Up Dawg 10 miler is ON! Keira is busting it out!!!

One question.

This was a women’s only record, correct? She was clearly paced for the entire race. Essentially the same as wavelight or track light or whatever it’s called. If she is allowed to be paced the entire distance by a male, then why distinguish mixed or all female race?

I’m not hating. Watched and enjoyed the whole thing.

Pace car or pace bike or pace motorcycle. All are allowed.

Just to add to this discussion: if we are being really particular here, her best VDOT from her immediate post-collegiate years appears to be 64.8 from that 4:38 mile she ran in February 2007. Additionally, if she ran 16:09 in Sacramento in June of 2006, it was almost certainly at the NCAA outdoor championships that year. I don't remember watching the 5k but I was at that championship that year and it was stinking hot. Which furthers the point I was trying to make in my post that her track times don't necessarily speak to the level of athlete she was at the time due to different constraints (lack of competition in the Patriot League, no group of women at the time at AU to push her in training, a rigorous academic schedule, little to no travel to big "time trial" type meets we see more of nowadays, etc.).

I do believe bringing up anecdotal accounts of women who've achieved great things post-children or after a slump or a shift in career focus is relevant here, as YMMV pointed out purely because of the lack of data we have on women who decide to make a resurgence after a hiatus. So we don't actually have anything else to really go on. Societal and biological pressures for women in the 25-35 age group are very different for women than they are for men. I don't think it's a bad thing, just a reality of the culture we live in.

I'm not a science person, so perhaps this hypothesis is nonsense, but maybe there is a biological advantage to some of these women giving their bodies kind of a rest, or a different activity at least during those prime "child-bearing" years that sort of offsets the age factor a bit for whatever reason? Like it happened to be better for those individuals' bone densities or something? Or perhaps even just an incredibly positive psychological effect of less strings attached when they return to the sport. I don't know. I guess I'm just trying to say that given our lack of data, its at least worthwhile to think a bit outside of the box for possible deviations from the norm.

She was not paced. The bike escort was there for safety reasons as bikes are in basically every road race. Besides, her last mile was the slowest.

Cool name... Herro fan!

She was paced.

What evidence is there of pacing? Did you watch the race? Pacing would require the biker to know the pace for the record along the way, moment to moment. I never saw the bikers look at the GPS device, if there was one, on the handlebars. In every road race, there are bikes in front of elites. They are never pacers.

Yes, watched The whole race. I’m not questioning the credibility of her run. But they were so close that you could see the biker more than her. My question was just that it doesn’t seem necessary to distinguish a mixed race from a women’s only race with a bike pacer.

*stipe wrote:

Yes, watched The whole race. I’m not questioning the credibility of her run. But they were so close that you could see the biker more than her. My question was just that it doesn’t seem necessary to distinguish a mixed race from a women’s only race with a bike pacer.

It's the telephoto lens that makes the cyclist look closer than he really is. It looked as though she was drafting right off him at times, but if you counted seconds when they passed a mark, she was always over three seconds behind. That's neither pacing nor drafting.

As others have pointed out, she was hands down one of the top runners in the country for her entire collegiate career. She was also a stud in high school. Her mediocre track PRs have reasonable explanations.

One thing I'd like to flag, however, is that she didn't come out of nowhere in 2020. This is the year she got good enough to get on everyone's radar, but she has been training seriously for a number of years. I happen to have some experience working with "second act" adult runners, and what I've seen is that they aren't really at a disadvantage compared to people who have been training seriously for a decade or more. Coaches make a lot out of the importance of stringing together uninjured training for long periods of time, and they're right, but only up to a point. You really only need about 2-3 solid years of training if you're starting with a decent background. After that, people don't get much faster. So if, in an alternate universe, Keira Carlstrom graduates from college, goes pro, and continues training hard for over a decade, would anyone be shocked if she turned into this kind of runner? If the answer is no, then you shouldn't be surprised that she was able to do it with just a few years of very high level training.

I was one of the lead bikers for today’s run. I knew what record splits were, but they in no way affected how we rode (and I never looked at my Garmin during the race, just the clocks at each mile). What Keira requested was that we ride the Shortest Possible Route ahead of her so she would not run farther than necessary (I was also one of the course measurers which is why I got the lead bike job). Aside from that our only charge was to stay at least 10m ahead so there would be no question of drafting. So all the pace setting was done by Keira. Granted it is helpful to have someone ahead of you as a mental target but that’s a far cry of some mixed-gender races where the male rabbits grab fluids, clear slower runners from the path and sometimes lead into a headwind for the lead female.

Today’s run was a solo time trial from the start.

ezby wrote:

fghrunner wrote:

the lady on the mic is....soooo bad

Who is it? I hope not Montana ... she’s unbearable. Wouldn’t have done any research before the race, wouldn’t know who the runners are.

My opinion is that if pros raced hard in 10 mile races more often the times would go down a lot. But it doesn’t get raced much. (That’s a bummer, racing 10 miles is way more fun and exciting than 13.1)

Didn’t the guys of Shorter’s generation race a lot of 10 milers?

My high school coach was of that vintage and after college I asked him for marathon training advice and he said, “the only important run you need in marathon training is a hard 10-miler each week. “

He ran 2:21.

reality check... wrote:

Old Man Runner wrote:

I'll be that person...and maybe I missed the discussion..but is no one bringing up the "Is she on something" question?

She is highly suspicious, to say the least. It’s simply not a realistic progression from her earlier career to these times, not even accounting for her age or time off from running. This screams doped up to chase old glory that she wasn’t able to sniff the first time around.

It is so sad that many of you washed up D1 types can’t seem to grasp that improvement is possible up until you are about 40. Maybe decades of uninterrupted hard training is what causes injury and these people coming into it late are even more “naturally talented” than our lifetime elites, or to take it a step farther(towards reality) perhaps the entire notion of “natural talent” is just a lie that lazy slow people tell themselves when they can’t reconcile being #3 on their team.

Why are all of her results on Athlinks hidden/private? Funny that someone who’s clearly not afraid of attention has made all of their results private.

I’d be interested to see all of her results from the time period between whenever she stopped racing seriously and when she started to improve again. Maybe it would help put things in perspective.

What’s up dawg?

(Sorry is someone else already said it)

What I have not seen discussed widely is just how fearless Keira races. When you see her there is no hesitation no holding back, no worrying if the can keep the pace. She goes all out and tries. I think this is clearly as she has nothing to lose with this resurgence in her career so late she knows its now or never. I honestly think its refreshing and it reminds me a bit of the Sara Hall style type. Where on top of the fitness you have this absolute will to just go for it even if it means you might fail.

Just to have the audacity to put up a race that is just targeted at you breaking a record would put many runners in a spiral of stress and pressure. For Keira it seems to spur her on and she does not seem to have a care in the world as everything she achieves now is almost like a bonus.

This is so different from other pro runners who have put their entire self-worth into running their entire adult lives and I'd bet its one of the main differences between her achievements and other great but not stellar times.

Many pros keep everything private.

+1000

bfnbehajsjs wrote:

Why are all of her results on Athlinks hidden/private? Funny that someone who’s clearly not afraid of attention has made all of their results private.

I’d be interested to see all of her results from the time period between whenever she stopped racing seriously and when she started to improve again. Maybe it would help put things in perspective.

You can see nearly every training run she does on her Strava account. I've followed her for over two years. What she does on a daily basis really says more about her races than the just looking at past times.

800 dude wrote:

As others have pointed out, she was hands down one of the top runners in the country for her entire collegiate career. She was also a stud in high school. Her mediocre track PRs have reasonable explanations.

It's sad how far American University has fallen since Centro left.

Their men used to qualify for nationals every year in cross. This year they were 21st in a weak region.

D'Amato was 6th at nationals in cross country. This year their top woman at regionals was 88th.

The new coach, Sean Graham, is not getting the job done.