Jordan Hasay at Pitt half marathon - 10th in 78:35

This claim seems extreme to me. I worry that the push to bring attention to eating disorders has led to the erroneous perception that it's normal to have an ED and amenorrhea. There's a reporting bias, so we're not hearing from healthy female athletes.

The other issue is that we can't assume that Hasay has an eating disorder by looking at her. There are other very thin elites who have competed at a high level for a long period of time; this would be nearly impossible to do with an eating disorder.

On the other hand, some runners who are celebrated for their "healthy-looking" bodies are clearly dealing with body image issues, which you can observe via social media and frequent injuries.

Ward just teasing us and will be a huge letdown in any marathon that matters.

I hope it is something that can be resolved, because Jordan has been so exciting to watch. I was there in the stands in '08 when she really broke out on the big stage at the Olympic trials, and everyone chanted, "Come to Oregon! Come to Oregon!"

But I wonder if she's simply over the hill as an elite runner? Look, I'm no expert in sports medicine or coaching, though I am the son of a coach, and I've been raised in the sport, so my knowledge is by no means commensurate to people who have made careers out of this.

But I can recall that, in general terms, elite athletes can expect around 15 years of top level competition. Some attain this high level early, others come into their prime later, but they all get general the same time frame of prime performance. Some last longer, some not as long. But that's the average, assuming one stays relatively injury free.

Hasay has been competing at an high level since 2005 when she won Footlocker for the first time, as a freshman. She was making the podium internationally by 2006. She was lining up at the trials in 2008. And on from there.

That's seventeen years she's been competing at the top of her class, be it high school, collegiate, national, or world. She's done well and run incredible times. But I wonder, even if she was totally fit, how many more prime races she'd have in her, because she entered her prime so young, and has raced so steadily since.

I hope I'm wrong. I'd love to see her have a few more good races, to defy the Footlocker curse, and make an Olympic team. But I wonder if we just may be seeing her window of primer performance closing, after a lengthy career of being at or near the top.

How is Allie an SJW? Doesn't make sense.

Get with the time - it's now called RED-S.

runnersworld.com

RED-S: The condition all runners need to know about

Fatigue, disordered eating and missing periods are major warning signs

Open link

From The Sport seems to be REALLY connected to Jordan Hasay. Thanks for the post! Two separate pools and Disney pool toys? She's kinda old for Disney pool toys but it's all good.

There's a big difference between saying that there are a disproportionate number of female distance runners with eating disorders and amenorrhea and saying that nearly all female athletes are unhealthy. The latter statement broadly pathologizes female athletes.

Women can and do run high mileage and train hard while maintaining a normal diet and regular menstrual cycles. See Jen Rhines on this point. I suspect many elite women with long careers would also tell you that they ate normally and menstruated during their competitive years.

I think that fifteen years of "top level competition" or "prime performance" for elite runners is at the very high end of the range.

I've never paid much attention to Hasay. I am surprised to learn of her sharp decline in recent years. I do wish that people would be less casual in speculating about specific causes. Also, although I was angry (though not particularly surprised) when I read Al's admission of his own use of testosterone in 1991 (and, I strongly suspect, before and after that), I wish that people would stop blaming Salazar for everything that has gone wrong with the careers of various athletes that he coached.

Her 2:20 was, of course, fake. All her (extensive) previous race results pointed JH being about 2:28 to 2:30. Even in those rare cases (like Ian Thompson) of the marathon-only runner, the was no way she was better than even 2:25 at a stretch.

Be nice to her please, she's lived an incredibly difficult life.

I just feel really sorry for her.

What is a little odd though is that se posted screenshots of runs that were around the pace she raced (6min/mile). So she can easily do a pace like that in training but then does not manage to go even a little bit faster in a race. Its really *really* strange. Random female club-runner friend who runs a 2:47 for the marathon just broke 1:20 in the half. Like these times are run by the hundreds by amateurs and even in non peak shape she should easily run these.

E.g. Shalane is retired since years but keeps in decent shape and paced the 1:17 half last weekend (somehwere in portland I think). Talent doesn't really go away even when not in peak shape. So if a 40 year old retired pro runner on low mileage can jog a 1:17 it means sth is seriously off with jordan that goes beyond fitness issues.

As I've said, I haven't followed Hasay's career very closely, but your statements are ("of course," as you might dismissively insert) false. Here are Hasay's relevant races from 2017:

In January, Hasay finished fourth in the Aramco Houston Half Marathon in 1:08:40, the second fastest half marathon debut by an American female.

On April 1, Hasay placed sixth in the Prague Half Marathon in a time of 1:07:55. She became just the third American woman to run a half marathon in under 68 minutes after Molly Huddle and Deena Kastor.

On April 17, Hasay finished third in the Boston Marathon in 2:23:00, the fastest debut marathon by a U.S. woman by almost three minutes.

On October 8, Hasay placed third in the Chicago Marathon with a finish time of 2:20:57, with a US 25k women's record of 1:22:19, en route, surpassing Shalane Flanagan's time of 1:22:36 at the 2014 Berlin Marathon.

[Adapted from Hasay's Wikipedia entry.]

That quite gradual progression (along with other race results) during the year is very consistent with her 2:20:57 on a flat, fast Chicago course in October. It is, "of course," obviously false to say that "all of her (extensive) previous race results [including a 1:07:55 in Prague over six months earlier, quickly followed by a 2:23:00 at Boston] pointed JH being about 2:28 to 2:30." (A 2:28, for example, would be a horrible result for a 1:07:55 half-marathoner, and would generally be a poor result for someone who had run a competitive and unpaced 2:23:00 at Boston.) Also, although these performances may appear considerably superior to her earlier races at shorter distances in previous years, they are not inconsistent with a combination of moving to much higher race distances (to which she was probably much better suited) in 2017 and the development of Nike's various "super shoes" for road racing in 2016-2017.

I too suspect she has ED/weight issues, or at least has artificially lowered her body weight via thyroid meds to the point where her body is screwed up. Remember, AlSal was trying to get Kara Goucher to take certain meds to drop weight. But, to your comment about why she is racing no faster than her workouts, I also can't help but think there's a mental component here. Some sort of anxiety issue. Also, she is probably "racing" her workouts because she is trying to hit times she used to hit in them, so there's less of a race bump than we might otherwise expect.

The facade.

Actually, I believe Oycohcoug is onto something. Those results you show are all from the window of time when Hasay became a "different" runner, running times that didn't fit her previous profile.

The fact is that, while she was better-known than a lot of other runners for a number of years, she wasn't actually all that fast. She was good, and consistent, but not a world-beater. She had plateaued. The little kid who made the OT semifinals at 1500 only improved a couple of seconds all through college. She couldn't quite win NCAA XC. She didn't run the kind of times that indicated a future 2:20 marathon. For example, she ran a lot of 5Ks in college, and had all the usual opportunities to run fast at some point. But she never did. Here's her progression per World Athletics:

2010
16:16.02
Eugene, OR (USA)
10 APR 2010
2011
15:37.29
Walnut, CA (USA)
15 APR 2011
2012
15:44.87
Palo Alto, CA (USA)
29 APR 2012
2013
15:50.78
Eugene, OR (USA)
07 JUN 2013
2014
15:28.56
Portland, OR (USA)
15 JUN 2014
2015
15:45.10
Portland, OR (USA)
13 JUN 2015
2016
15:29.7h
Portland, OR (USA)
23 JUN 2016
2017
15:45.84
Portland, OR (USA)
16 JUN 2017

That's great and all - U of O really got their money's worth out of her - but it doesn't scream "I've got a 1:07 half/2:20 full marathon in me". By the time she graduated from U of O, she'd had quite a long career already, trained in great conditions in great facilities with great teammates, and had a 15:37 to her name. Compare those times with those of, let's say, Shalane Flanagan, who was of a caliber that you expected her to do well at the marathon. After all, she'd won NCAA XC twice individually, an Olympic silver at 10K, etc. She went on to acquit herself well at the distance, even though her best was slightly slower than Hasay's. Flanagan's 5000m progression:

2001
16:29.68
Orlando, FL (USA)
21 APR 2001
2003
15:20.54
Palo Alto, CA (USA)
20 JUN 2003
2004
15:05.08
Waltham, MA (USA)
29 MAY 2004
2005
15:10.96
Carson, CA (USA)
23 JUN 2005
2007
14:44.80
Walnut, CA (USA)
13 APR 2007
2008
14:59.69
National Stadium, Beijing (CHN)
19 AUG 2008
2009
15:10.86
Carson, CA (USA)
16 MAY 2009
2010
14:49.08
Hayward Field, Eugene, OR (USA)
03 JUL 2010
2011
14:45.20
Paris (FRA)
08 JUL 2011
2015
15:10.02
Hayward Field, Eugene, OR (USA)
28 JUN 2015
2017
14:58.99
Heusden-Zolder (BEL)
22 JUL 2017

So without even speculating on exactly why she ran so fast for a couple of years, I think one at least has to admit that her career had an unusual peak around 2017-2018.

A former 2,20 marathoner who is over the top but still only 30 years old could perhaps be expected to run 2,25 - not a 78 minute HM.

Fixed.

it's called Pittsburgh, you ignoramus.