I've been complaining about "shorter event success" ad nauseum on this site only to be downvoted but I'll be downvoted again. Listen - regardless of technology, if you can't run 1:50 in the 800, you can't run 3:59 in the mile. Sorry. If there is ANY event or race that supports this, it's this one! When will people learn?
I had someone I coached run a 3:58 mile with a 1:54 800 PR. He was better at longer events. Probably could have run faster than 1:54 but made the finals of the Olympic Trials in another event.
I'm ok with that. However, I'll assert he had to be a faster 800 runner than 1:54. When I ran in college all of the sub-4 guys I knew were 1:50 or faster. That doesn't mean there aren't outliers but Faith is a well-trained athlete and she is nowhere near 1:50 and I think we saw the result of that yesterday.
A good argument for pitching sports entertainment towards the ignoramuses. That's where the money is.
Why are you so upset that people enjoy one athletic performance that is not in a normal setting? How does that affect you?
It doesn't upset me; I don't respect it. But it is indicative of where much of pro sport has gone, especially with the widespread prevalence of doping - which is always a factor to be taken account of now.
A good argument for pitching sports entertainment towards the ignoramuses. That's where the money is.
The other poster wrote "the casual fan" and you call the casual fan an ignoramus. You are the ignoramus. You don't care about the recreational/health side of running. You don't care about Jane Doe who jogs 3 times a week and runs a 4 hour marathon because she doesn't follow professional running.
But many Jane Does started running because of Kipchoge's Sub 2. Oh, you didn't know that? I do. I know a bunch who did.
You are a pompous elitist who thinks only professional running matters. Other people enjoy professional running, enjoy the occasional event like this one, and are grateful that that gets more attention to our sport, and more people out of the house going for a run. You should try that some time.
The comments from other posters indicating that casual fans didn't have a clue what the race meant and that they thought 4:06 was close to beating 4 mins shows they are ignoramuses with regard to the sport. Of course I wouldn't say that to their face; just that they were a little "unrealistic". But that is who the event was pandering to.
About the actual race/event itself. I have watched it several times. I think the pacing ruined it.I have never seen such chaotic pacing ever.I think the pacers ruined Faith's rhythm. Her attention was divided between focusing on the race and focusing on what the pacers beside her and especially in front of her were doing.
Maybe it won't have be a sub 4 but the chaotic pacing took away atleast 4 seconds. She could have run a 4.02.
The comments from other posters indicating that casual fans didn't have a clue what the race meant and that they thought 4:06 was close to beating 4 mins shows they are ignoramuses with regard to the sport. Of course I wouldn't say that to their face; just that they were a little "unrealistic". But that is who the event was pandering to.
You are also an ignoramus regarding most subjects. As are we all.
My couch potato neighbour sent me a link to watch Faith's "race". Somehow she came across it on facebook and watched it too. As did her kids. If one of them gets into running because of that, isn't that a win?
It's almost as if you want the "ignoramuses" to remain that way, instead of having a couple of events like this that grab the attention of a few.
And of course you wouldn't say that to their faces. You wouldn't say most of the things you say here to anyone's face.
But it is close. My son took the ACT and scored 34. He retook it and scored 33. That is the same percentage difference between Faith's time and 4 minutes.
I think most people with any amount of running knowledge assumed she wouldn’t get sub-4, but I also don’t like people saying there was no point doing this. I look at it as, now we have a useful data point. She ran reasonably close to 60/lap for three laps. That’s where womanhood is at now. Based on what we otherwise know about race times, could probably go 4:04 or 4:03 with the same setup but paced for those sorts of times rather than the pipe dream goal of 3:59. It was an interesting experiment and I hope they try something like it again, maybe tweak the setup some if need be. I hope they don’t get discouraged by how far she was from an arbitrary number.
It was an obvious sideshow of course. But who wasn’t interested? Who didn’t wonder “what if?” or “is she *that* good? If they had just had her running for a new wr , without the sub-4 cherry on top, how many would have been interested? Promos need a good hook. So say what you like about the sense or honesty of the event, we were hooked. I kind of liked it. And no harm done to Faith-what a magnificent performance—in spite of the ballyhoo!