Ingebritsen - an overlooked facet of his brilliance

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Just watched the heats from Munich - I mean this first heat is a work of art from J.I - good runners falling all over themselves to qualify as he moves from last to first over the final 500 and closes in 55 seconds with ease.

That's not what I wanted to talk about. It's no secret that Jakob runs the first 100m slower than anyone and the optic can be that it's some kind of arrogance/gamesmanship, the other angle being that it allows a clean run in what can be the most hectic period of the race (elbows and jostling).

But I don't think either of those are the most important element of his now famous starts and I can't believe how savvy and smart this guy is - despite being the Olympic Champ and best miler on the planet (point being there have been champions before that don't display this intelligence and poise). Because not only are the opening moments of elite mens 1500m running full of jostling, they are full of micro changes in pace that expend a secretly high amount of energy almost possible to quantify. Not only that, the first 100m in many 1500's can be the athletes fastest as they fight for almost needless position (because as Jakob shows it really is needless because he runs last for either the first 300m of finals or 1000m of heats).

It would be my hunch, that if there was a way to show energy expenditure in the first 200m of these races that Jakob - arguably the guy with the biggest tank anyway, would be using the least. It's absolute genius and part of why he is an absolute master that understands this event from top to bottom. I thought about other great runners that utilized this and the name that sprung to mind was Yuriy Borazkovski who despite almost certainly being part of Russians institutional doping program, was also a tactical genius who deliberately ran the first 100m of his races as slow as possible - happy to run 51 seconds for the first 400m going 25-26 rather than get caught up jostling for again, needless position running 24/27. No wonder these guys have just so much more there for the end of races when it matters the most.

Facilitations wrote:

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Just watched the heats from Munich - I mean this first heat is a work of art from J.I - good runners falling all over themselves to qualify as he moves from last to first over the final 500 and closes in 55 seconds with ease.

That's not what I wanted to talk about. It's no secret that Jakob runs the first 100m slower than anyone and the optic can be that it's some kind of arrogance/gamesmanship, the other angle being that it allows a clean run in what can be the most hectic period of the race (elbows and jostling).

But I don't think either of those are the most important element of his now famous starts and I can't believe how savvy and smart this guy is - despite being the Olympic Champ and best miler on the planet (point being there have been champions before that don't display this intelligence and poise). Because not only are the opening moments of elite mens 1500m running full of jostling, they are full of micro changes in pace that expend a secretly high amount of energy almost possible to quantify. Not only that, the first 100m in many 1500's can be the athletes fastest as they fight for almost needless position (because as Jakob shows it really is needless because he runs last for either the first 300m of finals or 1000m of heats).

It would be my hunch, that if there was a way to show energy expenditure in the first 200m of these races that Jakob - arguably the guy with the biggest tank anyway, would be using the least. It's absolute genius and part of why he is an absolute master that understands this event from top to bottom. I thought about other great runners that utilized this and the name that sprung to mind was Yuriy Borazkovski who despite almost certainly being part of Russians institutional doping program, was also a tactical genius who deliberately ran the first 100m of his races as slow as possible - happy to run 51 seconds for the first 400m going 25-26 rather than get caught up jostling for again, needless position running 24/27. No wonder these guys have just so much more there for the end of races when it matters the most.

It will be interesting to see if he does this again in a Championship race.

Hsoe wrote:

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Just watched the heats from Munich - I mean this first heat is a work of art from J.I - good runners falling all over themselves to qualify as he moves from last to first over the final 500 and closes in 55 seconds with ease.

That's not what I wanted to talk about. It's no secret that Jakob runs the first 100m slower than anyone and the optic can be that it's some kind of arrogance/gamesmanship, the other angle being that it allows a clean run in what can be the most hectic period of the race (elbows and jostling).

But I don't think either of those are the most important element of his now famous starts and I can't believe how savvy and smart this guy is - despite being the Olympic Champ and best miler on the planet (point being there have been champions before that don't display this intelligence and poise). Because not only are the opening moments of elite mens 1500m running full of jostling, they are full of micro changes in pace that expend a secretly high amount of energy almost possible to quantify. Not only that, the first 100m in many 1500's can be the athletes fastest as they fight for almost needless position (because as Jakob shows it really is needless because he runs last for either the first 300m of finals or 1000m of heats).

It would be my hunch, that if there was a way to show energy expenditure in the first 200m of these races that Jakob - arguably the guy with the biggest tank anyway, would be using the least. It's absolute genius and part of why he is an absolute master that understands this event from top to bottom. I thought about other great runners that utilized this and the name that sprung to mind was Yuriy Borazkovski who despite almost certainly being part of Russians institutional doping program, was also a tactical genius who deliberately ran the first 100m of his races as slow as possible - happy to run 51 seconds for the first 400m going 25-26 rather than get caught up jostling for again, needless position running 24/27. No wonder these guys have just so much more there for the end of races when it matters the most.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…watch the 1500m final dude.