nice strawman. They don't have to shut down the season; they need to go sit on their asses for a week. yeah, those are great absolute times, but that's the wrong metric. The metric is how are they looking compared to earlier in the season? And the answer is not as sharp as you'd hope.
Nah, pacing and an overcrowded track made a way bigger difference than "real competition". He still got pushed to the line, but LV's race had perfect pacing (mile in 4:14), and he didn't need to worry about positioning, he just went to the back of the pack and held on as long as he could.
Going through in 61.1 as opposed to 60.8 is hardly a difference tbh, the more important numbers are 100 in 13.x and 200 in well under 30. Anyone who's ever down it knows how big of a mistake it is to go through 100 4 seconds faster than goal pace.
And can you point out to me some typical races that are won in 8:34? Afaik, there's only been 3-4 if you include conversions. What, generously, Kessler, Fernandez, Sahlman, Nelson, and Lindgren if you convert to an outdoor track? I don't think any of those went out in 61/67 or anything close to that.
How was it ever overcrowded from Colin's perspective, though? His brother Aaron pops out in front straight away as Colin follows. There is a bubble around Colin with nobody ever fighting him for position. Overcrowding was truly never a factor for Colin the entire race.
Your splits for Colin are off, as is your math because he was nowhere close to being four seconds faster than goal pace his first 100.
Let me help you all with the math and actual splits and then tell me if you really think pacing was a problem here. Apologies for the formatting of the "spreadsheet" below, but LR is run by absolute dinosaurs ffs.
Pacing was totally reasonable and over-crowding was a non-factor.
Dug up LV's splits from that 2 mile where he was pulled along by superior competition.
62.3, 62.9, 63.1, 63.9, 63.6, 65.1, 65.2, 60.7, and 2.4 secs for the last bit from 3200m to 2 mile. LV had someone to draft the first ~2500 meters before being in the wind for the final 700-720m.
Colin's first lap was .8 seconds faster than LVs.
Pretty clear Colin just needs better competition to run with to find out what he can really do.
Just want to clear something up about the workout they did.
It was 3 sets of (1200,400). 1 min in between the 1200 and 400, and 3 minutes after the 400 before starting the next set.
While the above is a hard workout, it is no where near as hard as 3x1200 @ goal 3200 pace w/ 1 min rest would be, which is the workout many people seem to think they ran.
I noticed the same thing in terms of that first 100m or so being very chaotic for both of the Young brothers, in addition of course to a bunch of the other boys in the field we aren't talking about. Ultimately too many guys on the starting line and that's Rich G's fault.
If C. Sahlman was in a race like the one LV ran 8:29 in, all signs point towards Colin running significantly faster than he did tonight, but not due to the pacing or too many people being on the track as that was never an issue for Colin.
People need to understand that racing your teammates is not the same as racing against guys from other teams. Ultimately this turned into two teammates doing a TT together. It's just not the same, especially when Colin knows he's gonna beat Lex. Put him in a race where he's got real competition and you'll get a different result.
Also, Leo led the pack through in 61.1. Just because Tim said it was a 60.8 while announcing doesn't mean that's what it actually was.
Colin went through at 61.5 first lap then 67.2 second lap which is not atypical at all in a race won in 8:34 that doesn't have a rabbit. Colin also paced that first lap a bit better and looked like a real pro out there being super relaxed in 5th place the majority of the first lap.
Nah, pacing and an overcrowded track made a way bigger difference than "real competition". He still got pushed to the line, but LV's race had perfect pacing (mile in 4:14), and he didn't need to worry about positioning, he just went to the back of the pack and held on as long as he could.
Going through in 61.1 as opposed to 60.8 is hardly a difference tbh, the more important numbers are 100 in 13.x and 200 in well under 30. Anyone who's ever down it knows how big of a mistake it is to go through 100 4 seconds faster than goal pace.
And can you point out to me some typical races that are won in 8:34? Afaik, there's only been 3-4 if you include conversions. What, generously, Kessler, Fernandez, Sahlman, Nelson, and Lindgren if you convert to an outdoor track? I don't think any of those went out in 61/67 or anything close to that.
Just want to point out that Verzbicas came through 400m in 61
Yeah definitely a great race to watch, especially with Lex and Colin switching off but pacing was really bad. Wonder what they could do with a pacer. Excited to see the splits but going in 60 was pretty foolish. Really wondering what happened to Leo and his 9:02
To me, it looked like Leo was sprinting for a bit around 50m into the race trying to get into position. Given how hard it looked like he was running, and the fact that he ran that hard so early + the 60 first lap, he probably went just a bit too fast and it took too much energy.
LV's 8:29 had essentially perfect pacing, he got dragged on the back of a pro field that went through the mile in 4:14, and he had someone to draft off of late into the race. Like Sahlman, he ran sub-4 and was the XC national champ, so while 8:26ish is definitely within reason for Sahlman, it's gonna take way better conditions than a crowded track and a 60.8 first 400.
So what time would LV have run with the new shoes? With his stride, maybe 8:25?
If you're going to compare everyone to German, you're just going to fall short because it's not how high school elites do it any more. You don't see solo runs like that at a State meet. The current thing is jumping into college/open meets...even when you don't the indoor nationals mile had a high school pacer. That being said, it's a different era but this was still cool to see with the NP guys going out crazy against a stacked field, paying for it a bit and yet still pushing each other to 8:35s. Nothing to be disappointed in. You could tell they were digging deep and while they could've been content with an 8:40 and chalked it up to a bad start and screwing up their race plan they pushed each other instead.
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