think she would have been better off not making claims that she knew were most likely out of reach.

Other marathoners don’t do this. They may say ‘I would really like to go sub 2.22 or something realistic. Then a 2.24 doesn’t look too far off and you don’t have all these expectations on you.

I like that Lindsay said before the race ‘we were a little uncertain of fitness coming in to this race and my main goal was to compete well and enjoy it’. So no time claims or goals

Then she runs a 71 second PR after only coming back from injury in June. Sometimes cross training is good for these women who I think find it hard to walk that line between being in your best shape and overtraining.

I agree. By putting out this "reaching for the stars" prediction, she is also only putting unnecessary pressure on herself. Some people may be able to feed positively off of doing this sort of thing, but if you're over-reaching, I don't see how it is helpful.