Valby lost b/c she was horrible with the tangents

I posted on another thread a similar comment. At around 5.2k there is a great overhead shot of Tuohy chasing Valby as the course came to a bend. valby runs close to the middle of the track and Tuohy runs a tight line. She visibly gained 3 or 4 meters just off of that.

Again, KT was winning this race regardless…but i did find it surprising.

I remember that shot...like a wolf running down a dazed antelope. That was where Tuohy clinched it.

COACHING. Valby lost because of coaching.
Pre Meet includes hammering home the essentials. Tactics change because of the course difficulty, the weather and the competition.
when you have an opportunity to win the coach should hammer home all of these things.

Prob did, but athlete gonna athlete *shrug*.

Same with any coach/athlete or teacher/student relationship.

Humans gonna human.

Alan

Touhy was beeline behind valby running mostly in the front middle of the chase pack through 3k. I rewatched it and outside of Valby's obvious blunder towards the beginning where she almost ran in the wrong direction, she wasn't that bad at the tangents and corners. There is always room to improve, but people are making too much of this imho.

I agree with your points. That’s why it may take her longer to figure out how to race.

Valby was having considerable trouble with the turns on the SEC course, apparently due to the nature of her stride, as when she'd start to turn her momentum would throw her out wide. I'm not sure how the OSU corners compared, but that could still have been a factor, i.e. she might be used to not cutting them close to avoid the momentum throwing her out wide. Some turns require a certain balance and chopping of the stride to get around them without losing momentum and distance.

On a similar note from my racing days, MOST of the runners did not run the tangents well, a great example of that being hairpin turns. I had the technique of taking one step past the hairpin, immediately reversing and heading in the opposite direction. Many times this would give me 10 to 15 yards over opposing runners who kept maintaining their same momentum.

Check any major marathon and there are several in the leading groups of MEN who don't run the tangents well, which happens in every major race. Most people do not run tangents well.

With this being said, I'm sure that Parker Valby will improve at them. She's just getting started.

The OSU course has flowing turns so your explanation doesn’t make sense.

She will be unbeatable on the roads when they have a line painted.

She lost because Tuohy is better. Again, nothing against Valby; I really admire her for going out and executing the only race tactic she could which conceivably gave her a 1% shot at victory, but anyone who thinks she only lost because she was only 3 seconds behind and gee, she could have made up 3 seconds on the tangents, doesn't get what happened yesterday. She could have run all the tangents perfectly and Tuohy was still going to catch her and drop her. I'm with the people who think Tuohy could have won by 20 seconds had she chosed to do so but that wasn't the most important tactic yesterday. Valby was simply up against a much stronger and smarter racer.

Wouhy is pretty good too.

Excellent point. Fortunately she can practice and get better at them.

She could learn something from watching professional motorcycle racing or small track speed skating.

Yesterday was my first time seeing Valby run. I'm not sure she'll win any track race against Tuohy (at least) because I'm not sure she'll stay in lane 1. It's not too hard to imagine her running on the outside lane line the entire way, giving up multiple meters of distance to her competitors during the race, and then getting passed on the inside.

The way Tuohy ran her down in about 1k was very impressive. She was just stronger, simple as that. Valby has a tendency to surge near the middle section of the race then lose momentum. She never falls apart but once the surge is over she does not extend her lead. This was very similar to the 5000m final. Tuohy had the option of going with her initially or sitting back and she has been training for the latter all year.

Yes, I thought she was taking a wrong turn and didn't understand why... I don't think it mattered much in the end, as Tuohy would have won under any circumstances. But it has little to do with stride length or frontrunning, look up vids of Klosterhalfen in Euro junior XC 2016,17 etc. or in some German XC races with hairpin turns. One can have a long ambling stride and run tight corners.

I was great at tangents but then, I had very littler talent….when wins are never easy, you become real good at finding any help you can out of the course. Every race. I can’t imagine having her talent, or what it would like to experience a comfortable win for that matter, but I can see how this skill might have not been given the attention it deserved. I'm sure it will now.

100%. Valby had 2000 meters to pick up her pace. People on the course telling her Tuohy was coming. Valby picked it up to the best of her ability and gave it her all. Tuohy just had more.

Tuohy did not run tangents that much better, especially in the first half. It is what it is, they will battle it out now on the track.

That's not even close to being accurate. Tuohy admitted in an interview after the race that she slowed up at the end because she was totally exhausted.

Tuohy broke the course record by 30 seconds and you think she could have broken it by 50 seconds? No way. Some of you Touhy fans let your passion override your logic.