the day jakob ran 7:17 what could have droped for a 5k?

ignoring the INDOOR 1500 and mile points, because we all know the indoor points tables are broken,

Jakob's top 4 world athletics points races are:

4. 1500: 1292 pts

3. 2 Mile: 1304 points

2. 2000: 1307 points

1. 3000: 1320 points

so the trend here is not that Jakob degrades after 1500 meters

How is it a sure thing at all? El Guerrouj basically jogged then outkicked Bekele to win the 2004 Olympic 5k final. Surely this means he'd beat Bekele in a WR paced 5k too!

Aregawi didn’t receive any help at all from Ingebrigtsen in that race and didn’t run a single step where he was in contact with Jakob.

But at some point he has to right? Or does this trend just keep going on and finish where, the Marathon?

This was the point I made earlier regarding his range and level of performance. Based on what you're alluding to here, if we just keep going in a linear(ish) fashion we'd be looking at what, 1330 in the 5000m and then is it even more in the 10000m or is that when he finally regresses?

1330 is 12.28.07 (that's 7+ seconds faster than Bekele. Seven!) and if we keep going or even just maintain that level is he a 25.56 10000m guy?! Even if the 5000m is his best event (and I want to make a point on this statement in a second), and the 10000m kind of eases back towards his 3000m level, that's still around 26.02. No chance.

I think this notion of the 5000m being his "best" event has been muddied by his dominance in championship races, because in terms of championship racing it is by far his best event. But championship racing and time-trialling are different, and let's be really clear here, what we see now in the Diamond League more than ever with wavelight and improved human pacing is framed up under the guise of "racing" but it's not - it's glorified time-trialling. So what's happening is that we are seeing the 5000m dominance and the blanket concept of this event being his best has been liberally applied to both racing in it's truest sense and this time-trialling aspect that he is/has been so good at on the circuit.

Here is a question for the thread. If it turned out Jakobs 3.26.73 was the WR in the 1500m, would that change the perspective on his 3000m and the 5000m? Because given what we know about how that 1500m progressed (historically aggressively) in that particular era (and we all know what I'm talking about), it's fair that there is some genuine suspicion around those performances - and this comes from someone that had a picture of El G cut out from Runners World stuck to the front of his training diary back in '98.

I think there is certainly a chance that given the context of the era and even with all the legal performance enhancements of this era (WL, bi-carb, footwear) etc, the fact that nobody is getting close to that 1500m mark set in an era where certain endurance "aids" were rampant in sports like running and cycling and untestable, that's 3.26.73 is at the top of human limits so far. I mean the only other guy under 3.27 in the last 25 years was doping which also doesn't help the optics of 3.26.00, 3.26.12, 3.26.34 etc.

I say this because I'll again reiterate that we are (insanely) underestimating Jakobs ability over 1500m, and again I can only imagine that's the case because of what's happened in championships across 22,23 and 24 but these races are separate entities.

And the rebuttal will then be "but Aouita held the 1500, 3000, 5000" simultaneously so why couldn't Jakob. Well 1) he could* (have) - but that 5000m isn't going to be under 12.30 and 2) Aouita was in a very different era where the 5000m in particular was not very evolved - he held that record at 12.58.39 which is even slower than what Hocker just ran in a kick-down World Championships final.

of course he's gonna degrade at some point. I just don't see any evidence that it would be the 5000. Though truthfully, I'd expect he'd have run something more like 12:32-12:34 to put him in a similar ballpark of his 2 mile to 2000 points. just a guess though

Salvatore,

I disagreed with you in the Hocker thread, but you are spot on in this analysis. Well said.

Aint no way Jakob is a 1230/2600 guy. His 1500 is underrated and perhaps underappreciated just because he hasn’t gotten his tactics right in championship races. He has proven to be a 3k specialist on talent, and some may look at this as a detriment, I think it has uniquely allowed him to be so successful across a myriad of distances (including XC).

I am a big Jakob fan, but I do not think he will ever be world competitive in the marathon. He is just too big, that’s too much mass to keep up with the slighter guys over 42k. And he has power and mechanics well suited for 1500-3k moreso than the longer distances.

All this said, 1236-12:40 feels like where he’d fall. not sure he’s quicker than peak Cheptegei or Bekele over 5k. Gebrhiwet is an outlier as he had pacing help until 4600 and likely glowing that day…

Hey all respectful discussion/opinion. Love it.

You are right - we may not have any evidence that his level of peak performance drops off before 5000m (meaning he would be capable of something similar to his 3000m).

But we also have no evidence it doesn't - we have a logic based on two things.

1) That the 5000m is his best championship event where he destroys guys like Gebrhiwet, Aregawi, Kejelcha, and even the WR holder Cheptegei (22 Worlds).

2) He ran 7.17 and 7.54 for 3000m and 2 miles respectively.

So really we are just assuming that the 3000/3218m distances are most reflective of what he can do over 5000m. Well 5000m is 66% longer than a 3000m and 55% longer than a 2 mile. I know that we sort of bunch them together as the "same" event, especially because at the world indoor level the 3000m is basically what the 5000 guys traditionally run. Regarding the championship races, these race are so much different to a timetrail - almost so different they could be a different event altogether. Going through 3000m in 7.33 and having another 2000m to go is so markedly different from going though in 8.05 and running 5.05 for the last 2000m with a 1.22 final 600m.

Hey I could be completely wrong here and if he ever came back and ran 12.32/33 - even the WR, I'll be the first to start an entire thread owning that I was off the mark. Wouldn't even think twice about it.

I wonder how many people have actually seen this guy up close in person. He is not El G, Bekele, Komen, Cheptegei.

As you said, he is almost surprisingly big for a guy as good as he is over 5000m. You see him warming up and he's got these massive calves and you wouldn't be mistaken thinking he's an 800m runner.

I'm saying that the group consensus in the athletics community was that Jakob could break the 5000m WR, therefore I'm surprised by the doubters in this thread.

The Paris race was just one example of how strong he was over the 5000m against one of the fastest ever. This wasn't a last lap Hocker style burnup, where Hocker pips the win on the line in the last 2 metres. This was Jakob catching up to the leader from way back, jogging the back straight, and then putting on the speed to put 30 metres on the field for the win. If the race was way faster, Jakob would be there - you would think. Like he was in Florence all those years ago.

I have a different thought process about Jakob's physical attributes. I see him more as the genetic outlier who breaks the mould of traditional (and smaller) distance body types, which gives him an advantage, rather than a disadvantage. It literally hasn't been a problem for him at any point in his career from XC down.

Like Usain Bolt - when he first came onto the scene, who would have ever thought a lean 195cm rake would break the WR in the 100m? But as history panned out, this was to his advantage once he mastered how to get to top speed quickly.

Humans evolve.

Long distance, and the marathon, are different. the comparison to Bolt is not really relevant.

Sprinting is (mostly) mechanics, fast twitch fibers, and the creatine phosphokinase system. Size can be reasonably be extrapolated to success (within limitations) and many of us in the exercise phys world were waiting for a taller sprinter to dominate.

Distance running is (mostly) anerobic metabolism, slow twitch and mixed fiber types, oxidative phosphorylation, glycogenolysis and some gluconeogenesis. Having less mass (not necessarily shorter, but MASS) is a huge advantage when you get to distances that require glycogenolysis and liberation of hepatic stores.

I will admit if I am wrong, but I feel very confident saying Jakob is just a bit too built to excel at the marathon. It’s also precisely why he is perfectly suited for middle distance.

Even taller outliers like Wilson Kipsang (6’0”) and kelvin Kelvin Kiptum (5’11”) weighed 137 and 143 respectively. Jakob is 6’1” 152. As Stitchmo said, he’s a big dude. I struggle to see how he could get down to a healthy racing weight under 145.

There’s a reason the top guys are built like Kipchoge, Kimetto, and Bekele (all under 125 pounds). Once you get into glycogenolysis, it’s a huge advantage to be carrying less weight.

Should say *aerobic* metabolism for distance

Yeah, Mo Farah won 10 5,000/10,000 Gold medals but he set zero world records. Didn't even attempt one. Championship running and time trialing are two very different skills. Trying to extrapolate from one to the other is pointless. There's no correlation except in the extremely rare circumstance when the athlete is head and shoulders above everyone else in the world. Peak Bekele, for example. Saying Jakob can set the 5,000 WR because he easily outkicked the best 5,000 runners only means a very good 1,500 meter runner's kick is better than a very good 5,000 meter runner's, which is not a surprise.

Doesn't that just show I was right about the 3000 being his best event? The 3000 is the vertex, and his points are slightly lower on either side.

The 5000 in Paris had a 8:17 first 3000. It was a jogfest that played right into Jakob's hands. Winning a race like that doesn't mean he could have broken the WR.

Last 3000m was run in 7:35, final 2000m in 4:55. Nobody has ever closed as fast as that.

Great runners can have a great close when the first 50 to 60 percent of a race is slow. He ran a slow first 3000 and had a fast last 2000. Doesn't mean he could have broken the WR.

Yes but it wasn’t a jogfest.

Hmmm, okay.

In the 2008 final the 2000m split was 5.22.29 with Bekele about 1m back of the lead - so we can estimate Bekeles split with fairly good accuracy because we can see exactly how far back he was at that time. At about 6.2m/s running speed, 1 meter is approximately 0.16 of a second - 5.22.45. His finishing time was of course 12.57.82 which gives 7.35.3-7.35.4 for the final 3000m and I feel pretty good about the accuracy of those numbers.

Now yes, the final 2000m was fractionally slower - 4.56.97 (vs 4.55.3), but I think we can cut Bekele some slack given he went through 3000m 17.5 seconds faster (8.00.85 vs 8.18.3) and he did lead the entire final 2150m.

But let's go back and focus on the final 3000m because that's more impressive. So if Bekele could run just as fast (surely we aren't splitting hairs on 3-4 tenths of a second here) for that final 3000m in a race that was considerably faster and he also ran 53.87 for the last lap and celebrating with 150m to go (vs Jakob 53.99 pushing pretty hard), where does that leave us now?

Bear in mind this was Bekele in 2008 - undoubtedly a tougher racer (who finally got his tactics right vs trying to run a "milers" 5000m), but well past his top-end peak performance period (which was really 2004-2005 - his WR setting years). Conversely this was certainly Jakobs best career year to date (maybe there is better to come, maybe not) - but safe to say he was in pretty good shape that year running 3.26.73, 3.28.24 from the front in an Olympic final, and of course 7.17.55 for 3000m.

So with the context of the 2008 race above - are we really using that 2024 final as some manifesto of anecdotal evidence that he can run 12.30? If we are, then what on earth was Bekeles potential in 2008? 12.25? 12.20?

Context is everything, and that's a fact.