This Faith Kipyegon thing illustrates something that really bothers me with how women are marketed to/treated in general

If the strawman caricature of kneebending had relevance then Id agree with you.

You are totally wrong about a woman never breaking 4. Not saying it will be in our lifetimes or involve FK but statistically ...

WR now 4:06.9...lets take rojos timing since hes channeling some type of inner vento^ OK

So 7.0 sec to be cut. Now, how long will that take?

Well when was the record 4:14.0? Sometime between Paula Ivan (89) and Svetlana Masterkova (96). Lets take a midpoint year say 92. So it has taken about 33 years to take the 7sec down from 4:14 to 4:07. Linear prediction then suggests ~33 years more to sub-4, therefore AROUND THE YEAR 2058.

Now that is of course a rough estimate. Some will say FJ is more of an outlier than previous WR holders therefore overestimates improvement potential...others would say she was not ideally paced and can go 4:04 right now if the splits deliver 2:02 instead of 2:00 at 800 which means improvement potential is underestimated if the gap is only 4.0 and not 7.0 sec... These are counterbalanced arguments....so lets leave it as is...

I personally wont be around to see this given average life expectancy but I have zero doubt it will happen eventually.

And yes...obviously we will get a sub-19 M200, sub-43 M400 and sub 1:40 M800 before W.sub-4 happens.

I felt all the male pacers were unnecessary. Why couldn't they just of done 1 in front and 1 beside her but Faith had to feel overwhelmed with all the elite men around her unless this is how she trains (which I doubt). No knock on the pacers because we know this was a job for them. I also think the 2 female runners should of been able to complete the race if they wanted. It was weird how they were just there for a bit and then stepped off.

I feel Faith had more of a chance at doing this 2-3 years ago when she set her world record. Maybe it will happen one day but for now it seems far away and that's okay.

If you watched the documentary you wouldn't be asking any of these questions, fwiw. Find it on YouTube. Yes, she does train daily in big groups of elite male runners.

Ummm because the science said this number and formation of pacers was far better at creating a bubble of little wind resistance around Faith? Use your brain dude. Good thing you’re not in charge.

this thread is absolutely worthless without the opinions and perspectives of women. But the men who run and visit this site make it so unwelcome for women. That’s why this site has the reputation it does. It’s sad, really, when it could actually be good for and unite the sport but instead serves the interests of skinny white straight guys only.

Somewhat of aside, but why didn’t they do this on a weekend day?

I think many posters fail to realize how much of a 'sport expert' bubble they are in. Most of the world doesn't have a clue what the difference is between a 4:06 and a sub 4. This happens all the time: people ask me what my time was in the mile and I say 4:11, then they say "oh my god that's so crazy you almost broke 4"...

After the race the headlines say "Faith doesn't run sub 4, goes 4:06 in a new women's world record" and almost every normal person will say, "Wow, world record! And only 6 seconds off sub 4, she was so close, I bet she can do it next time." Then they move on with their lives because they don't care.

Posters are outraged by Nike for 'pulling this stunt,' but they don't realize how most of the world thinks this was a really good try and actually won't remember that it even happened 1 week from now.

A woman, and a biological one at that, will run a sub 4 mile. Probably not in 2025 or even this decade, but it will happen someday.

For decades, many people said a man, or any human, will not run a sub 4 mile. Period.

As far a science knows, women have no biological barriers to prevent that. (For example, humans will eventually reach the point of a max high jump because of the stress on bones would cause them to break, unless human bones evolve to be stronger in future generations)

It was a great effort, nothing she should be ashamed of. Going from 4:07 to 4:00 is a big ask, going into it I doubted she could do it, but I'm not going to criticize her, or anybody who help her in the attempt. Pushing the limits is part of what makes running the greatest sport in the world

“She has come a long way from running barefoot!" If I had to hear that one more time I was going to lose it

Yes. I sent the video to a friend to watch. I was telling him how annoyed I was about this whole stunt, and he was like uhhh idk I think it is pretty cool. I tend to forget that although it’s a popular sport, the few. the proud. the letsrunners. are a small elite set of fans.

You’re probably right but it won’t be without PEDs or someone other non-training advancement: shoes, track etc.

Could have done this like the original Breaking 2. Get Hull and Gudaf Tsegay in there and have them go for it too.

They said you can change the rules for special people. I suggest a horse or some other ungulate for elites like Jakob

She isn't a victim. There was no circus without her.

Yep. This was my first observation as well. However, it could have the upside of reminding people that women should be proud of women's abilities, results, times, achievements. Not everything has to be compared to men. Men and women are different.

People get triggered if I tell them the boy's records at my high school are faster than the world records for women in the 800m and 1600m. That should not outrage people (or lead them to assume I am disrespecting women). It is just a fact and unless we can see past that, then women are forced to compare themselves to men, which they should not have to do. They are awesome in their own right.

It also showed that men should never be allowed to compete in women’s sports…

That would have been cooler and better optically. Perhaps it was too hard to get 20 elite women ready to run 2:00 in the 800m (or whatever they'd need to do). It is easy to find ten men who can run 3:50 in the mile over at Nike.

But yes, the men made it look weird. They were so much taller/bigger (which is good for drafting) but the visual was bad. They looked like they were jogging. It sullied what she was doing (running the fastest mile a woman has ever run) by making it look "slow" compared to guys like Cooper Teare who were just chilling, waving, fist-pumping, and cheering.

Next time Nike will tell the men to grimace and suffer more for the cameras.

I don't get why people are freaking out about this event. It was free, you lost nothing besides a few minutes of time by watching it. Why can't the people of Letsrun just be happy that it had the outcome they were hoping for? Sure it was overambitious, but Nike is allowed to do what they want with their money so why not try to break records while they're making shoes.

TOTALLY PHONY EXHIBITION. Not authentic, not organic, not in a women's only track race.

All reasons why, if she broke 4, people would never accept the record anyway.

STOP THESE STUPID EXHIBITIONS, that are just for Nike to get publicity and sell more shoes.