Hocker 13:09 in Sweden - should he just stick to 1500?

It's exactly because he has a somewhat compromised aerobic system that he ran this race. He said in an interview that he wants to double in the 15/5, but because of Grand Slam he was forced to train for pure speed all spring. He had no real idea of where is 5k fitness was before today, so he jumped in this race. Now that he knows, he can spend the summer building up for summer finals. Obviously, the US 5k team will be incredibly hard to make, but we're jumping the gun on whether he should just give up on the whole thought process.

My thoughts: Cole has run 3 GST 1500s that were won in pedestrian 3:34/3:35 times and he was beaten in each race (4th, 3rd, and 2nd, respectively). As for the 800m, before the 1st GST, he was quoted as saying he thought his 1500 leg speed would transfer nicely down to the 800m. Then he got soundly beaten in each 800m and even though he set a PR in the last meet, it was a ho-hum 1:45xx. Think he was looking for a confidence booster on his race fitness level with this 5000m race today. He has repeatedly said his 1500m draws off his stregth in the 5000m. Cole ran a 12:58 5000 last May one month before the Olympic trials. Today, he was 11 seconds slower. Jet lag, bad race, etc? Who knows. But it's a data point that he and his coach will no doubt review and then make any training adjustments, if necessary.

I'm kind of curious why he is so insistent on doing the 5k. There are too many guys ahead of him to have a decent shot at a medal. His hope I guess is that the rounds and final will be slow and he can steal the race with his kick, but I don't see these cats letting the 5k final in Tokyo go over 13:05. Even if they crank it out from say 1600 out, I doubt Cole will be able to maintain contact. These guys seem just too strong for him.

And that is all if he is able to beat Fisher, Blanks, Nur, Young, his own teammate Teare, Wolfe, Strand, and any wild card in a straight final 5k at USAs. I doubt those guys would let the race go slow in a straight final with nothing to lose when some of them might still need the standard. The odds are stacked to the sky for Cole to make the 5k team. He needs to reassess or he may jeopardize his chances in the 1500. His training and focus seems out of wack.

Most people get the impression that kick is dictated by your shorter distances PR or speed, but it has always been your aerobic capacity and endurance. If you don't have the endurance to access your speed at the bell, it doesn't matter how fast you are at shorter distances.

And no one would care about him 10 years from now if he retires as a one hit wonder. And no one definitely will care that he won a us championship or ncaa championship.

And Hocker winning a US championship is nothing special. Plenty of Americans won a US championship.

You’re really doing the if “you ain’t first your last” thing in a sport that awards medals to the top 3 and references the podium in races. Dumb. Centro was uncompetitive in DL 1500s, whereas we’ve seen Hocker seemingly be so, and we’ve still got Pre, and probably 2-3 others this year to see.

Um I'm pretty sure Cole has been saying the opposite, that all season he has neglected 800m training for building his 5000m endurance base.

He said pre-race for the 5000m that "he wasn't here for fun, I'm here to run fast", so that is an indication of where his training focus has been.

But he didn't run well, despite a fast race setup for him on a silver platter by Almgren.

anyway, in response to the OP. It depends what you mean by 'sticking to 1500" If by that you mean it should be what his focus is, then absolutely. If by that you mean he should only run the 1500 without dabbling in longer (or shorter) distances then I beg to differ. I think with proper periodization it would do him more good than solely focusing on the 1500. Didn't his breakthrough come after he broke 13 in the 5k?

And Hocker is a gamer, he would not peak until the WC comes. The best is yet to come.

Yes I agree. He was expecting more. But I think he also thought he was going to make the 5K team last year. Clearly he can run a great 3k but nearly every 1500 guy can do that. A 5,000 is different.

I mean he wasn't terrible, but yeh it could also be he just hasn't figured out how to peak for or manage these in season races properly.

Or he’s just in worse shape now. Or he had a minor injury. Or he felt tired. Or he had a bad day mentally. Or he ate something that disagreed with him.

There’s a million reasons more likely than “indoor times are bogus”

lets face it, Hocker is great and won the race of the century, but he's not at the level of those guys you mentioned. The closest ones to them are a certain Norwegian and a certain retired British (who is pretty much universally hated on this board btw).

I agree with high school xc coach that he's no American Ingrebrisen. In fact, he's more like Kerr, who almost always runs his best race in a championship final, but never churnning out great performances week in week out like Jakob. And the guys you mentioned (and Jakob) are definitely outliers, even among the top.

My guess is Hocker has seen how the global championship 5k finals have played out recently, and he probably thinks he can do well in that type of race. Remember, none of the last three global championship 5k finals have been run in under 13:09, and that's been with Jakob in the field! The Ethiopians have not pushed the pace in those races the way we've expected them to do.

As for Hocker's training and focus, the video interview linked below answers that question. He says his training at the elite level has always been 1500-5k, and nothing's really changed. He also makes the good point that the schedule at this year's U.S. championships has less rounds across the two events than last year's Olympic Trials (only two rounds of the 1500m and one round of the 5k, compared to three and two respectively last year), so that will be less wear and tear on his legs.

In both the U.S. championships and the world championships, the 5k is scheduled after the 1500m, so as long as he can survive the U.S. championships without getting injured from doing 3 races in 4 days, competing in the 5k won't have an adverse effect on his 1500m.

Ridiculous take and there’s so many historical examples to the contrary it’s almost not worth mentioning. Nobody remembers Billy Mills? Bob Schul? Noah Ngeny? Dave Wottle? You must be new to the sport.

Another thing to consider is that Hocker surely wants to improve his 1500m time, perhaps thinking he can break the WR in his career. It seems likely that he's already tapped out on the speed side of things and is looking at the best way to improve his overall performance. There's more to be gained by getting stronger at the 5000m. So he's focusing on improving there.

Since he's already pretty good at 5000m, where else would he get enough competition to push his 5000m time down other than DL races and the US Championships? On top of that, maybe he gets lucky and is in a slow WC final, giving him a great shot at medaling or winning with his kick.

And finally, one day he will start to lose speed and no longer be medal competitive in the 1500m. Since our 3rd guy was 5th in the Olympics, that means also not being competitive for making team USA. So he probably wants to keep the 5000m in his pocket for the future.

Everything Hocker is doing makes perfect sense to me.

I tend to think the same - that he is working on his 5k to gain strength for --in his dreams-- breaking the mile/1500 WR and to just be the best, as he often says. I think he's also finding inspiration from Jingy.

They made their marks when talent wasn't as flooded as it is today. Big difference. We have a high schooler running a sub 4 mile almost every year now. It would be easy to name every high school sub 4 miler if this was 2010.

Hocker won't be remembered as much now because the talent pool or at least the times are a lot deeper and more commonplace now. You need more than one great moment to really be memorable in today's running climate.