There are genuine oddities about Valby. Her ability to keep coming back stronger from injury. The fact that she never seems to tire. And her personality from the interview seems odd, even off. Again why is she gunning a 5000m if she wants to double unless she has a reason not to worry about tiring? If she can put monster effort after monster effort without fatigue, that seems unusual.
She said it was a 6 or 7 effort out of 10. She wasn’t trying. Sorry she’s in another league than Tuohy.
A "6 or 7 effort"? So if it was a 10, what would she have run? 14.30? 14.20? By a college athlete who runs twice a week with some cross-training. You realise what you're saying?
It doesn't make any difference. It isn't running on a track or the roads and putting in the miles as the best distance runners do. It's a substitute for those who can't do that, who are recovering from injury or who aren't the best athletes. Yet you gullible simpletons think it is like a new "wonder-drug" when it comes to producing success. Perhaps that analogy cuts too close to the bone.
Gullible simpletons? No. We know how things work. You had a couple of posters sharing their experiences, explaining the cooling effect of the air as you move forward. You are the simpleton who sees doping everywhere.
Athletes regularly run in temperatures well in excess of 70 degrees in summer time. There isn't much "cooling effect" there. Also, most gyms have either air-conditioning or fans. Plenty of cooling effect there.
I just have a question. Why is the women's college 5000 record, so far behind the pro women's 5000 in terms of time?
Interesting perspective.
But, keep it in context of indoor races only and AR vs CR.
I don’t want this post to sound like I’m throwing water on what Valby has accomplished, but I think she, as just an example, still needs two-three years of progression to get to the point of being really interesting at the World Championship level, competing with East Africans.
The overarching reason for this is largely cultural and environmental in the training of US high-school/collegiate athletes, versus what they have going on ‘over there’.
So the bottom line is that in order to be competitive with what they have going on over there, drastic changes would be required in the training and development of US female athletes. (But whether those ‘sacrifices’ are really ‘worth-it’ is also an issue that would need to be part of the discussion. )
Valby has said she never does more than 60 to 70 on the arc. I’m pretty sure people are seriously underestimating her running volume. After xc, she said she does up to 30 miles of quality volume a week. That’s really quite a bit. Remember justyn knight did 30-40 mpw TOTAL volume in college.
You're joking, right? "Up to 30 miles a week is quite a bit". There are 10 year-olds who do more than that. And what are "quality miles"? She just runs a bit faster? A lot faster? And that's the best training for distance runners? Yet I keep reading on these threads about Kenyans and others running 150mpw at least. Can't be "quality miles".
This is my weekend to move out of CA so I am not seeing everything live. Valby was extremely impressive in that final k after apparently running about15:00 pace for 4k. What jumps out to me is the huge leap she took in 4 or 5 months from being a 15:20 something runner to apparently a 14:40 something runner.. Have we seen anyone do that before? And like astro says while she looks like she is working hard running after a race she shows no effects.
This is my weekend to move out of CA so I am not seeing everything live. Valby was extremely impressive in that final k after apparently running about15:00 pace for 4k. What jumps out to me is the huge leap she took in 4 or 5 months from being a 15:20 something runner to apparently a 14:40 something runner.. Have we seen anyone do that before? And like astro says while she looks like she is working hard running after a race she shows no effects.
Either she was doing low volume before and added a lot, or she is taking performance enhancing supplements. I'd wager on the latter.
There are genuine oddities about Valby. Her ability to keep coming back stronger from injury. The fact that she never seems to tire. And her personality from the interview seems odd, even off. Again why is she gunning a 5000m if she wants to double unless she has a reason not to worry about tiring? If she can put monster effort after monster effort without fatigue, that seems unusual.
She said it was a 6 or 7 effort out of 10. She wasn’t trying. Sorry she’s in another league than Tuohy.
(I end up rolling my eyes and ignoring a lot of the troll posts,) but this point on “6 or 7” I find to be very interesting. I think she is describing her RPE effort as to what is going on metabolically. I think she is riding that LT2 line, and so it is primarily a neuromuscular strength limitation that is currently keeping her from going faster, rather than aerobic development.
But why does someone for whom the elliptical is so much hard work and is drenched with sweat show none of the same on the track?
Use your brain. A 5k lasts 15 minutes vs elliptical that lasts much longer than that, which means that a runner would be much less sweaty when running only 15 minutes.
Plus when someone is running the air is moving over them vs elliptical when the person is stationary. How come you aren't smart enough to figure that out without me explaining that to you?
What about when she runs when there is no wind? Just like the gym. Furthermore, she isn't running as fast as she can when she is training in the gym; but she is when she is in a race.
An athlete doesn't need to run a substantial distance to sweat. You can see it on sprinters and 800-1500 runners.
This is my weekend to move out of CA so I am not seeing everything live. Valby was extremely impressive in that final k after apparently running about15:00 pace for 4k. What jumps out to me is the huge leap she took in 4 or 5 months from being a 15:20 something runner to apparently a 14:40 something runner.. Have we seen anyone do that before? And like astro says while she looks like she is working hard running after a race she shows no effects.
This is a very ill-conceived post throwing disparaging suspicion when it is founded not on half-truth, but blatant error! She ran 15:20 almost TWO YEARS AGO!
Use your brain. A 5k lasts 15 minutes vs elliptical that lasts much longer than that, which means that a runner would be much less sweaty when running only 15 minutes.
Plus when someone is running the air is moving over them vs elliptical when the person is stationary. How come you aren't smart enough to figure that out without me explaining that to you?
Yep, it's very easy to be drenched in sweat and have a high HR on the elliptical.
I have a different recollection of 2022. My perception at that time was her ability to run as well as she did primarily from cross-training showed she had exceptional talent and enormous potential if she could find a way to stave off injuries.
I think what we’re seeing now is what she’s been capable of all along with uninterrupted training and physical maturation. As far as I know, she hasn’t been injured since last spring. That means she’s finally been able to have nearly a full year of uninterrupted training and progression.
If Valby could run 15:20 two years ago while coming off an injury, it makes sense that she can run as fast as she is now after a year of steady training.
Yeah I don’t see the “15:20 to 14:40 in 4-5 months” improvement that another poster referred to, at all.
For starters, her PB is now 14:52. She ran the last 3k at 14:44 pace. You can’t really hand her a 14:40 yet.
3 months ago she ran 14:56 with a pacemaker, effectively, for 4k. That seemed to be the 5000m fitness she’d been displaying on XC courses all fall.
In the spring of ‘23 she was dealing with a lingering injury that had derailed her previous indoor season. She won SECs in 15:25 and Nats in 15:30 both WITH A VISIBLE LIMP. The Nats performance was especially impressive since it was like 90 degrees, humid and breezy. She showed she could run 15:1X WHILE LIMPING (LOL).
Fall of ‘22 was when Valbymania really started. She was probably in 15:0x shape that XC season, tearing up courses with crazy times, dominating Chelangat and Olemomoi and only losing to a runner who would run 8:35 for 3k 2 months later.
Spring of ‘22 she attempted to win NCAA outdoors from the front and finished 2nd in a 15:20 PR.
Long story short, one man’s “sudden 40 second improvement” is another man’s “incremental 28 second improvement over the course of almost 2 years.”
A "6 or 7 effort"? So if it was a 10, what would she have run? 14.30? 14.20? By a college athlete who runs twice a week with some cross-training. You realise what you're saying?
If she was a kenyan male student in the NCAA with the same progression, routine, destroying the field, there would be doping questions daily. But she is a pretty white girl.
A "6 or 7 effort"? So if it was a 10, what would she have run? 14.30? 14.20? By a college athlete who runs twice a week with some cross-training. You realise what you're saying?
If she was a kenyan male student in the NCAA with the same progression, routine, destroying the field, there would be doping questions daily. But she is a pretty white girl.
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