Ben True pulls away from Chris Derrick in last mile - Shalane Flanagan sets American Record at 2014 Gate River (US 15k)

Almost the entire last mile (last 200m is flat) is coming down off the giant bridge. I've done Gate about a dozen times and my last mile is always around 25-30 seconds faster than I averaged the rest of the race (not counting the preceding uphill mile). True's sub-4 is probably equal to about a 4:20-4:25 on flat.

bigtool05 wrote:

I'm very skeptical of the claim that he ran his last mile sub-4. Is the last mile downhill? Ben True's best 1500 on the track is only like 3:40. He'd have a really tough time running a single sub-4 mile on the roads, let alone after 8 miles of hard racing.

Yes, it's a pretty good downhill. The full race video is over at runnerspace. It's worth watching.

LM wrote:

...He did close in sub 4 though which is pretty quick even if the pace was a bit slow.

...

Oh come on folks! How many times does it have to be pointed out that mile markers for road races are VERY inexact? I guarantee that he did not close in sub 4. Not even close.

He ran a great race. Kudos to him! But why do we always have to hear from the world of fantasyland after someone runs a good race?

A Bit of Realism Please wrote:

LM wrote:

...He did close in sub 4 though which is pretty quick even if the pace was a bit slow.

...

Oh come on folks! How many times does it have to be pointed out that mile markers for road races are VERY inexact? I guarantee that he did not close in sub 4. Not even close.

He ran a great race. Kudos to him! But why do we always have to hear from the world of fantasyland after someone runs a good race?

In the race video, the guys at runnerspace claim to have hand measured it this year (because in past years it actually was inaccurate). Not saying I believe it, just pointing that out.

surun wrote:

A Bit of Realism Please wrote:

Oh come on folks! How many times does it have to be pointed out that mile markers for road races are VERY inexact? I guarantee that he did not close in sub 4. Not even close.

He ran a great race. Kudos to him! But why do we always have to hear from the world of fantasyland after someone runs a good race?

In the race video, the guys at runnerspace claim to have hand measured it this year (because in past years it actually was inaccurate). Not saying I believe it, just pointing that out.

See the post from someone who apparently was in the race:

"If the claims above are based on the "1600m" to go sign on the course, then it's exaggerated by a decent amount. As I think it was more like 0.9-0.95 miles from that point to the finish.

My time from that point to the finish was about 50-55s/mi faster than my average pace for the entire race. While my garmin gave me a "fastest mile" split that was a good 25s slower than what I actually split between the "1600m to go" sign and the finish. There is no way that sign was correct or it would have been within 3-5 seconds of my mile PR from over a decade ago.

I think True's last mile was probably more in the 4:15-4:20 range."

Once again, and for the last time: Splits in road races are BS. He ran a great race. I'm looking forward to an awesome summer of racing from True. And I don't need to make a trip to Fantasyland to appreciate his accomplishments.

Yes, I read that, but thanks for re quoting it.

thefuture wrote:

Shalane won so heavily. That's a great time.

She won so heavily because the women have so few serious competitors. There was like a 4 minute difference between first woman and 10th. For men the difference was like a minute and a half. How embarrassing the lack of competitiveness for the women. Embarrassing.

Soupy Sales wrote:

thefuture wrote:

Shalane won so heavily. That's a great time.

She won so heavily because the women have so few serious competitors. There was like a 4 minute difference between first woman and 10th. For men the difference was like a minute and a half. How embarrassing the lack of competitiveness for the women. Embarrassing.

So, women tend to be not quite as into competing in athletics. What exactly is embarrassing about this?

Just for the record, having a deadly accurate mile to go was a new project for this year's race .. 2 weeks ago we measured the final 1600 backwards with a 100 foot Stanley steel measuring tape .. We then measured the course again Monday with two IAAF certifiers. (An A and a B certifier) We put a permanent mark at the 1600 to go. A mile is 1609 meters .. Only a 1.3 second differential between 1600 and mile at 4:00 pace. I was on the lead vehicle and hand-timed 3:58.2 for the 1600 and 3:59.5 for the mile. His 400s were 58 - 61 - 61 and 59 point .. Not hard to believe at all ... Derrick and True already threw in a low 4:20 earlier in the race (and this was on the flats) when they broke away from the field (with Ritchie) .. True was flying .. He didn't break from Derrick til 800 to go .. They were in a dog-fight ! All but the last 1/4 mile of the final mile is a very steep downhill .. Roughly a 200 foot drop in 3/4 mile is about a 5% grade ..

Thanks. So it's not at all short. It's just downhill, right?

OK, fine. So it was a steep downhill. Which makes this sub-4 split about as relevant as the world record downhill mile allegedly held by Mike Boit at 3:21.

Once again folks, splits in road races are pretty much meaningless outside of comparing athletes competing on the same course on the same day.

So True gained 12 seconds on Derrick in a half mile? Hard to believe. Did Derrick just give up and jog in?

Unless the earth's plate techtonics moved greatly from Monday to Saturday, it is right !! We jumped through all of the official hoops required to have course IAAF pre-certified, which is as stringent as you can get .. We did the steel tape as an "old school" back-up to the Jones Counter and found our mile mark less than a foot from the Jones mark ... Short of running 4 laps (plus 9 meters) on a track, don't know how you could get more accurate ...

True looked beastly in that Rieti 3K (7:36 i believe? real solid close) to finish off last summer...probably his best performance of the 2013 track season, i think he was really coming on then. if he's been training solidly for 8 months now and has an even bigger base, no reason to think his peak this summer can't be even better. so i don't think 13:00/27:00 are too crazy to comtemplate.

Fannin, how is it a 200ft drop in 3/4 a mile if the highest point of the bridge is 141 feet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Bridge

Your measuring argument is made less, when you exaggerate the drop.

Also how do you explain that is took 1:56 (that's over 5:30 pace) to go from the .3 miles from 8 miles to 8.3 miles, but only 1:18 (around 4:15 pace) for True to go the .3 miles from 9 to the finish. See race video on runnerspace and see for yourself. They are calling the splits. Go to about 20 min into video

http://usarunningcircuit.runnerspace.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=30069&do=videos&video_id=108684

8 mile split was 37:15 (4:46 mile mostly up bridge)

1600m to go, roughly 8.3 miles split was 39:11 (1:56 from 8 mile mark)

9 mile split 41:45 (4:30 9th mile with a good 3/4 of it downhill)

final time for True, 43:03 (1:18 for .3 from 9 miles to finish)

We've got two threads on this as people are also talking about this topic here:http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5698457Anyway, an elite from the race has written in and said the following:

That makes sense to me. A sub-4 seems basically impossible.

Well i said that in the other thread as I didn't think the drop was all in the last mile (I assume they had to run up and down).

Looking at the course map. It seems that 8.3 might be right at the top of the bridge. If that's true, and if he had something like a 141 foot net elevation drop then MAYBE he could go sub-4. 141 feet = 14.1 * 1.8 = 25.4 seconds.

Every 10 feet of net elevation drop is worth 1.8 seconds. That's according to JK and trust me it's 100% accurat as I ran my marathon PB on Vegas when it was net DH. Jk told me exactly what my splits should be going up and down and he was 100% right and never even saw the course.

I could see him running under 4:25. Plus he's a former skiier who is fearless.

The key is the net elevation drop.