I hate to sound like a Coevette supporter but what about Ovett? He ran 65 for the half mary as a joke and was the best middle distance runner of his time. Now we have Josh Kerr the current goat middle distance runner who had an amazing 800 this year. He fell but was in shape to run 1:45 for 800m if he didn't. Last year he ran CIM in 61 minutes as a a winter tempo run.
Seb Coe did Jim Ryun was similar in size to Arop, maybe 6'2", ran a 46 split in the mud after a 3:55 mile one day in college, was the world record holder at 880 (it's fair to say that with a pacer and a modern track, that 1:44.3 800m conversion would be seconds faster), 1500, mile, and two mile, with a 13:38 5000m pr, and ran 90 miles per week with some fast long runs as well, so I think it's safe to say that he was easily a sub-1:08 half marathon type with a 46 400m, as was Coe.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda.
Now you're talking about weekly mileage from logs 40 years ago, rather than actual times.😂😂
it's not about range. it is about aerobic improvement for a maybe, probably 45 400m guy, that is looking to leave no stone unturned, to go 139 800m, so says coach.
of course, the more aerobic work you do, there is a great tendency to have the muscles be recruited to run distance, and less for explosive, high output seen in the 800. which makes the 800 arguably the most interesting event in track.
guys like snell, coe, ovett, symmonds, all won a majorish cross country race, or road race, while managing at least 47 400m. and are among the very few to do that.
with a 45 second guy, you don't look for the cross country win, but a bit of quality endurance work for the base, to represent a modest improvement in that area.
in this, i would be more interested in being the student, and watch and see, rather than than grandstand, spouting yesterday's news on how to do it
There was a conversation recently about whether the 800m is a sprint or middle distance. Arop always seemed like a guy who was coming from the sprinter end of things, so I wouldn't expect him to go so well over a half marathon. Another thing to consider is that he won the race fairly easily and has no experience with the distance, so it is likely he could go a bit faster.