Colin Sahlman 3:33.9

Sahlman clearly is capable of running 3:32 or maybe even 3:31. I think he will be in the 1500m finals at the Trials. I doubt he will make the team, but anything is possible.

Really impressive running from Sahlman. Can he ride this momentum through NCAAs, the trials, and beyond like Cole Hocker did his sophomore year? He’s already run faster than Cole did that year (until the Olympics), but doesn’t have the NCAA titles that Cole won indoors, but certainly Sahlman would have to be considered among the favorites to win the outdoor title after scaring the NCAA record.

You get credit for what you have run

how is he clearly capable of runnin g times 2-3 seconds faster

he was less than 1/10th under 3:34.00

.04

So, now he is a capable 3:32 or 31 guy from 3:34 3:33.96?

How?

Pretty obvious with the conditions if you watched the race. Obviously 2-3 seconds is a stretch I would only give him 1 second. Maybe 3:33 or just under.

I'm sure we all remember the Has Mike Smith Failed Colin Sahlman thread lmao. But I think coaches gain a lot of good will here via achieving great results or doing something good for the sport, and they lose some every time something bad happens.

I think you can see it with the difference in response to Birnbaum getting injured and Monson getting injured. Everyone is saying Birnbaum needs to get out of Oregon/away from Jerry, whereas there's kinda just general disappointment in Monson getting hurt, and not really hatred for Ritz. I think it's because Jerry is basically known for not racing his athletes, and for having a one size fits all training method. Ritz, meanwhile, races his athletes a ton and gets great results. OAC is one of the best groups to follow because they show up to a lot of races and they run well most of the time. There is some criticism because they underperformed at championships, but they silenced it by winning silver and gold at indoor worlds. Seeing Beamish's transformation from chronically injured college runner to world champ running 100mpw has also gone a long way imo, especially since it was kinda documented week-by-week on their podcast.

Jerry had that kind of good will from the running community when I started following the sport in 2019. A lot of his athletes got injured, but for a long time, he was the only coach in North America who was able to churn out medal contenders/medalists, and that got him a lot of support. Jager, Frerichs, Ahmed, Hill, Solinsky, Kincaid, Teg, Cranny, Schweizer, Houlihan, and probably a few more were far better credentials than anyone else once AlSal was out. But after the Houlihan bust, and especially his response to it, a lot of that support went away. I think him not racing his athletes also has slowly eroded his support. OAC got a few NCAA champs, and Olli quickly became the #2-3 guy on the circuit. A couple years later, Nuguse is almost immediately the #2-3 guy on the circuit.

At this point, Mike Smith has built up enough credit with the running world that he'll probably always be given the benefit of the doubt, akin to a Warhurst or something. He got to that point for me after NAU underperformed all of 2022 in XC, then sent Nico and Drew out hard for them to go 2-3, and then win on a tiebreaker. He's coached literal nobodies (Nur, Day) and top recruits (Young, Bosley) to NCAA records and titles. On the international stage, Grijalva is a bronze medalist now, and Nur has made the final the last 2 years (and won USAs last year). The only knock on him a couple years ago was that he didn't have 800/1500 guys, with Beamish's title almost coming on accident, and he doesn't have success with women. But now, he's got Colin to be one of the best 8/15 guys in the NCAA, and I'd bet money that Aaron is gonna run even better in a year or two. Plus, he's proven himself on the women's side, with Hiltz winning USAs and getting silver indoors, and he spent the last few years building the women's XC team from the ground up, and it was 2nd by 1 point last year.

And just from a logistical standpoint, the only defense of the BTC move to Eugene was that it would give Nike a pipeline to funnel top HS talent to Jerry so he could start training them early, they could develop in the NCAA (effectively no scholarship cap because Nike could NIL anyone they want), and then join the pro team after college without needing to acclimate. Mike Smith basically has the same thing going on, but without Nike funding. Grijalva is the proof of concept. A top recruit that he developed for 4 years to the top of the NCAA, straight to training with him as a pro, and became one of the top guys in the world.

Well you should him credit for what he ran then, he ran 3:33.9, not 3:34. 3:32 from 3:33.9 is 1s (3:32.9 since math seems hard for you). Also, to give him credit for what he ran, he ran 3:33.9 in the rain to win by almost 1s over the reigning NCAA 1500m champ after being well back with a lap to go.

I think he could've run under the NCAA record in better conditions. I'm less sure about 3:32, but since it's only April, I am pretty confident he could run 3:31-3:32 come May/June.

This is THE biggest factor.

I thought that Sahlman peaked in high school and that Brosnan was a terrible coach who burns kids out.

Is anyone saying that Sahlman IS a 3:31 runner after this race? No, nobody is saying that, so nobody is giving him credit for running that time. However, if you've spent any time running competitively you'd know that factors such as pacing, positioning-tactics and weather all affect times. None of those were optimal, so it's only logical to say that Sahlman could have run faster.

The "you get credit for what you have run" attitude, while partially true, gets really dumb really quick. I remember when many on here were saying that Hocker was truly a 3:35 runner when that was his PR, even when he was finishing those races in :52 and his mile PR converted to 3:33.

No, he is clearly a 1500/5000m runner and I’d like to seem him run the longer distance. It was disappointing that Brosnan had him horsing around with the 800m, even though he was capable of breaking LV’s record.

3:33.96 is now the same as 3:33.00 in your world

So be it

and 3:32.9 is not 3:32

its 3:32.9

such a petty guy you have turned out to be

you know as well as I do that 3,33.96 is not 3:33

actually in the old world it would have clearly been rounded up to 3:34

so, not the shoes??

What makes the race even more impressive is that he executed his tactics so intelligently. It wasn't a straight "ride the rail" time trial. His positioning early was sound, made a strong move at the bell, got swallowed and then found his way out of the box again with a nifty scoot to the inside. Hit the final straight with the NCAA champ on his shoulder, and put almost a full second on him.

I’ve probably seen about a thousand runners do the exact same thing.

I'm a big fan of Kessler too, but you're getting needlessly worked up. It's very easy (in theory) for Sahlman to make it true that he ran faster than Kessler at the same age. All he has to is... run faster than Kessler did at 20 rather than what he did at 19. (Or if you really want to get into the months, which it totally pointless, he has to run faster at 20 years and six months, or eight months, or whatever particular threshold you choose, than Kessler did at that age.) You're correct that he hasn't done that. You're also correct that getting a couple of seconds faster, at this level, is very very difficult. But there's no logic barrier that's preventing him from doing it. Kessler's great, you don't need to defend his honor against every imagined slight.

I watched the video and it looked like there was no wind and if it was raining, it wasn’t more than a sprinkle. In other words, it looked like perfect conditions.

It’s worth noting that Colin didn’t even make NAU’s 7 man XC team his Sophomore year & Nico got stomped twice by Banks who wasn’t at 7,000’. I am a huge fan of Smith but there are some fair questions to ask here. This is where so many here can’t get beyond blind loyality.

If Collin gets the 1500 NCAA record this season before Nico goes pro, the current NAU team will include the NCAA record holders in the 1500, 3000, 5000 and 10,000 with Colin, Drew and Nico. Has any team done that? They could also possibly get two current distance athletes on the Olympic team with Nico and Colin.

Is there a video of the race?