Nick Willis Only has 50 400m speed???

100% certain he is capable of much faster than 50 flat. Nobody slower than 50.0 is even breaking 4:00/mile.

true brit wrote:

There's a youtube video of Willis running a flying 300m in 36.5. That seems pretty consistent with the 48.66 400m relay split someone else listed. A flying start helps a ton for distance runners especially - we don't train to overcome inertia and get to near-top speed in a matter of seconds.

I do think he would sneak under 50.00 for the open 400m, but not by much...

All distance runners should start fast reps with running starts. I don't know why many start from standing starts.

cool wrote:

100% certain he is capable of much faster than 50 flat. Nobody slower than 50.0 is even breaking 4:00/mile.

That is not a smart statement. Many 5000/10000 guys can't break 50 but can run sub-4

OK, I don't think it's really worth arguing what speed they have given it's an impossible answer for the following reasons...

- They never have FAT 400 done while in peak shape

- Most never even have a high-pressure 400 relay split

- The athletes in question and their coaches don't fully agree on their actual 400 speed

- The posters here don't believe the actual athlete or their coach when they say what their 400 speed is

Based on what I've read from Canova, it's certainly possible to run in the region of 26:30 for 10K off of 51-53 400 speed, BUT, that shows a tremendous level of elasticity. Athletes with extremely high elasticity are thinner than their peers and get considerably better as the races get longer. Bekele is of a normal BMI for the times he ran, and is very consistently world class from 1500 - Marathon.

He doesn't seem the type to be a 51+ 400 guy, especially when he's sandwiching 8 x 400 in 52-54 with 9 x 200 in 24-25 at 2300m elevation around 10 days before the World Champs.

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2011/03/kenenisa-bekeles-workout-how-do-we-get.html

Hey Guys,

My 400 relay PB is 48.4, and my FAT is 50.07, which was set in HS (I split 48.6 right around that time).

As much as I have tried to improve my speed since HS, I have had little success. I put this down to many more miles in my legs, and the inability to taper sufficiently to get the pop back to really roll a 4hundy. My 200m PB from HS is 23.40 (FAT), and I have split 22.9 at the start of relay legs.

So why would my 400 FAT be so much slower than my rolling start, but my 200m have less differential? We used to race 100m and 200m most weekends in HS as a secondary event (these were city club meets in NZ), and thus our block starts were of a reasonable standard. However, the challenge I found for the 400m was not the reaction time, but the power required to get up to speed. I had used up so much explosive energy to get up to speed, that by the time I reached the home straight, I was toast. From a rolling start, I can get up to speed with little effort, and coast for the first 250m, and still hold form reasonably well through tot he finish line.

So there you have it. I am stuck as a non-sub50 guy, and it hurts!

The fastest milers I have seen are Nate Brannen (46.8 relay), Gabe Jennings (10.9 100m rolling), and David Krummenacker (I bet he could split 45 high, 46 low). I'm sure Wheating could roll too.

marathon man 21 wrote:

That is not a smart statement. Many 5000/10000 guys can't break 50 but can run sub-4

Just because they haven't done it doesn't mean they do t have the capacity to do so.

Nice, thanks Nick!

Speaking of Brannen. Not sure why he hasn't (injuries aside) run under 1.46.0 for 800m (he ran 1.46.6 at the end of HS). Mind you Kevin Sullivan never ran under 1.47.0 (after running 1.53 as a 14yo), and he ran 1.47.6 in HS. Not sure what his (KS) 400m PR would be, although he did move towards some longer racing (5000m) later on (as Willis does on occaison). Brannen seems more like Hood (1.45.7), who also had a lot of injuries, but didn't run many 5000's. I saw Hood run sub-49sec for 400m out of blocks in HS. Was he really any faster than these guys? Mind you he did a fair amount of speed-work in HS. Heck I recall seeing Bunston run 8 x 300m with 20 minute recoveries(??!!) in about 39sec while in HS (Don't ask me why a 1500/3k guy was doing that), and Hood was certainly faster (they trained under the same coach), so he must have been doing faster (800m type) workouts.

MathBuff wrote:

Please show me where I said 3:32 was as fast as Bekele could have run...

You lose all credibility when you put words in people's mouths.

P.S. None of what you said changes the fact that Bekele had less speed than Komen and Geb.

No, you've lost even more credibility trying to use my own lines against me but failing at it.

I didn't put any words in your mouth. It is actually YOU who put them in MY mouth. I never said that you said Bekele couldn't have gone faster than 3:32 that day.

But even if I had said that, it's still not putting words in your mouth because you clearly meant it. You even outright said that their 1500m times reflect their differences in speed. Don't try to lie and change your statements.

The truth of the matter is that Bekele's 3:32 and Geb's 3:31 played out very differently. There is nothing about those races that would confirm that Geb has faster speed. Maybe not even Komen, but I can't say for sure because I can't recall how that race played out.

You lose.

I can see I'm dealing with a real moron here so I'll try to dumb it down to your level ~

Idiot

No

Imbecile

you implied it

moron

fvcking idiot

show where I am changing my statements

imbecile

moron

Bekele was never running under 3:30

Geb ran 3:31 indoors, easily worth under 3:30 outdoors

Komen is faster than both of them

fvcking moron

the only thing I've lost is time ~

wasting it talking semantics with a pea brained idiot who mindlessly harps on a single sentence of a long post discussing an entirely different point

fvcking idiot

jhb wrote:

No, you've lost even more credibility trying to use my own lines against me but failing at it.

I didn't put any words in your mouth. It is actually YOU who put them in MY mouth. I never said that you said Bekele couldn't have gone faster than 3:32 that day.

But even if I had said that, it's still not putting words in your mouth because you clearly meant it. You even outright said that their 1500m times reflect their differences in speed. Don't try to lie and change your statements.

The truth of the matter is that Bekele's 3:32 and Geb's 3:31 played out very differently. There is nothing about those races that would confirm that Geb has faster speed. Maybe not even Komen, but I can't say for sure because I can't recall how that race played out.

You lose.

You can't argue with Ventolin^3, jhb. He's a total nut job that can argue to infinity all while never actually hearing what you're saying. He uses mathematical formulas that have zero elegance; they are just a huge clusterfvck of arbitrary nonsense that go in circles, like his verbal tirades. After a while, it's pretty entertaining. That level of douchebaggery is not easy to attain, and for that I must salute him.