HobbleCreek24 wrote:
Something that doesn't fill me with joy is hearing basically all the EE athletes come out with negative split plans.
And here, I'm not enough of a marathon statistician. I don't know what the rate of negative splits in Chicago typically is. But my impression is that negative splits all around is typically not a great strategy. Absolutely, I defer to EE, who has forgotten more about marathoning than I and everyone I know will ever know, combined.
But hearing all the interviews. Conner will go 62 through half, plan to negative split. Casey 64, plan to negative split. Creed wants to go out in 64.5, hope to negative split. Emily Venters planning to negative split. Like, to me that just feels really ambitious.
There's a part of me that thinks that this is no big deal in that, EE usually puts out conservative race plans that he expects his athletes to disobey. So I think that Conner is almost certainly going to go through half in less than 62 because he's just that type of guy, and because Titus Cheruiyot can probably run a 61 high, and if he can't I trust Mantz to ditch him.
I'm really worried that Casey Clinger is going to slow down if Jared Ward doesn't keep up the pace. I really liked Casey's interview before the race because he acknowledged that he didn't perform how he wanted to on 20k champs, and he attributed that to tired legs in the middle of a marathon build, which I think is totally reasonable, and he feels the taper has been going well. But if Jared Ward starts to struggle around miles 10-12, I think he absolutely has to go with Ryan Ford instead of his pacer.
Emily Venters will have at least her one designated full race male pacer so I'm not concerned with that, but I also am very skeptical that Jared will be able to bring her home on the back half like they're currently planning.
Yeah, I don’t know about *planned* negative splitting either, but I think it’s very smart for Conner to go out around 1:02/1:02:15 and try to maintain. If he cracks a little, a 2:04-high or even 2:05-low, which he’s already run *unofficially* is still there for the taking.