Adel Mechaal SMASHES European record - 7:30.82 to win NBIGP!!!

That many Ethiopians can't get in. wrote:

Did you forget the limiting number for the amount of athletes that can participate in each event in the World Indoor Championships without a wildcard athlete? It's two. So all those Ethiopians you mentioned won't be able to join into the fun. It seems your excitement took over your logic.

Sorry that wasn´t very smart of me. But at least we can hope the Ethiopians come with a strong team.

It would also be interesting if both Mechaal and Katir run the 3000m for Spain.

Intresting that he smashes his pb by 10 seconds at age 31. Last year he was having a dig at Katir for his progression, saying that he had only improved 4 seconds in 8 years. Maybe he decided, 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.'

Lollys Master wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

it's faster indoors on the banks. He'd crush it.

Except it absolutely isn't. The best indoor tracks are ca. 0,5s per lap slower than running outdoors.

7:30 ability indoors would be equivalent to 7:25 outdoors.

Mechaal is a 3:30 runner and has stepped his game up massively. It's gonna be no easy task for Jakob to beat him.

No

Indoors has no wind, no 90° temps, and is banked with lots of rebound.

Boston and Staten Island indoor tracks are super speedways and would be ripe for WRs ...if the top in the world trained and peaked for it.

One reason indoor times for the tip-top all-time marks aren't as fast as outdoors has to do with the fact that very few of the best in the world are all peaking for indoors or even competing indoors.

Mechaal already ranked 4 in the final of World Championship 2017.

The place 5 in Tokyo also simulated him a lot as I have read in some Spanish articles.

He say, the 1500m is his favorite distance (but I know there a lot that say that).

As for Aregawi why always we are negative? he did some at the same level of what did WALE the last year. WALL failed in Tokyo because of the bad planning of his federation.

TeteDLO wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHSissvOj7A

This will probably the most detailed stuff available on Mechaal. It is not in English though.

When I get more time I will listen to this video and provide the salient points as detailed and spoken by his trainer, Antonio Serrano, a former international Spanish distance runner of good level himself with a sub 28 minute 10,000 m

CarlyRaeJepsensMalort wrote:

TeteDLO wrote:

Thanks Ghost1.

It's interesting, we often complain that elite athletes now are all media trained to the point of bland templates in any interviews they give, then Mechaal comes along and is somewhat enigmatic in his conduct and lifestyle and everyone gets suspicious and equates some sort of independent spirit to doping. The whole saga of the sequence of missed tests doesn't help his cred.

Personally I could not care less about his media presence or background. He missed tests, therefore he likely is a doper. End of story. Same goes for Coleman, Thomas, Farah, etc. The excuses do absolutely nothing for me. It's your job to be available for testing at time windows you provide, and you claim you didn't hear the doorbell/were at the grocery store/had your music too loud? I just don't buy it.

As far as we know, Farah never broke any anti-doping rules. He missed two tests within the window, not three. His doorbell excuse was weak, but even so, it was for the second whereabouts failure. There's probably a lot of athletes that have sat on two failures, you just never hear about them because two doesn't trigger a ban.

TeteDLO wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHSissvOj7A

This will probably the most detailed stuff available on Mechaal. It is not in English though.

Antonio Serrano, Mechaal’s coach, with impressive personal bests from many years ago, including 1322 and 2747. It’s nice to have a coach who has direct experience of having ran fast although that is not always a prerequisite, as we have seen with people like Canova who was not a distance runner when he was competitive but rather a sprinter, and field events specialist, I believe.

Canova ran 1:58 for the 800 meters.

Actually ... wrote:

Canova ran 1:58 for the 800 meters.

Oops, my bad and I stand corrected. I think he was a coach for throwing events and sprints but please correct me if I’m wrong on that. I know that he worked for FIDAL Italian federation but when he worked for that organization I don’t think he was coaching distance runners so I think it was a gradual transition over the years.

TeteDLO wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHSissvOj7A

This will probably the most detailed stuff available on Mechaal. It is not in English though.

Describes life and training in 2017. Focuses on training in spite of potential sanctions. Gives few details about actual training (Specificas concentrated in minute 47 and then in questions).

1. His father took the family to Spain in 1992 to work in construction of the Olympic facilities.

2. Adel won his first XC race at age 6.

3. He didn't start training seriously until 19, after placing high in 1500 on his own.

4. Is one of 7 siblings. Acts as eldest and manages family problems.

5. Adel has already won a position working in a public school. He has job security already.

6. Integration in Serrano's training group was complicated. People were suspicious of him. Some even quit training with Serrano. After getting to know Adel their attitudes changed.

7. Just after starting with Serrano, Adel is sanctioned (provisionally). Disrupts training for XC championship. He's frustrated. Goes for 25km run. Finally they allow him to compete. He finishes 8.

8. Now training for indoor championships. Sanctioned more definitively. Again messes up training (prohibited from entering official training facilities). Serrano insists he is passing all the doping controls.

9. 7th of Feb he gets the provisional to keep competing. 8th of Feb makes qualifying time for European championships.

10. Wins in Spanish championships. Has become leader of training group.

11. Wins European championship in slow tactical race.

12. Talks to the press frankly at coach's urging.

13. Training: works very hard, special athlete. Hard man, strong mentality and body. Loves running. Tries his own ideas, things he learns from others.

14. Needs individualized plan. Does high volume, always has.

15. Summer season: planning on meetings, waiting for final ruling on his case. Hard time mentally.

16. Mid-July - wins appeal.

17. Finishes 4th in World.

18. Minute 47 of video: describes the series he does in his training. Lots of changes of rhythm to get ready for competing. (too many details to repeat here easily - I don't know how to copy and paste from youtube). Penultimate session before worlds: 1200 in 2'49, 3 x 300 in 38-39-38. Rests of 8, 4, 4.

19. Doesn't give any details about overall volume until questions. In base phase does 170-180 kmw. Runs of up to 30km. Serrano designs technical sessions, Adel runs what he feels other days. Doesn't meet specific times in volume runs, does get faster as weeks go by.

20. Question about the personal support Adel received from Ramón Cid. Insinuation is that Serrano is giving himself too much credit. Serrano handles it elegantly.

21. Question: why does Adel run so much on treadmill: Answer: Mo Farah does it. Helps for training for running constant rhythms on track. Does it on very hot or cold days, when oversleeps, in London to avoid having to go to the park, not waste energy.

22. Question: if he trains for longer distances (marathon, half marathon) what volume would he do. Answer: Will do the same, not more. Already does a lot (~180).

Summary: Adel is unusually mentally and physically tough guy who loves running.

rojo wrote:

Memo to meet announcers - that was a European record. I changed the title. Pervious European record was 7:32.41 AR Sergio Sánchez ESP 1 Oct 82 1 Valencia 13 Feb 2010

Yeah was just going to post referencing this exact guy - anyone remember what happened to him? (I do....)

Just a sidenote: Enough with the indoor vs. outdoor PBs. Indoors is if anything faster with no wind and perfect conditions every time. Mechaal ran 7:35.2 in Paris in 2017 without super-spikes. He closed in 2:28ish and 57. Factoring in spikes that's probably a conservative 3 seconds alone (1 per K). Some would argue more like 4.5. This race was set up perfectly for him with the pacer attuned to what he was trying to do than Mechaal hammering the last K hard with no wind (indoors advantage)

Mechaal is in the RTP, and he's been around for a while and competes often and at most big meets. Could be doping, could not be, but there's no 2022 factor that makes it obvious he is and this time is really not as notable as people are making it.

Estupendo, muchas gracias por su trabajo y interpretacion de la charla de Antonio Serrano. Muy interesante. Sigue asi con otros documentos, por favor. Espana es un gran pais de Atletismo, sobre todo con las pruebas de gran fondo. Yo pienso, sinceramente, que Mechaal es limpio. Parece un chico muy honesto y honorable.

Varicela, thank you for translating and posting those details.

Ghost1 wrote:

Estupendo, muchas gracias por su trabajo y interpretacion de la charla de Antonio Serrano. Muy interesante. Sigue asi con otros documentos, por favor. Espana es un gran pais de Atletismo, sobre todo con las pruebas de gran fondo. Yo pienso, sinceramente, que Mechaal es limpio. Parece un chico muy honesto y honorable.

I completely agree and my feeling is the same.

Sergio Sanchez had an EPO suspension which came as no surprise to anyone. Ditto Alberto Garcia who I think broke the Euro Indoor Record in around 2005/6(?), around 7.33/34 and about 18 hours later won the Spanish National 12k XC Champs.

I've seen the transcript of Mechaal's Whereabouts appeal and though I can't remember the details there were a couple of sloppy things on both sides (his and the testers) that got him off - he was in transit between home and a training camp, with dates changed after, I think, a planned race got changed. If you are a Spanish endurance elite with Moroccan lineage, you really do need to stay on top of all the testing admin. That said, Serrano wouldn't work with Mechaal if he didn't have total faith in him being 'limpio'. All subjective , I realise.

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

Just a sidenote: Enough with the indoor vs. outdoor PBs. Indoors is if anything faster with no wind and perfect conditions every time. Mechaal ran 7:35.2 in Paris in 2017 without super-spikes. He closed in 2:28ish and 57. Factoring in spikes that's probably a conservative 3 seconds alone (1 per K). Some would argue more like 4.5. This race was set up perfectly for him with the pacer attuned to what he was trying to do than Mechaal hammering the last K hard with no wind (indoors advantage)

Mechaal is in the RTP, and he's been around for a while and competes often and at most big meets. Could be doping, could not be, but there's no 2022 factor that makes it obvious he is and this time is really not as notable as people are making it.

Mechaal aside I completely agree. At some running speed the benefit of the indoor environment offsets the disadvantage of running around the tighter 200m track. Obviously it's much easier and faster to run a 200m outdoors, same with a 400m. That speed of running around a tight turn isn't easy. It's at around the 800m distance I think you start to see more parity but it's still an aggressive race where space on the track matters. The 3000m really seems to be the sweetspot distance with the advantages of conditions, running speed and the less aggressive, more rhythm-based distance. A lot of really good guys actually have 3k PR's set indoors or very little difference between their indoor and outdoor PR's, even though they don't even try and peak for this time of the year and these races at all.

Spain is a great country for athletics - hmm, well yeah it was - especially middle and long distance running which coincidentally started around the Barcelona Olympics. Unfortunately though a lot of involvement and speculated involvement with doping - not sure this counts towards "great" per se.