Franz Ferdinand wrote:
Anybody on this threat actually run against Coe?
Thought not.
During his career, he came to live in London and joined a London club.
Representing them on a few occasions in 3 mile road relay legs (remember the ‘Valley’ and the Southern 12 stage at Wimbledon) we were amazed that the world record holder at 800 and 1500 gold medallist, not only didn’t run the fastest leg - he was beaten by club runners who’s names nobody would have ever heard of these days.
We came to the conclusion that Coe was a natural 800-1500 runner and just didn’t have that necessary stamina for the longer distances. 14.07 5000 sounds about right, comparing the relay leg times.
Of course he didn't have the stamina for longer distances. He wasn't TRAINING for them. Perhaps if you had thought on it a little longer you would have come to the conclusion that he
a) was not training for 5k and longer
b) would not be near top form for ANYTHING when he was running road relays for some local club.
c) might have been using the runs as part of training and not racing them all out.
Seriously man, use your head. One doesn't have to worship coe or think he could run sub-13 to realize that a 14:07 is not remotely representative of his abilities. Look at his racing record. Each year, he typically opened with one 3000 neter race (most often at the AAA Indoor Championships in Cosford). That was it. Beyond that, he was back into the 800/1500/mile races and little else.
He never made a serious stab at much of anything beyond a mile He did not train for it. Had he actually done so, to think he would have ended up with anything slower then low 13s (conservatively mid-13s) is simply not thinking very clearly.