Robby Andrews

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J.C. wrote:

I don't think "lucky" is the right word. He won at NCAA's.

Am I the only one that thinks he didn't try? Don't get me wrong, KD and Symmonds and Jock kicked his butt. On the homestretch, when the camera briefly showed his face, he looked totally 100% relaxed. I want to see an interview foremost.

Robby got schooled. He looked relaxed last 100 meters because he was so far out of it, he knew a kick wasn't gonna help. Running against a world class field, the typical Andrews race tactic will not work. Every guy in the field is capable of outkicking him, did he really think a sit and kick strategy would have worked against these guys? Jock has guts, set the pace, and hang on to third and a trip to Daegu. Andrews simply doesn't have the leg speed or strength to hang with these guys. Don't turn pro yet Robby.

Great post by Can'can, and I agree

Robby cannot get to 50.xx on front end it looks like, and still have run left, at least not yet.

yesterday looked more like a case of just having nothing, to me than anything else.

That happens, looks bad when it does, but it does.

yes

im so happy his sit and kick strategy f*cked him over. He should be like Jock.

Knowing Robby fairly well, I think you have some good points. His future certainly lies in the 1500m / mile more than it does in the 800m. Coming off a winter of next to no training (plantar fasciitis), as he did this year, he and coach Vigilante felt that his better shot for NCAAs and nationals was in the 800, where this lack of strength would be less of an issue; also, regardless of the injury, they had wanted to develop his potential at the shorter distance before moving up in emphasis. Not having blazingly fast 400m speed, Robby realizes that he will ultimately (in all likelihood) have more success in the 1500m. I think this is well evidenced by his performance at ACCs, taking a close second to Ciaran O'Lionard in 3:42.xx while still far from top fitness. Expect to see him lay down some extremely impressive mile / 1500m times in the next few years, while probably still keeping a foot in the 800m. With a full season of cross country and a good winter's training under his belt next year, I think Robby Andrews will be one heck of an impressive runner (more so than already, that is). As for his performance at nationals - You can't put it down to faulty training. Vig knows his stuff. I think it was a combination of a slightly weak aerobic side due to a less-than-ideal base before the season, plus some combination of mental and physical fatigue - perhaps best described as just a "bad day". We all have them now and then.

It must suck to be a young 20 years old coming off PF and only get 8th-place in one of the fastest and deepest US championships 800s ever -- after winning NCAAs.

It was a good 800m field but not near the fastest and deepest ever. Look back into the 1980's and you will see fast. In fact you will see that NONE of these guys would have been in the top half of the race.

Compare Joc and Andrews.. Joc also looks fully developed. Andrews still looks like a kid. Kinda like all of the discussion with Josh Hamiliton. You don't recruit a kid that can grow a full beard because they are already developed. Andrews ceiling is gonna be so high. Wait 4 years and see where he is at.

Holy crap, is it possible Andrews just had a bad day? Maybe after the emotional high of winning NCAAs last week, he just didn't have it on Sunday? Jeez, runners are human- not machines.

All that being said, kudos to Charles Jock for a great race!

LIKE a lot of you dweebs on this board, Im an Andrews fan, love to watch him kick when way behind and he has that boy next door looks and personality.Hope he stays around for a long time and he can also run the 1500 m as he did in ACC meet and almost won .

Or maybe he just had a bad race after a successful collegiate season.

At least Rob is at an easy school where you don't have to study at all to get a "C".

kid is too slow to be a world class 800 runner or make the Oly. team next year.

This is another one of those stupid Letsrun threads that gets a lot of responses primarily because people like myself can't resist the temptation to point out the stupidity.

Answer: Andrews is a very good 20 year old NCAA athlete who got beat by some better athletes at this stage of their careers. Andrews was not going to make the WC and he probably knew that at about 500m. Also, I doubt you need to make a major change to a young athlete's training who in 2 years is a double NCAA champ, has run a 1:44x 800 and makes the USATF finals in a WC year.

VinceMcMahon wrote:

Andrews simply doesn't have the leg speed or strength to hang with these guys...

Not enough leg speed? How about his rib speed? I personally think that he has pretty good shoulder speed. Maybe he should rely on that a bit more.

Here we go again wrote:

VinceMcMahon wrote:

Andrews simply doesn't have the leg speed or strength to hang with these guys...

Not enough leg speed? How about his rib speed? I personally think that he has pretty good shoulder speed. Maybe he should rely on that a bit more.

Raw sprint speed is not a just a figure of speech when it comes to middle distance capabilities, it's real. However; it is by no means the end game, but it is as much a limiting factor as endurance. Andrews was a 48x quarter miler in H.S. and while he is certainly faster than that in now, but even if he is capable of running 47 out the blocks, that's about average for a world class milers and slow for a world class miler 800m runners, which stands to reason why a lot of people say the mile will ultimately be his event. It is difficult to say for sure what any athlete is capable of because you can compensate for a weakness in one area with a strength in another, but that is only to a certain degree. When Andrews runs in the low 3:30s for the 1500, which I think he will be capable of around this time next year, he will probably also be capable of running faster in the 800. If all goes well, next year, Andrews will be a consistent 1:44/45 guy and possibly go sub 1:44 on a perfect day. However, the top 800m runners are consistent at 1:43 and capable of 1:41/42 and no matter how strong Andrews gets, I can't see how it would be possible to run sub-1:43 with a 47x 400m sprint speed. - Thinks about this, if your 400m PR is 47.5, your 600m PR would be around 1:17...you would have to run your 600m PR and have another 200m to go in a 1:41/42 race.

To use a H.S. milers as an example, Ritz, Rupp, Hall, Lindgren, Magness and Fernandez all ran close to 4 minutes in the mile, they all have great endurance but to the best on my knowledge they all had no 800m credentials. I think they all ran about a 1:55 replay split at some point; they never ran a sub-4 mile. Expecting a 1:55/56 800m runner to run a sub-4 mile would be the same as expecting 47x quarter miler to run a 1:42x 800. Webb, Liquiori and Ryun were all good 800m runners and they had good 400 speed as well, which allowed them to average under 60 seconds for 4 laps without filling like they are sprinting. Verzbicas had no 800m credentials and run sub-4, but it’s a different matter when you are a strong as he it; Geb only had a 1:49x 800m PR, but ran a 3:31x 1500…there are always a few outliers.

That's about as simple as I can make it.

Andrews is a great racer, he times his kick and switches gears as good as anyone I have ever seen. I think he is racing up to his potential in the 800m and will continue to run with the best U.S. athletes and beat up on the NCAA guys in the 800, but to run with the big dogs, he will have to move up to the mile. Btw, I think it great that Coach Vigs is not rushing him to move up in distance and is going about his career perfectly.

One year later he ran 3:34 for 1500m and placed 5th at the Olympic trials. 2 years later he finally joined the sub-4 club. 3 years later he came second at USATF indoor 800 beating Symmonds. 4 years later he won a USATF title and he finally made a world championship team with that sit and kick method people doubted and even made the final. 5 years now and he's run 3:53i for the full mile and came in 4th at the World indoor championships for 1500m. If he drops his PR's a couple second then Andrews' is looking like an Olympic medal threat.

Frankly I would call him an outside threat now. His 4th at Worlds was great certainly, but his race at the US Champs was much better. If he can figure out how to stay up near the front in the latter part of the race, he really does have just about the best close in the world. In the race at Worlds you can see him trying to stay in the front early on, but he lets himself get jostled back and then gets dropped off the back when Willis hits the front. I really think he should have medalled with decent positioning. When I saw him off the back I wrote him off; I was completely shocked when I saw him get up for fourth.

And yeah, I realize this is always sort of his story.