Josh Kerr is the 2024 men’s middle distance runner of the year

Jakob owning the world indoor 1500 record adds to my point that indoor matters. When selecting the 2024 middle distance runner of the YEAR, we need to look at the whole year. That includes indoor.

Those are the Ingebrigtsen fans.

What was most exciting was to see the blowhard out of the medals in his specialty event.

What final did Josh win in Paris?

Your schadenfreude blinds you.

Kerr won a middle distance medal in Paris and another one in Glasgow. Jakob didn’t win any middle distance medals this year.

But 2 miles indoors is not a middle distance, according to you. So, why are you considering it now?

Do you know the meaning of "you"?

For YOU a loser is the best.

You are living up to your name by being wrong again. On the first page of this thread, I defined what is middle distance and what is long distance.

Middle distance = 800 to 2 miles
Long distance = 5000 and up

That is fair.

How about Jakob's 3:26.73 and 7:17.55? Are these not more impressive performances? The 3k is rated as 1320 IAAF Points. Or his medal at the european champs? Or his 3:27 in Lausanne? Or win over Kerr in Zurich? He still has one more race where potentially he could go under 3:26. Would this change your mind if he were to break 3:26?

Congrats to Josh! UK middle distance runner of the year!!

Fair, he is the Brit who never races after all

Jakob’s 3:26 and 7:17 were outstanding performances. There’s no question about that. But Kerr also broke a world record/“best” and ran a fast mile. Jakob has the fastest time this year in the 1500, but Kerr has the fastest time in the mile. That’s a tie.

The Euro 1500 doesn’t mean much when Kerr did the 800 and Americans were the best country in the 1500. Zurich gets cancelled out by Pre. Lausanne isn’t as good as Kerr breaking a 43-year course record at 5th Ave.

I don’t get into hypotheticals, but maybe we can revisit if Jakob runs 3:25 in Brussels. The problem is Jakob’s season was so short. To give someone middle distance runner of the YEAR based on only 3.5 months of activity is a tough sell. Would you give someone employee of the year if they only worked for your company for 3.5 months? Those 3.5 months would have to be perfect to overcome someone who has been magnificent since February. Do you know how difficult it is for a runner to be magnificent from February to September?

Jakob’s 3.5 months have been far from perfect. Three big losses, lost twice to Kerr, and no medal in the Olympic 1500. Kerr has two middle distance medals this year. Jakob has none. Kerr wins the award.

Rather than argue about this ad nauseam, we could just list our criteria (independent from "our favorite guy"). Then, it will either clear things up for us or allow us to understand why other people's thinking makes perfect sense to them.

Here is my logic:

There are really only two "big goals" each season: to be the Gold Medalist or break world records. To me, the minor medals don't matter too much; a lot of those guys are really only racing for gold. The secondary goal is to get world records.

And if records don't get broken, then "being the fastest of the year" is the next best thing.

Here are my criteria for "best" in any given event:

• Olympic Golds - Hocker & Wanyonyi
• Other Medals - Kerr, Nuguse, Arop, & Sedjati (or Hoppel if Sedjati gets popped)
  
• World Record - Jakob (OMG!) & Kerr (but indoors and slower than Jakob over the same distance)
• Fastest Times - Jakob (3:26.x) & Wanyonyi, Sedjati, Arop, Hoppel (1:41.x)
  
• Diamond League Champions - TBD
  

This is just my reasoning. You don't have to agree, but you can't claim I am "just picking a guy because I hate his rival."

You might. If you had a "sale season" in your industry that was from June to September and someone (Jakob) set all kind of yearly bests for the company, then you would give them EOTY for sure.

You would be happy if another employee (Josh) who went to a secondary convention in Scotland in the Winter and made some sales (indoor gold?). That is nice but not really something the rest of the company even thinks about.

No, that's not a "tie".

3:26.73 is worth around 3:43.27 (Kerr has run 3:45.34).

Lausanne is greater than 5th Avenue due to the stronger field. The Lausanne 1500m field featured nine Paris 1500/5K finalists. The 5th Avenue Mile only featured four finalists.

Oslo is greater than 5th Avenue for the same reason—seven Paris finalists versus four.

Does this mean you think Josh Kerr, who didn't win a single 1500m race all year, deserves the "2024 middle distance runner of the year" award?

Thank you for an entertaining post and the laugh you gave me!

You are of course trolling. -Meaning: You clearly don’t believe in your own words and reasoning. And you are of course here also to be condescending - very obvious through how you make a huge point out of Jakob’s short season, and how his results barely count because of that, in your belittling opinion and wording…

First of all: You claim that Jakob’s 3.26 and Josh’s 3.45 is a tie, because both is season best in the respective events..! Lol -I could stop my post right here, because in this you are making an inexcusable lie. -You know of course that this is no tie at all; the distances are very convertible, and Jakob’s time is almost 2 sec better than Josh’s…

And then we have 7.17 against 8.0 some -Josh himself compared his 2 mile time here against Jakob’s 7.54, and called the latter “a whole another ballpark”, which of course is totally correct. (Also because an indoor 2 mile is no disadvantage vs outdoors, and doesn’t need any conversion, IMO). And compared with the even better 7.17, and f.x adding a couple of seconds to Josh’s time since he had Fisher as a pacer almost the whole way -just for the fun of it, then we would have Josh at ten sec slower than Jakob, that isn’t only a whole another ball park, but a whole another ball park in a whole another universe..!

As you know Jakob was injured last winter with “almost no running for five months”. So yes, that makes a shorter season than he usually has (with full indoors). But since Jakob is so much better than Josh in 2 mile/3000m I suggest that we restrict to and define mid distance for those two as mile/1500m, also because they haven’t competed against each other in other events than that. And what have we then? Bingo -they started their season at the same time, and Jakob’s is longer (because of Brussels but also because of significantly more races), but I shall not be condescending and use it against Josh, or compare him with an employee…

Yes, Josh was better than Jakob in Paris. -Points to him! And yes, he did beat Jakob in the mile. And Jakob beat him with 2 sec in Zurich.

Road mile 3.44 -down hill and with a tailwind. -Sorry, not close to 3,27 high!
Conclusion: Josh seems to have been the best of the two in May and in Paris (despite Jakob showing a physiologically but not tactically potential there better than in May). Current best: Jakob; probably around 2 sec better than Josh, even drafting him….