Parker Valby Will Win Bowerman

Well she did win. The times aren't compared to world class times. They are compared to previous NCAA marks.

That's a good point. I would love to see someone rank all the Bowerman-winning seasons. My guess is Valby's season would rank somewhere in the middle. Looking at the last two winners and the seasons of the sprinters who won the award those years, I'd put Valby's season behind Julien Alfred's but ahead of Abby Steiner's.

When comparing Valby and her records to previous Bowerman winners, a couple things to keep in mind in addition to world competitiveness are how long the previous records had lasted, and whether or not someone broke a significant barrier. As opposed to sprint records that seemingly get broken every 3 to 5 years, the 5,000m and 10,000m records that Valby broke had each lasted over 14 years. Moreover, she was the first NCAA woman to go under 15:00 and 31:00. I think she deserves bonus points for breaking two longstanding records and breaking two significant barriers.

Fasttuohy is a toned down version of Adtro. He is more subtle in his insults of Valby. Valby won the Bowerman. How many distance runners have done that?

I was wondering.

I’m going to study temporal mechanics and engineering and make it my new life goal to invent time travel. So I can go back to 2022 and give Astro a heart attack by showing him Valby will be the chosen one to win Bowerman and make 2 Olympic teams, whilst the runner he is obsessed with will win a couple NCAA titles then do absolutely nothing of significance, except for signing sponsorship from a sketchy supplements company 🤣

Two women now, including Jenny Simpson

Yes, the speech was a little awkward. The thing is, I don’t think Valby is very particularly good at promoting herself, and I don’t think she’s super comfortable being the center of attention. I think that may be why she often seems awkward in these situations. She never expected her running career to turn into this, and she’s still learning how to navigate the publicity that goes along with it. Many people don’t enjoy her quirkiness, but I think the majority of T&F fans are amused by it. I’m not sure she’d be as popular if she were more “normal.”

(This site is now throwing up a full-page ad that keeps popping up repeatedly; wasn’t sure it would let me post.)

I’m not sure why you think the speech was awkward? It wasn’t pretentious. It was short and got straight to the point of thanking all her key supporters. It was a good balance to the speech of the male winner which was much longer (loaded with some comedy. His lengthier speech was fine too, since most do not know as much about him as they already do about Valby.)

A thing that may have made Valby’s speech even better (and funnier) would be right after she said “I need to pull out my speech that ChatGPT wrote,” she pulls out several pages that unfold to the floor accordion like. The audience would have laughed and then groaned, being wary of how long she might drone on.

I didn’t see that at all. Here is the speech:

the-bowerman-presentation.runnerspace.com

The Bowerman Presentation - Videos - Parker Valby Acceptance Speech - The Bowerman Presentation 2024

The Bowerman Presentation 2024

Open link

Looks like I called it

First of all, I’m not ripping her. I like her. And I think she’s actually funny. But, she could be much more effective if she polished up her public speaking skills, just a little. I think she’s capable of doing it if she wants to.

If she polished her speaking skills, then she may actually come off as “arrogant”? I think (hope) as she goes through more of life and matures, maybe there will be fewer “yeahs”. I’m not sure she’ll ever be the bubbly Carrie Tollefson, but is that what people want out of her?

BTW, in her speech, she thanked “Adrian, her handler”. Is that an independent aide, rather than a New Balance employee?