Alan Webb 800m Fall Video, Results and Splits

pjb wrote:

I was happy watching the video because he was actually racing. I don't give a crap about the time and neither should he; he was racing. Yeah, the fall was a bummer, but the result didn't matter anyhow. ...

I'm glad Alan's doing these college races and I hope he keeps doing them. They're perfect for what he needs right now. I'm even glad he's lost a couple of them. The sooner he gets it out of his head (and you out of yours) that his success has anything to do with destiny, the sooner he can set his mind to the work he's got ahead of him.

This.

I don't pretend to know what is best for anyone else (or even myself, really). But since we're all just talking here ... I agree with pjb.

Webb seems to have had issues with racing, both in terms of tactics and handling the pressure. So have him race a bunch. Race him often enough until it's no big deal to him, win lose or fall.

2sdfsdfsd wrote:

I am a huge Webb fan, but something is going on. Ive defended him ad nauseum. I got really upset watching this. He's done. Toast. This guy was at the pinnacle of the sport now he is getting out kicked by BAD, not even mediocre, college 800 runners.

That fall looked very suspicious. He didnt even clip the guy in front of him. who just bites it without some sort of contact from another runner or rail?

He was no tin any sort of shape.

Looked like he was winging it. He had heavy legs the last 3 laps. He caught his spike when he was setting up for a sprint. Not even sure he'd have come past him, but he is heavy and slow. Two things that don't augur well.

At this stage he should be slender and 'slower', but not really slow.

My heart sinks when I read this message board and not for Alan Webb.

SOMEONE TELL ME WHY HE LEFT SALAZAR? He was starting to do so well over there!!!

As someone who ran 1:51 on that track back in the day, it's hard for me to see how Webb could have so little left on that last lap with that pace.

His fitness and rhythm are way off no matter what stage of training he is in.

That fall was unexplainable.

This was 1500m pace.

MGOBLUE wrote:

sammack wrote:

He looked more than OK to me. I thought he looked pretty smooth. I'm routing for Alan to make the comeback, and I think he can look at this race as a small step in the right direction after his 1:55.

he looked OK?? looked like that fall was staged too. YUK

I agree, that fall looked not like Alan lost footing, but that he didn't want to lose to the George Mason guy.

gonchar wrote:

Yeah he was trying to make a move to overcome some college kid no one has heard of.

I'm pretty sure he was on GMU's all-american 4x4 team..

What's the objection? Should we not pull for a former US Olympian to do well? And I thought speculating why athletes aren't meeting expectations was a favorite past time of all sports fans.

I've never heard that Webb wasn't a hard worker. Maybe you could enlighten us as to why folks shouldn't root for him?

And perhaps provide us with a list of US distance runners that it is acceptable to root for? It is great to know the US bench is now so deep we needn't bother with the US record holder in the mile.

I have to admit, the first time I saw the fall my gut reaction was "Man, Webb just had a Suzy Hamilton moment." Watching his reaction and re-watching the video I don't think that's the case, I think he just caught a spike or something and fell. Compare his fall to Suzy's and they are markedly different.

I was searching for meets to record on my DVR and I came across BIG, and Webb was listed in the info as an entrant. Really? He hardly seems ready to compete at that level right now.

Webb's performances right now just description or explanation. If I'm playing devil's advocate, the only thing that I could see that would be positive is what I've outlined before and that is that Webb has a monster base of 7:00/miles under him (there have been reports that's exactly what he did this summer and fall) but nothing else and they're just going to race him to sharpen him. In other words, he's been "running" but he hasn't been "training" and now he's just starting to "train" and these races are being used both to sharpen and make up for lost racing time the last four years. Not saying I agree, but it's the only explanation I can see that makes this something other than an unmitigated disaster.

But even so, it would take a special kind of athlete to keep getting these kinds of results and still maintain their motivation and focus. And the time 1:59 doesn't bother me because of the fall. Clearly he was on for 1:53-ish. What bothers me is that with the fall it's yet another "failure". Had he finished and run 1:53, at least he could see a 2-second improvement from the last race. Continuing to put up these kinds of results would be soul-numbing to even the most confident, focused, self-assured athlete, but Webb is getting these results on top of four years of part-time training, coaching changes, national irrelevance, injuries and poor performances.

At some point, he's got to have something, anything good happen. It doesn't have to be big, but there's got to be some kind of progress, getting past some kind of barrier. Break 1:50. Break 4:00. Break 8:00 for 3000, SOMETHING that shows legitimate progress you can build off of, that can give genuine hope and real motivation rather than mere wishful thinking and numbly going through the motions. If Webb could just show 1:49/3:58/7:58 fitness indoors, it's not laughable that he could have the best outdoor season he's had since '07 (which really isn't saying much). But right now, even if this was a 1:53 race, he's still a long ways from even those modest benchmarks and there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

But at this point, I don't know whether to admire Webb for his dogged persistence in the face of good-but-not-great-HS-caliber results after years of setbacks or to have the kind of empathy and compassion usually reserved for those with serious psychotic conditions who see and hear things that just aren't there.

In previous post it should be "Webb's performances right now just DEFY description or explanation"

While the fall of Webb and the failures of Suzy (both of whom I like, personally) what we are discussing here is the CHEMISTRY of a failure, a loss of focus, and a subsequent disasterous outcome that brings into question "What would the athlete have done had this not happened?"

Many athletes use sport psychology as a manner of understanding their obstacles to success, while also manifesting their own talents to further their successes. Hopefully the latter outbids the former and the athlete becomes comfortable under pressure and graceful in defeat. AW has shown problems with both of those.

Face it, he came out of HS with a lot of pressure on him. After Pre he was "The Man." That is a lot of baggage to carry.

Talent? Definitely

Temperment? That remains to be seen as we move forward

just my .02

oops! I didn't spellcheck that! Don't attack, rabid LR Webb fans!

He did break 4 for the mile and 8 for the 3000 under Salazar. He ran 352 for the mile, 756 for the 3000 and 336 for the 1500 did he not? He was showing progress.

Say he finishes, 154, flat track converts to what if banked, 1'52, put him outdoor 1'50, give him time to bust the rust of his spikes 1'45. I think he will be okay.

I honestly think the plan was to get him into races he would WIN, which would boost his confidence. Even if he ran a slow time, he could still say that he did it winning the race. That plan has been a disaster so far.

That being said, these are good lessons for Webb. He needs to learn to STAY THE COURSE and not let his motivation be so dependent on individual performances. He could take a page out of Ritz' book.

I hope its true that he's been doing all that easy mileage. If that's really true then these races are totally meaningless. He just needs to take those 7:00 miles and transfer them into some real fitness with 5:00-5:15 paced tempo runs and maybe some repeat 800s or miles. Throw in some quick 200s and he's good to go.

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Accurate Post; thanks.

I have looked at this video 10-12x, and he put himself down. The windmilling arms, the staggering...that is staged. When you fall, you go down. boom. Think Uceny. She was up, then she is down.

here Webb is bent over at the waist, flailing around, and then falls. A complete act. Go to a track and try it. How would you fall intentionally? Would you throw yourself to the ground? No - that hurts. You would try to roll into it, like Webb did.

He has lost it, mentally. His erratic behavior has gone from comical to sad. He needs to focus on something else, because running is over for him.

I identify with the guy. In highschool one season, I ran pretty fast. I had no idea what I did to run that fast - it just sort of happened.

I then got injured shortly thereafter and it then took me 5 years before I got back to those times.

In retrospect, once I got injured (I was off for almost 6 months), I came back with a different focus: I was in university and had a different group of friends and priorities - also, since I had no idea what I was doing to get "fast" in the first place, it was hard to recreate.

I thought I was doing the same training, but there were little differences that added up. Overall, I just did not have the same eye of the tiger that I had, and each month that I continued to suck, was another month of second guessing and motivation sucking disappointment.

It sure is frustrating to think you are doing exactly what you did before, and get no where. The honest fact though, is that I just did not care as much as I used to - and it showed.

I bet this is Alan's problem. He is just randomly chasing what he used to be because he thinks he should, but his heart is not totally in it.

lade da wrote: He did break 4 for the mile and 8 for the 3000 under Salazar. He ran 352 for the mile, 756 for the 3000 and 336 for the 1500 did he not? He was showing progress.

Not sure about the 3,000 but others are pretty close. He also beat Rupp in a road 5k.

But I'm talking about now.