Sarah Hall is 37(?) and looks likely to break the marathon AR and maybe even the HM too. She did almost nothing until Ryan retired. I might be naive, but until shown otherwise I'm going to believe these are just two women having great second acts in their running careers
Pricilla Welch
I don't want to take a side, but I do want to see some sensible debate, rather than more of the "she said, she said", and "she beat so and so back in the day", and "well look at what somebody else did", etc. Start with her actual college and immediate-post-college times, in the 1500, the mile, the 3000m and the 5000m. You can hit the "Progression" tab at the following link to get the times:
https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/united-states/keira-damato-14307211
Plug those numbers into Daniels' Calculator to get her VDOT back then:
https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/#tab-race-paceTab
Compare the times with Huddle, who is only a couple of months older:
https://worldathletics.org/athletes/united-states/molly-huddle-14313054
KD's current VDOT of 69.8 (extended out to 10 miles) is at a whole-nother level compared to her best collegiate/post-collegiate years' VDOT of 63.8 (from the 16:09.86 5k in 2006). Agreed?
Do those spring-plate loaded shoes make that big of difference for some folks? Capable of increasing their VDOT by 6 whole points?
Groner, Diver, Hall and Elmore are all doing well even older than Keira. Don't even need to dig back through history. I think the new shoes are helping the older athletes a bit more.
Read my post. 6 POINT increase in VDOT?
what i read wrote:
I don't want to take a side, but I do want to see some sensible debate, rather than more of the "she said, she said", and "she beat so and so back in the day", and "well look at what somebody else did", etc. Start with her actual college and immediate-post-college times, in the 1500, the mile, the 3000m and the 5000m. You can hit the "Progression" tab at the following link to get the times:
https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/united-states/keira-damato-14307211Plug those numbers into Daniels' Calculator to get her VDOT back then:
https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/#tab-race-paceTabCompare the times with Huddle, who is only a couple of months older:
https://worldathletics.org/athletes/united-states/molly-huddle-14313054KD's current VDOT of 69.8 (extended out to 10 miles) is at a whole-nother level compared to her best collegiate/post-collegiate years' VDOT of 63.8 (from the 16:09.86 5k in 2006). Agreed?
Do those spring-plate loaded shoes make that big of difference for some folks? Capable of increasing their VDOT by 6 whole points?
Actually, her 3000m of 9:18 in 2004/2005 (VDOT 63.9) was just slightly better than the 16:09.86 5k (VDOT 63.8) in 2006.
So the question remains, how much of that 5.9point increase in VDOT is attributable to the shoes with the embedded spring-plate(s)?
I heard she’s celebrating tonight at Brass Monkey in Adams Morgan with Pummell and Toothfairy.
How big of a square is David Monti?
The name of the race was an "inside joke between D'Amato and her children"
Come on, dude. Even in a nerd-rich environment of running dorks, who among us has not walked into a room and asked what smells like updog in here?
One one hand...
her quick progression is crazy
she handily beat Emma Bates at the MI Half in an exceptional time
5000 time trial essentially tied Abbey D'Agostino PR
One the other hand...
these time trial courses are specifically set up to be fast (male pacers, lead bike, flat)
shoes, shoes, shoes
her 5000 time is still 100m-200m behind the top tier of Olympic team contenders, so what is the big deal? (yes, the 10,000 is much more interesting)
Right now, I'd pick Sisson and then Huddle/D'Amato. The best bet for all of them would be to set a fast pace from the start.
She won't be wearing the shoes in her upcoming track race.
what i read wrote:
I don't want to take a side, but I do want to see some sensible debate, rather than more of the "she said, she said", and "she beat so and so back in the day", and "well look at what somebody else did", etc. Start with her actual college and immediate-post-college times, in the 1500, the mile, the 3000m and the 5000m. You can hit the "Progression" tab at the following link to get the times:
https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/united-states/keira-damato-14307211Plug those numbers into Daniels' Calculator to get her VDOT back then:
https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/#tab-race-paceTabCompare the times with Huddle, who is only a couple of months older:
https://worldathletics.org/athletes/united-states/molly-huddle-14313054KD's current VDOT of 69.8 (extended out to 10 miles) is at a whole-nother level compared to her best collegiate/post-collegiate years' VDOT of 63.8 (from the 16:09.86 5k in 2006). Agreed?
Do those spring-plate loaded shoes make that big of difference for some folks? Capable of increasing their VDOT by 6 whole points?
Of course not. But you don't need the shoes to explain it all. Lets compare here with Huddle
Molly Huddle in college 15:32: VDOT. ~66
Molly Huddle as a pro 14:42: VDOT 71
So if KD improved the same we need the shoes to account for 1 point. 3-4s/mile seems to be in the range that most people think of as reasonable.
Heck look at those 5ks. Is Molly dropping 50s off her college PR really that much different than what KD did other than the route of getting there? Is it really. that different than Shannon Rowbury going from 15:38 to 14:38? Or Houlihan going from 15:49 to 14:23? Obviously the big difference is they all had years of steady. training and somewhat slow progression.
Realistically few people stop running at 22 and then get serious about it later in life. We have a few example of people picking up the sport and doing well but they are definitely the exception. Can you imagine what we would say about a guy like Bill Rodgers today? Dude was only running like 9:00. 2 miles in college. What are the odds of him running a 2:10 marathon? Clearly on the sauce:)
Obviously none of this proves that she is clean.
What is whole-nother?
Hardloper wrote:
I don't get the name. What's Up Dawg?
Nothing much, what's up with you?
You seem to be purposely ignoring the point that she clearly underperformed in track compared to cross country. She was top 20 at NCAA cross nationals sophomore, junior, and senior year, beating many of the last decade's best runners in these three races. As noted, she beat Molly Huddle at XC nationals her senior year.. Molly Huddle had already run 15:32 for the 5k at that time.
This is a great post -- well said.
moms4keira wrote:
I also think that it needs to be considered that very few women make it to the top echelon in sport at an older age like this *because* of the timing of child-bearing years. Think of all the women who bow out in the 25-30 age bracket because its time for many to think about children and career. Women on average have 10-12% of their eggs left by age 30. If you hit 25 and you're still not making US teams, you probably consider moving on a bit more quickly than a male who performs similarly might. Not to mention if you haven't chosen a career path that actually makes real money, you better get to work because most female career paths earn a bit less than males would and you're starting in a deficit (for admittedly more complex reasons than just "sexism" but not a relevant part of the discussion here).
So we likely have the problem of a very small sample size of women that have attempted to resurrect a running career post-babies, which is why this feels like such an outlier, with no other precedent to compare to. I don't know if professional women at the top who had babies and came back are a fair comparison either. Of course you will see little to no gains in those cases because they were already maxing out in training and competition and typically time having children slightly post career-peak.
Keira was a 3x All-American at AU in cross country and once in outdoor track. Has anyone been paying attention to the level of elevation of track times for top collegiate women in the last 10-15 years? I ran collegiately 2004-2009 and I'm pretty sure 16:28 qualified for the indoor 5k my final year. That was the 67th best time last indoor season. People are flying all over the country to run on oversized or banked tracks, or over to super fast time trials on the West Coast to post some incredible times. Thats just not something most teams did (or could afford to do) early 2000s when Keira was in college. She was probably posting her best 5k at 10 pm at the Penn Relays on distance night when the 10 spectators still there are freezing in the stands. So I wouldn't rush so quickly to write her off as some nobody in college. A quick google search also reveals she was a 3.8 GPA in Mathematics (and maybe Computer Science?) so she was likely working pretty hard at multiple things and not coming anywhere near max potential in college. Maybe she would have been running these types of times (or faster) a few years out of school if she had been a part of something like the Bowerman Babes back then, but it didn't even exist yet. I'm guessing there were very few training opportunities for non-NCAA champions in 2006. So most people in her situation back then would have tried to stick around their college coach, supplement with a part time job, and like her, end up bagging it after getting injured. That said, I think Centrowitz's training was always very conservative from what I remember others saying so now with a healthy, strong body and all her ducks in a row mentally, physically, etc, it seems possible to me. For these and other reasons, I'm actually buying these performances.
I don't know Keira personally, I'm just a fan of the sport and LetsRun and busy these days chasing around a 1 year old with another on the way so its kind of fun to live vicariously through her when all I can muster is a 20-30 minute run with the jogging stroller at 9 minute pace.
Don’t like this type of event nor like her.
Add Steph Bruce to the mix of mid-to-late 30s female runners making a mark.
pinching a loaf wrote:
Don’t like this type of event nor like her.
You seem like an angry person. No one cares that you don't like someone you've likely never met.
Keira Carlstrom finished 6th at D1 NCAA XC, 25 seconds behind the winner and beating Huddle and Amy Cragg. That is FAR FAR better than 16:09 or her other times. I'm on board that she is a legit talent that finally found her stride.
Plus she seems to have a decent sense of humor, something lacking among runners in general.
Will you shut up man? wrote:
pinching a loaf wrote:
Don’t like this type of event nor like her.
You seem like an angry person. No one cares that you don't like someone you've likely never met.
I do know her and I think she is a wonderful person.