She is not social awkward. My issue is that she is not honest. She says the key to her huge improvement over the last two years is from staying healthy. Up until the last few months, she has had multiple injuries. She also said she didn't run in highschool (indicating that her 10:10 in the 3200 was all talent.) She was high mileage in highschool. What she says now is very untrustworthy
I have heard this too. Sometimes she credits her growth to running more now, but in other interviews says she barely runs. She has talked about barely running through her injuries but suddenly she credits being healthy with her progress. She says she barely runs but does atleast one long run a week. In one interviews she said she ran 30 mpw or more in highschool.
Her answers are all over the place and the inconsistency is weird.
You come across as hardly knowing anything about her, except from some post-race sound-bites. We have gotten more significant pieces of information over the past two years, that when stitched together, makes some sense.
Nonetheless, even with her now running sometimes 4-days a week with long runs up to 12 miles, the ‘cross-training’ is a lightning rod to either attack her, or honestly look into the benefits of cross-training. But that can’t be done here on LRC, where the RunnersWorld article was dumped on by you-know-who, and positive contributions to the thread were just relentlessly questioned by a psycho that knows not the first thing about high-level training.
I have heard this too. Sometimes she credits her growth to running more now, but in other interviews says she barely runs. She has talked about barely running through her injuries but suddenly she credits being healthy with her progress. She says she barely runs but does atleast one long run a week. In one interviews she said she ran 30 mpw or more in highschool.
Her answers are all over the place and the inconsistency is weird.
You come across as hardly knowing anything about her, except from some post-race sound-bites. We have gotten more significant pieces of information over the past two years, that when stitched together, makes some sense.
Nonetheless, even with her now running sometimes 4-days a week with long runs up to 12 miles, the ‘cross-training’ is a lightning rod to either attack her, or honestly look into the benefits of cross-training. But that can’t be done here on LRC, where the RunnersWorld article was dumped on by you-know-who, and positive contributions to the thread were just relentlessly questioned by a psycho that knows not the first thing about high-level training.
It’s a wonder somebody didn’t put together a fan-page to profit off her, like the semi-haze dude did with Tuohy.
Off the top of my head, besides the RunnersWorld article, going back, there were some podcast interviews and the Chris Chavez interview.
Anyway, does that explain her strange ability to recover from injury and achieve peak fitness much faster than the typical injured college runner that even her competitors have noticed and mentioned? Not even close, and we saw it in conspicuous detail in 2022 and 2023, both times in a matter of weeks. Does it explain her odd lack of natural fatigue, and her ability to kamikazee races using huge efforts with no seeming adverse effects, as we saw to an absurd degree at ncaa indoors? No. And then we have a huge leap in form from last year. All explained by using an arc trainer and her supposedly magical latent talent. Ok. But it has distinct hallmarks of something else. I'm just not as credulous.
This would all make perfect sense if Valby had signed a contract with Nick Bare Performance Nutrition and was taking his "supplements." But Valby has steered clear of all contact with such "nutrition" companies. Any runner who would dare to associate herself with such a company, well, that is a HUGE red flag. Can you name any runner who is a brand representative for Bare Performance Nutrition?
Anyway, does that explain her strange ability to recover from injury and achieve peak fitness much faster than the typical injured college runner that even her competitors have noticed and mentioned? Not even close, and we saw it in conspicuous detail in 2022 and 2023, both times in a matter of weeks. Does it explain her odd lack of natural fatigue, and her ability to kamikazee races using huge efforts with no seeming adverse effects, as we saw to an absurd degree at ncaa indoors? No. And then we have a huge leap in form from last year. All explained by using an arc trainer and her supposedly magical latent talent. Ok. But it has distinct hallmarks of something else. I'm just not as credulous.
Your post is filled with faulty premises and assumptions.
First, you assume runners can’t maintain fitness from solely cross training. They can.
Second, you assume she achieved peak fitness shortly after injury. There’s no way to know if she reached peak fitness shortly after injury. It’s more likely she was not at peak fitness, and she probably would have run faster if not for her injuries. Did her limping around the track during last year’s SEC championship race look like peak fitness to you?
Third, you compare her to a typical college runner. Why would you compare an exceptional talent like Valby to a typical college runner? A better comparison is Dathan Ritzenhein, who came back from stress fractures to win the NCAA cross country championship in 2003. Like Valby, Ritz was injury prone but was able to bounce back from his injuries and run well in a relatively short time span.
Fourth, you say she lacks natural fatigue and can kamikaze races with no ill effects. Just because she doesn’t look tired to you, that doesn’t mean she’s not hurting. There’s no way to know what she’s feeling inside. If she wasn’t tired, she wouldn’t have let Tuohy pass her in the 2022 cross country championship.
Fifth, her improvement in the last year isn’t “all explained by using an arc trainer and her supposedly magical latent talent.” It’s explained by the fact that she’s finally had a sustained period without injury and has been able to do consistent running along with her cross training.
Valby is having a sensational year that will likely culminate with a Bowerman. She deserves to be celebrated.
I have heard this too. Sometimes she credits her growth to running more now, but in other interviews says she barely runs. She has talked about barely running through her injuries but suddenly she credits being healthy with her progress. She says she barely runs but does atleast one long run a week. In one interviews she said she ran 30 mpw or more in highschool.
Her answers are all over the place and the inconsistency is weird.
You come across as hardly knowing anything about her, except from some post-race sound-bites. We have gotten more significant pieces of information over the past two years, that when stitched together, makes some sense.
Nonetheless, even with her now running sometimes 4-days a week with long runs up to 12 miles, the ‘cross-training’ is a lightning rod to either attack her, or honestly look into the benefits of cross-training. But that can’t be done here on LRC, where the RunnersWorld article was dumped on by you-know-who, and positive contributions to the thread were just relentlessly questioned by a psycho that knows not the first thing about high-level training.
It is dishonest to say there has been one consistent story. And yes I follow the sport very closely, not just the sound bites. I just find her (and her coach's) answers, specifically with regards to her injuries and training, to have been inconsistent and strange. Just my observation. Clearly I am not the only one.
I don’t know how serious the weird ‘nerve’ injury was, so it is hard to say whether or not there was a miraculous recovery. She sat out indoor with it, and then ran some outdoor with a hitch in her stride. Who knows, maybe it was a bit psychosomatic, where her mind would…
She still has some asymmetry in her stride. It is not huge, but if can be seen if one knows what they are looking for. However, I’m not positive it is related to the mysterious ‘nerve’ injury from a year ago, due to having limited information.
I’m curious if her team is aware of the asymmetry, and if so, whether anything is being done to address it.
I don’t necessarily think the way to address it is to have her mentally ‘fix’ her stride. Rather, incorporating full body functional movement pattern training may be of benefit. This is assuming the asymmetry is not related to underlying muscle-skeletal injury.
I don’t know how serious the weird ‘nerve’ injury was, so it is hard to say whether or not there was a miraculous recovery. She sat out indoor with it, and then ran some outdoor with a hitch in her stride. Who knows, maybe it was a bit psychosomatic, where her mind would…
She still has some asymmetry in her stride. It is not huge, but if can be seen if one knows what they are looking for. However, I’m not positive it is related to the mysterious ‘nerve’ injury from a year ago, due to having limited information.
I’m curious if her team is aware of the asymmetry, and if so, whether anything is being done to address it.
I don’t necessarily think the way to address it is to have her mentally ‘fix’ her stride. Rather, incorporating full body functional movement pattern training may be of benefit. This is assuming the asymmetry is not related to underlying muscle-skeletal injury.
Before anyone jumps off the deep end, remember Haile Gebrselassie had asymmetry in his stride, too.
I think her interviews are just raw and natural. And as for running she must be the most successfully runner to improve and become dominant at the collegiate level. She overcame the struggles of learning tangents and continuously sought ways to improve and never losing focus. She's improved so much that teammates rabbit to slow her down. And her nontraditional training breaks all the rules of how to be successful. Following her collegiate progression has been interesting.
The interviewers didn't seem prepared and their conversation didn't flow well...so much of interviewing is nonverbal as well.
You come across as hardly knowing anything about her, except from some post-race sound-bites. We have gotten more significant pieces of information over the past two years, that when stitched together, makes some sense.
Nonetheless, even with her now running sometimes 4-days a week with long runs up to 12 miles, the ‘cross-training’ is a lightning rod to either attack her, or honestly look into the benefits of cross-training. But that can’t be done here on LRC, where the RunnersWorld article was dumped on by you-know-who, and positive contributions to the thread were just relentlessly questioned by a psycho that knows not the first thing about high-level training.
It’s a wonder somebody didn’t put together a fan-page to profit off her, like the semi-haze dude did with Tuohy.
Off the top of my head, besides the RunnersWorld article, going back, there were some podcast interviews and the Chris Chavez interview.
Where is the milesplit video where the local news crew shows up with her? Could not find it on their site.
It’s a wonder somebody didn’t put together a fan-page to profit off her, like the semi-haze dude did with Tuohy.
Off the top of my head, besides the RunnersWorld article, going back, there were some podcast interviews and the Chris Chavez interview.
Where is the milesplit video where the local news crew shows up with her? Could not find it on their site.
I had to go back and search for it. I found it, but not on milesplit (sorry about that.) The video is at the top of the article linked below. It starts out interviewing her coach, and shows PV doing some warmups. The date of its publication was her senior cross-country season. IMO, when I first saw that video, I was surprised at her physical appearance.
But then I was really mind-blown watching the clip of her record breaking 2mile race (run the previous spring), included in that video. It seemed amazing to me any gal could run that fast with that running form (although in retrospect, maybe she was rigging up by that time in the race?)
(1) Has she made extraordinary gains in her running performances?
ANSWER: Yes
(2) Have any other athletes, in the past or present, made such extraordinary gains?
ANSWER: Yes, absolutely.
(3) Were those other cases of extraordinary gains attributable to doping?
ANSWER: Maybe in some cases, probably not in others.
I don’t know why this post got so heavily downvoted, since it is factual.
Take Jim Ryun as an example. His high school coach put him on a very intense training program, and he made phenomenal gains. Who knows, but I doubt he was on drugs when that happened.
My unbiased opinion: she did fine. It was the interviewer who was trying a bit too hard. Nothing more to see here.
Thanks for the video link, I upvoted you. I thought the interviewer did fine, as well. And of course, Valby is just coming off an intense session, so it’s understandable she is hyped up.
Where is the milesplit video where the local news crew shows up with her? Could not find it on their site.
I had to go back and search for it. I found it, but not on milesplit (sorry about that.) The video is at the top of the article linked below. It starts out interviewing her coach, and shows PV doing some warmups. The date of its publication was her senior cross-country season. IMO, when I first saw that video, I was surprised at her physical appearance.
But then I was really mind-blown watching the clip of her record breaking 2mile race (run the previous spring), included in that video. It seemed amazing to me any gal could run that fast with that running form (although in retrospect, maybe she was rigging up by that time in the race?)
Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win a LetsRun t-shirt.Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win one of 10 LetsRun t-shirts.