After record-breaking 2023, Alicia Monson talks about running..... 29:30! for 10,000m

She wasn’t a 29:30 runner then😂Realistically if you are a 29:30 runner you should expect to get to the last k with another 4-5 runners. Then it is just a matter of who can close the best. You don’t need a great 400 if you can pick it up to 3k pace for those last laps. You are still going to get drilled by the 29:00 ladies but it isn’t clear if there are more than 2-3 of them and it is easy for 1 person to have an off day.

It doesn’t work that way. If the elites are going for 29:00 pace, Monson will get dropped. To run 29:30, she would need to run her own pace from the gun and probably run a lot of it by herself.

The 29:00 runners are going to have much more left in the tank and better leg-speed. Monson is not going to kick for a medal.

A good comparable for Monson is Salazar. He also held the 10,000m AR, and at that time, he was just a few seconds off the WR. Like her, he had minimal top-end speed and was always out kicked, even by an overweight Rono. Another example is Craig Virgin.

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There has never been a championship 10000m race that went out in 14:30 pace, stop creating scenarios to downplay her possible success. There has only been 4 women EVER to run 29:30 or faster and one of them Almaz Ayana no longer competes on the track.

So if she hits 29:30 she WILL be a medal threat.

I was referring to the previous poster's comment about elite runners pacing Monson. I don’t understand how you think she can out kick people with PRs that are 30+ seconds faster and with better top-end speed. The East-Africans are faster and stronger.

Actually it’s the Ethiopian athletics federation which provides Monson with her greatest chance of winning. It’s an open secret that they dictate that their individual athletes run as a team and not individuals. This ensures that Tsegay will always win as they are all together until the last lap burn up having taken the sting out of their competitors with surges during the race. If Ethiopia took the “each woman for herself” approach then you would see Gidey trying the run the sting out of Tsegay from lap 10 or so. Monson would have little hope of sticking with Gidey of she ran a similar time trial like race similar to when she broke the WR in Hengelo

Only three current runners are sub-29:30. They may start out slower than 14:30 and pick it up the last mile, so it is possible she could hang off the back of them but I am thinking of her going out in 14:45 and finding other Ethiopians or Kenyans to stick with from that point on or maybe even around 20 minutes after the best of the field has dropped them and the other sub-30 Ethiopians and Kenyans are going after mid 29. She would be dropped at the end in almost any championship race but then world and Olympic 10000s do occasionally have Americans getting a shot at 3rd, but that requires a bunch of better runners to blow up off of a fast pace.

She doesn’t need to beat a 29min runner if there are only 2 of them. She needs to beat the other 3-4 woman who are also 29:30.

Last I checked that slow virgin kicked his way to several XC title. And there are a lot of people with no kicks and bronze medals…

Yeah, he out kicked Nick Rose and another guy that had 13:30/28:00 PRs. In the 1979 WC 10000, Yifter put 7 seconds on Virgin during the last lap.

She hasn’t yet proved she can run 29:30.

I'm sorry, but unless you are the ON team doctor, there is no way that you could know that.

And you can’t prove she did. Your circumstantial evidence will not get her banned.

Correct. KB's 5k PR was 4:03 and change pace. 10k was 4:13 and change. So where does that put Alicia? Well, we don't really know if her fitness has advanced beyond this past year's times. The 2 mile could tell us if it's an outlier and better than her current 3k and 5k times. But 10 seconds per mile for the fastest men and probably 11 for women is the 5k/10k differential that history has shown.

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Letsenbet 29:01, Siffan 29:06, Gudaf 29:29 are the only active track runners under 29:40, so PLEASE tell me what OTHER 3-4 active track women who have run in the 29:30s.

A lot of posters here just type their opinions and actually have no clue to facts.

And when you factor in Siffan's intentions to run the marathon . . . as well as a slight possibility Ethiopia will pick Letesenbet for its marathon team as well . . . the only one of those three we can be relatively certain will race the 10k is Gudaf . . . and that will be after racing two 5ks a few days earlier . . . while Alicia will have fresh legs . . .

Here is this year's top-10 world list for W 10k (all times listed are prs except Hassan's):

1 29:29.73 Gudaf TSEGAY/Ethiopia
2 29:37.80 Sifan HASSAN/Netherlands
3 29:47.42 Grace Loibach NAWOWUNA/Kenya
4 29:57.45 Ejgayehu TAYE/Ethiopia
5 29:59.03 Mizan ALEM/Ethiopia
6 29:59.15 Lemlem HAILU/Ethiopia
7 30:00.86 Eilish MCCOLGAN/Great Britain

8 30:03.82 Alicia MONSON/United States

9 30:04.45 Tsigie GEBRESELAMA/Ethiopia
10 30:23.69 Girmawit GEBRZIHAIR/Ethiopia

If Alicia can get her pr down to 29:45 (71.4/lap), that would put her ahead of everyone except Giday, Hassan and Tsegay . . . which should be validation enough for her to believe she is fit enough to stay with the lead pack in the Oly 10k until the very end . . . and still have something left in the tank to run a 65 or so last lap . . . and at least be contending for a medal coming down the homestretch.

Question remains . . . can Alicia actually run that fast? . . . and still hold that fitness through August 9th, 2024? . . .

Budapest women's 10k results to refresh memories:

1 Gudaf TSEGAY ETH 31:27.18
2 Letesenbet GIDEY ETH 31:28.16 SB
3 Ejgayehu TAYE ETH 31:28.31
4 Irine Jepchumba KIMAIS KEN 31:32.19 SB
5 Alicia MONSON USA 31:32.29
6 Agnes Jebet NGETICH KEN 31:34.83 PB
7 Ririka HIRONAKA JPN 31:35.12 SB
8 Jessica WARNER-JUDD GBR 31:35.38
9 Grace Loibach NAWOWUNA KEN 31:38.17
10 Sarah CHELANGAT UGA 31:40.04 SB
11 Sifan HASSAN NED 31:53.35
12 Elise CRANNY USA 31:57.51 SB
13 Diane VAN ES NED 32:05.85
14 Natosha ROGERS USA 32:08.05
15 Camilla RICHARDSSON FIN 32:15.74
16 Stella CHESANG UGA 32:38.90 SB
17 Lemlem HAILU ETH 32:42.78
18 Sarah LAHTI SWE 33:09.22 SB
19 Luz Mery ROJAS PER 33:19.61
20 Rino GOSHIMA JPN 33:20.38
21 Maria Lucineida DA SILVA BRA 35:54.18

Alicia was only 5.11 secs from winning . . . only 3.98 secs from bronze . . . only 0.10 secs from fourth . . . and beat Hassan, Nawowuna and Hailu, three sub-30 women ahead of her on the above 2023 list.

If Alicia improves another 20 seconds or so next year . . . can she visualize herself being in that lead group of four coming down the final home straight chasing after medals . . . as depicted in the race video? . . . Hell Yes!! . . .

First of all, the you’re making the assumption she is capable of running 29:30, but the same thing could be said about all 6 of the Kenyans and Ethiopians. The other thing is that she doesn’t have good top-end speed and anyone in contact with her with 400m to go is going to out kick her.

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First of there were 4 Ethiopians, 2 Kenyans, and Siffan (so dont see the 6 Ethiopians and 6 Kenyans) you spoke of faster than Alicia Monson s 14:19. Alicia was in 29:40 shape last year, but didn't have a fast enough paced race at Worlds to achieve that time).

You can very easily calculate elite men and women's 10000m potential by doubling their 5000m pb and adding 1 minute

14:19 + 14:19= 28:38 + 1:00= 29:38

Use it to calculate as many elites as you want as see how incredibly accurate the formula...

I give her a pretty good chance at hitting 29:40's next year with good conditions AND maybe slightly faster with a near perfect training block and outstanding weather and pacing on race day

You could just as easily be describing something else.

You're only assuming that it is because of altitude. It isn't the only explanation - for any athlete who has made dramatic improvements.