Konstanze Klosterhalfen crushes NR and PB...runs solo 14:26!!

LateRunnerPhil left out bone structure, this has a big bearing too, you can lose fat and muscle, but not bone.

https://www.coachmag.co.uk/lifestyle/4511/ectomorph-endomorph-or-mesomorph-what-is-your-body-type

Excellent post about BMI.

BMI cannot be used for people like long distance runners or body builders.

Nothing tastes as good wrote:

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

1) They are healthy.

You are right. Nobody can tell from looking at pictures whether these women are healthy. Only their doctors know for sure.

This also means that since you aren't their doctor, you have no idea whether or not these women are healthy. Their health has nothing to do with whether they are eating well, or whether they have muscles in "the right places." Their health is about the metabolic consequences of low BMI.

Jager's weight is irrelevant to whether these women are healthy. The consequences of low BMI are different for men than for women. That is why it's called the Female Athlete Triad.

These women have been running for many years at an extremely high level. I don't know about Hassan, but KoKo had ONE single injury (runner's knee last year) in 10+ years of running and training, and at least 4-5 years extremely competitive/high level.

KoKo was a dancer before she started running - this sport gave her extreme strength (for her size/weight) and flexibility. Even now she takes 1 hour dancing lesson per week. That's on top of all the strength and conditioning at NOP.

KoKo is already a rarity in that she was an extremely good HS runner (2:03/4:08 with 18) and kept improving through college.

As long as young female runners don't idealize her and her body everything is fine. I agree that KoKo is an exception in that with her body type, history and training the weight is perfectly fine for her with 0 health issues. But if the average female HS/college runner starts starving in an attempt to look like her, that's the real danger because they might not have the talent, body type and surrounding training (lots of strength, dancing, overseen by PTs and world-class coaches, etc) to be successful with this kind of weight.

Monikers wrote:

Shouldn’t her nickname be KoKlo?

The nickname started within her family, so it is derived entirely from her first name. Than it spread to her coach and certain friends and eventually became public.

The signature injury of the female athlete triad is the stress fracture. Usually lots Even "normal" (i.e. not very thin) looking teenaged runners tend to get them. (Alina Reh who is the same age as Koko had at least three since 2015. Allie Ostrander had several as well.) Bobby Clay who beat Koko at the Euro u20 1500m in 2015 had to end her career (I think) about a year later at 19 or 20 because her bones shattered. There was a rather disturbing piece by Clay a few years ago about this aspect of her stunted career. (Clay claims that she was not anorexic in the sense of mental illness, she simply didn't eat enough and ran a lot and never had her period before 20.)

It is easy to agree that Klosterhalfen does look disturbingly thin.

But it's simply a fact that she has been like that for about 6 years of increasingly high levels of running (she was second in the German u18 800m in 2013 and ran internationally from 2014 on, placing 4th in the Youth Olympics 1500m in that year) and she never had a single stress fracture (which must be a rarity among female runners between 16 and 22). So either she has some magic stuff preventing these injuries despite very low BMI or she is walking the fine line but staying on the side that seems healthy enough for the time being.

And now she has first class sports nutritionists and doctors etc. monitoring and advising her at NOP.

Baltsu wrote:

The Verband used to be sponsored by adidas for decades but the situation changed. Tthey have been sponsored by Nike since 2005 and will be at least until 2028. Of course adidas might sign individual athletes but honestly Nike wants to sign all the big names, even when they don't have the needed equipment. For example all the best German javelin throwers are signed by Nike but when the company couldn't privide good spikes they wore Asics and just painted them completely black so that people couldn't see the logo.

She was repping adidas until at least 2017, and was running really fast times by then. Amazing that adidas wouldn’t pony up to keep her from Nike while investing heavily in African marathoners. (Not intending to be racist here, but I’m sure the accusations will follow. )

Gesa Krause is another big name German athlete repping Nike over adidas. Not sure who the Hahner twins are with these days; a google search shows them in either kit at different points in time

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

I agree that KoKo is an exception in that with her body type, history and training the weight is perfectly fine for her with 0 health issues.

Do you have access to her medical history and records? If not, then why do you keep saying she has had no health issues, or that she is doing "perfectly fine"?

PS It's interesting to read "she does ballet" offered evidence someone doesn't have an ED. Ballet is ground zero for high-functioning EDs.

Not sure if this was addressed already- anyone know which shoes she was wearing?

No, her club, Bayer Leverkusen was with adidas until some time in 2018. Klosterhalfen ran in Nike spikes/shoes before that but of course wore club singlet from adidas. Later, she even had a special Nike club singlet at the German indoors 2018 when the club was still adidas-sponsored. Then Leverkusen switched to Nike.

German sprinter Gina Lückenkemper had to change clubs after only one year with Leverkusen because she wanted to stay with adidas.

It seemed to be an unnatural spring in middle laps. I did not see it in final stretch when she was sprinting. I run in the 4%ers sometimes and feel it for sure. My guess is the shoes gave her partial boost.

She can't run for the Oregon Project and be coached by Salazar/Julian unless she is a Nike athlete. Farah used to wear Adidas and waited until his contract expired before joining the NIKE Oregon Project.

nathancat wrote:

It seemed to be an unnatural spring in middle laps. I did not see it in final stretch when she was sprinting. I run in the 4%ers sometimes and feel it for sure. My guess is the shoes gave her partial boost.

Why do we need to discredit every exceptional performance by mentioning new shoes? First Kipchoge, then Muir, then Hassan, now KoKo every time someone has a great performance people start talking about shoes as if it would matter. You are doing free marketing for Nike by spreading rumors that the shoes would be any faster than any other brand.

KoKo and the other athletes work extremely hard on all different aspects that have to do with running performance. NOP training is NOT easy - it's a combination of very solid easy runs (no junk miles) and killer workouts. Then lots of strength and conditioning, often using heavy weights and not just bodyweight or low weight high reps.

The Nike spikes are just as good as NB spikes or any other brand out there. If the shoes would provide a clear advantage, they would be banned (shoes get regularly tested and inspected).

I agree. Besides, she was running in spikes and I’m not sure Nike makes 4% track spikes

They looked like the Zoom D or Zoom Matumbo

NYSportsFan wrote:

That was great! Thanks for posting the video. If a picture is worth a thousand words... Her moms reaction in the stands is the best.

Also I guess it's not illegal to televise an entire distance race in Germany without interspersing some random javelin or jump.

There is no complete video of Houlihan's AR, and it probably doesn't exist. But while we're on the subject - Shelby had a couple of pacers, KoKo had none, was running in a championship race and was still 8 seconds faster.

runningchick wrote:

She is the biggest German running talent in like forever. As a German I am so freaking proud of her. I hope she can stay injury free with her low weight. I want to see her crush even longer distances.

Also always good to mention Alina Reh, easily the second most exciting talent in germany. She took second and she has so much potential with her 22 years. She ran a Half recently in like 1:11 without specific half marathon training. I'm really excited what she can do too.

Alina ran the half marathon in 69:29. She will be amazing in the marathon.

She is too thin, very troubling.

She reminds me of Amber Trotter when Trotter was unhealthy.

Bib #1 wrote:

jamin wrote:

Two of the fastest women right now over the 1500-5000m distances are horrifically skinnky, by definition severly underwight.

Klosterhalfen: 106 lbs at 5'9" (15.7 BMI)

Hassan: 108 lbs at 5'7" (16.9 BMI)

I was surprised to learn the Diaba, who is has similar speed, is not much heavier, only 115 lbs at 5'6", though looks so much more heavily built.

Skinny for sure. Not horrifically so, however. I raced at 112-115 lbs at 5’8” back in the day (late teens). And I’m male and carried a lot more muscle than Koko. I ate right and didn’t feel undernourished.

As an aside, I find it curious that BMI is calculated the same way for males and females.

Not horribly so? She has an eating disorder. She has Lanugo on her arms which is indicative of restrictive eating disorders. Men don't have the same benefit that women do with regard to being so thin, so for you to compare yourself to her and then to say she's not horribly thin shows that you both know nothing and your eyes don't work well.

Ectomorph - Endomorph - Mesomorph wrote:

LateRunnerPhil left out bone structure, this has a big bearing too, you can lose fat and muscle, but not bone.

https://www.coachmag.co.uk/lifestyle/4511/ectomorph-endomorph-or-mesomorph-what-is-your-body-type

This is ridiculous pseudoscience.

Ectomorph - Endomorph - Mesomorph wrote:

LateRunnerPhil left out bone structure, this has a big bearing too, you can lose fat and muscle, but not bone.

https://www.coachmag.co.uk/lifestyle/4511/ectomorph-endomorph-or-mesomorph-what-is-your-body-type

I don't know the answers to KoKo's weight but that article is trash and I haven't even read it. They say you can't judge a book by its cover but that you can from that headline. Anyone who uses somotypes like Ectomorphs or Mesomorphs in a physiological terms is an idiot and uneducated full stop. Those are psychological terms and were declared as trash 30 years ago in that field, how they got accepted into fitness and became buzzwords is laughable and purely broscience.