How to run the 1500 / mile- and how not to. Video analysis of men's 1500 final at 2019 USAs.

notrump wrote:

What's really interesting is the mass psychology that produces such slow times in championships.

Jakob just ran Norwegian Championship in 3:36, but then again, that is slow for him.

True, True, True... the distance matters. And if I might add this follows my Rule 2 of racing the Mile/1500

Rule 2 - Don't jockey unless you're riding a horse

After watching dozens of old mile racing videos on YouTube I started to notice a trend of runners that jockeyed back and forth through the field never won or even made it to the podium. To test this observation up I took the last five Olympic 1500m men's finals (1984-2000) and tracked the top seven finishers for each race. I counted how many times each runner passed another runner. Not counting if they were passed. The Olympic races were chosen with the thinking that these top level runners would use the best possible racing strategy. The results are quite revealing.

On average the runners that finished in 5th, 6th and 7th places passed twice as many runners as runners in the top three places. The winners passed on average only 4.6 runners during the race. The 6th place runners passed average of 9.5 runners. Watching and logging the passing metrics on these races you start to notice very quickly that the winners would quickly settle into mid pack by the first 200m and then, just sit there till their final kick. Runners that would start up front then slide back and then surge back to the front were always doomed. Runners that started in the back then mid race sprinted to the front finished with the same poor results. The top three finishers were steady mid pack runners that sat on the inside lane and made only one move to the front.

This rule is not my option, just data and metrics. Try it on a past race video.

Study Results (sorry I can't add the chart)

Place - Runners Passed

1 - 4.7

2 - 5.6

3 - 5.9

4 - 4.9

5 - 7.2

6 - 9.7

7 - 7.0

This 2019 1500m National - Engels (1) passed 2 runners, Centrowitz (2) passed 4 runners

BTW

Rule 1 - Use the gears, it's not an automatic

Rule 3 - Don't play the lotto unless you hold the winning ticket

I don’t think it’s the total number of runners you pass in a race but the total number of times you pass runners in a race.

If each lap you pass a runner and also get passed by a runner it’s a net gain of zero and a lot of work.

But you can pass four runners on the last lap with less energy because it’s one move.

I think Manzano passed 10 people in his Silver medal run.