Superspikes barely affect Mile/1500m times, get real. It’s the wavelights and pacing.
The slower you go, the more impact. Maybe there isn’t a huge impact (.25-.75s in a 1500) at 55s/400m pace, but at 60s pace it could be a second or more. Women run the 1500 at paces similar to men in the 5000, where everyone credits the spikes for cutting down 1-2 seconds per kilometer.
I think pacing here could get Faith to 4:04 and perhaps ever 4:03 high. I don’t see sub-4, and I think 4:05 is most likely.
IS this on the track? On the road? Male pacers? Legal shoes? I assume this won't be a öfficial WR"like breaking 2
Nike's press release says they will run it in the same stadium where the Paris DL is so it's on the track.
The press release doesn't say but of course they are going to have male pacers (or I guess they could have women pacers jumping in and out but it seems easier to just use men the whole time).
I'm assuming they'll use a v formation and have the pacers in front and back of her. So I'm wondering if maybe she'll run out in lane 5 or something or if they'll have half of them run on the inside of lane 1.
When she ran her 1500 WR, she had good pacing for 2:11. Here she'll get it the whole way. So let's subtract 2 more seconds for extra 800 pacing and then an extra second for V formation. Hell make it two. So let's give her 4 more seconds for the V formation the whole way.
That's 4:03. She's still a long way from sub-4.
I don't think Faith is remotel fast enough to break 4:00. To break 4:00, you need to be alike a 1:53 800 runner at the worst.
Seriously, what’s going on? Faith must know what she’s capable of running or is she delusional? What time would she need to run for this not to be nothing more than an embarrassing stunt? She’s a goat, so is she really willing to be humiliated? I’m not understanding what she and her people are thinking? They must believe she can get close. Right? Like you’d think they would have done not just some computer simulations, but some actual partial dry runs to generate data.
Would love to see her paced/surrounded by Nike superstars. Have Jakob lead and Kipchoge run behind her. Can Kipchoge break 4? Maybe not. That’s an interesting question, Kipchoge v Faith at 1500. Who wins today??
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I’m assuming there’ll be male pacers so Nike can just have them run the full mile with her. I’m guessing they’ll recruit some big names. Kipchoge’s pacer group for INEOS was practically a who’s who of legends. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ingebrigtsen, Fisher, or Hocker in there for some extra star power.
But for such a short race, and at such a slow (comparatively) pace for women vs men, you don't need hard hitters at all. Basically any pro male pacer can do the job. And you probably want a pro pacer rather than a pro racer since the pacer will ideally know more about the finer details.
For the Sub 2, they needed a ton of the upper tier of middle distance runners to be able to hold the needed pace for the needed time otherwise they would have needed to do more swaps sooner.
These events actually damage the credibility of running sports.
There are WAY TOO MANY people who think that the WR in marathon is under two hours and are downplaying real results in real marathons under real conditions.
Good for Nike, bad for the sports and the athletes.
Does anyone think Jakob Ingebrigtsen could take 6-7 seconds off his mile or 1500 PR if you gave him slightly better shoes and a rotating crew of pacers? I doubt it. Now for Kipyegon, it's a little bit easier because you could have the same pacers the whole time and wouldn't need to switch people out. But it's still roughly as difficult.
A women's sub-4 mile would be something like a man running sub-3:20 in the 1500. It's not happening anytime soon unless you want to run downhill.
Two thoughts . The first that jumped into my head was:
1) Is today April 1st?
Then after a few minutes of thought and a text from weldon:
2) Nike wouldn’t do this to totally embarrass her so they must have something up their sleeve. How ridiculous are the shoes going to be?
Superspikes barely affect Mile/1500m times, get real. It’s the wavelights and pacing.
Is that why no milers wear them? That makes sense now. Always wondered why every pro, collegiate, and HS mile runner wasn’t shelling out $200 for a pair of spikes that do nothing. Makes sense now. Thanks for clarifying.
Even if she breaks 4:00 it’s possible she’d struggle to break 4:05 in a World Athletics Compliant race. A 31 year old isn’t finding 7 seconds from fitness, technology and bending the rules are going to be doing the heavy lifting.
Also wondering if the new Feldspar track surface is going to be used here. I’m skeptical of their claims, but I wouldn’t be surprised if juicing the compliance of the track could make the last % difference.
If you read this paper you will see that the calculations and impact of “drafting effectiveness” are based on remarkably scant experimental data, none it seems on actual humans running on a track.
2) Nike wouldn’t do this to totally embarrass her so they must have something up their sleeve. How ridiculous are the shoes going to be?
Maybe Nike will pull a Rupp and have her wear breath-rite strips, or whip out the "allergy" flare up card, or the track will be too (soft/hard/slow, insert any lame excuse). This way any embarrassment can be spread around and shared equally when it doesn't (because it won't) happen.
