Alan Webb... It might be over.

the table refuted the idea that he races well early frequently, and also that he must race well early in order to have a good season. he ran a poor (for him) 8:23 in 2007, yet he had a career year. However, I think that in 2007, he had already had a few very good miles (3:51 in April and maybe Reebok before pre?) and was training for 800/1500. In most years, it seems like if he has not run much under 4 by June, he has never recovered. I'd love for him to have another great season but at the moment the prognosis is poor.

dsrunner has the day off wrote:

...

Now it is interesting to me to see the same poor logic applied to Webb's interval results. 10x800 200 - 206 does not make 346 (or even 356) a slam dunk. Imagine this exact same session is completed by two different runners. The first has a 1x800 capability of 159, the other can make a 143. Which runner would you pick to win a fast 1500m race?

I agree with your thought (Webb doing a bunch of 2:00-2:06s in practice doesn't tell us much), but your question is ridiculous. A 1:59 800m guy couldn't touch that workout.

Although this is a fun and interesting topic to debate, I still think it's too early to write off Webb or even draw any conclusions from his results. In 2007 he came out breathing fire, opened up real fast (3:51 in March at Drake) and set tons of PRs. He did not do so well in Osaka. In 2008, he tried to remedy his WC problems by moving his schedule back, not racing indoors at all. But, his opening races did not go so well (Carlsbad 5000, etc...) He didn't make the Beijing team, and now here we are in 2009, trying to guess where he's at and what he's up to. I really think we have to wait until after Berlin (or maybe USA's) to really judge his season, and see if him and Rackzo can adapt and fix his situation. After all, his goal SHOULD be at least making the team and making the final at the WCs.

That said, if things do not turn around by August, I think he has to change SOMETHING. Maybe a change of scenery. Go to altitude. Get a new girlfriend. New coach. Go vegan. Take up hunting. Go on vacation. Train for a 10k. Race a road mile. Race a marathon. I'm not saying do every single one of those things, but man, sometimes you just need to shake things up a bit to move forward.

Webb's career hasn't just been a rollercoaster, it's been a crazy rollercoster.

Skipping the whole 2001-2003 time period, 2004 was basically his coming-back-out year, where he ran 3:50 at pre, won usa's, and made it to the semi's at the Olympics.

2005 was an improvement from 2004, not only winning Pre and USA's again, but also setting new PR's and 1 AR(2 mile 8:11 AR, 1500m 3:32.xx, mile 3:48.92, 5000m 13:10.86). He made some real leaps and bounds in 2005, but still failed to quench that relentless thirst for gold at worlds.

2006 was a little overambitious, but impressive while it lasted. A 27:34 10k debut outkicking Ritzenhein at the Cardinal was pretty epic, but then faultering in the 2 mile at Pre and slumping to finish in 4:00 a week or two later showed that he had stressed his body into injury. The season was done for him in early-mid June.

This is the interesting part. He takes much of the summer of 2006 off, recooperating from injury, and I think he might have run the 5th avenue mile later that year in late summer/late fall, but I'm not sure about that. He may not have ran anything. Then 2007 started as if he had left off where he should've been in 2006, running 3:55 indoors, 3:51 in late April, and then 1:43, 3:30, 3:46 to set an AR in the mile and some year bests for those same events. Still no dice though as he finished 9th in the final at worlds.

After that summer, he tried doing even more "strength training" but couldn't handle it as he injured himself, and since then his career has been a slow demise. I think the crazy part is the jump from 2006 to 2007 when he blew off an entire season to injury, coming back to set amazing world leading times, yet when he was injured early in 2008, he never bounced back. Why was he able to bounce back from to 2006 to 2007 but not in 2008 and 2009? I feel like there is a lot of secretive information that is obviously not out in the open concerning Webb's training(i understand many coaches wouldn't talk about this kind of stuff). Does Razcko ever talk to anyone? Does anyone ever talk to Razcko? I get the impression Webb's dilemma is reaching a critical mass and something's gotta give.

Nobody here knows Webb personally so it is almost impossible to say what is really wrong with him. He could be doing the exact same thing he did in 2007, which was probably one of the best seasons a US distance runner has ever had. This is similar to his previous funk when he left Michigan. This current slump is now over 700 days old.

Remember the thread last year entitled Spivey better than Webb. In that thread Spivey and a few professionals from years past speculated what was wrong with Webb. All I know from a laymans point of view is that no 3:46 miler has slumped this badly. Cram and Coe went on to great things after running under 3:48.

I remember on this site a year ago after Webb posted a 1:47 800 one of the posters saying "its over". Now they are saying the same thing about Webb this year on the front page.

This slump is unique and has no historical counterpart. Never before has a 3:46 miler become average two year later.

This is a mystery to everyone.

Just to put in my 2 cents in this echo-chamber ...

For those that are saying that someone can be physically done at age 26, without injury or some sort of health problem, don't know what they're talking about.

Webb may need a new coach. I would definitely look into it as the season progresses if he doesn't have some "peak at the right time" trick up his sleeve. But the hay's already in the barn for this season.

Did Steve Cram post on this thread or was that an imposter?

ya'll need to chill and get a life. he's a mortal and he's young. may benefit from a change of scene and a new coach but he's far from done and he ain't no doper.

To have a true apples to apples comparison you have to take in consideration the weather conditions and I know for a fact that the weather at Drake this year when Alan Webb ran wasn't that good!

Granted I didn't like the comments that were made when Alan Webb was at Michigan and didn't win the 1500m finals at nationals and there was talks about him leaving the school to reunite with his high school coach, and Alan did leave and return with his HS coach and he's had somewhat of a rocky career so far; but please LET HIS COACH, COACH!

If any of you ever ran track in HS or College there was always phases in the season, and my coach always coached me to run fast when it counted, so give Alan and his coach a chance this season.

For the people who will point to the Olympic Trials. Everyone has had a bad race and if you haven't then keep racing, it will happen.

Lets try something different, lets give Alan a chance to get up from that race and show everyone the kind of runner that he is.

irun wrote:

After that summer, he tried doing even more "strength training" but couldn't handle it as he injured himself, and since then his career has been a slow demise. I think the crazy part is the jump from 2006 to 2007 when he blew off an entire season to injury, coming back to set amazing world leading times, yet when he was injured early in 2008, he never bounced back. Why was he able to bounce back from to 2006 to 2007 but not in 2008 and 2009? I feel like there is a lot of secretive information that is obviously not out in the open concerning Webb's training(i understand many coaches wouldn't talk about this kind of stuff). Does Razcko ever talk to anyone? Does anyone ever talk to Razcko? I get the impression Webb's dilemma is reaching a critical mass and something's gotta give.

They don't talk too much (much less than Lagat) but we do know that they do high volume interval sessions (something like 10000m per session twice a week, which is high volume for a miler). We also know that they talked about cutting volume back some, in response to the overtraining problems from last year (interval sessions were supposed to go down to 8K per session, and overall mileage was to be cut as well).

Putting all this together, assuming there's no medical problem like the stomach problem Lagat had in early summer in 2007, what I'm wondering about is this:

(1) In 2007 he had a good preparation. He ran 3:34 at Nationals (good, but maybe not predicting times that nobody in the world would run since), and in the interview at Nationals, he said he was going back to being a speed guy again, and that the emphasis on endurance was going away. BUT, he ran his 3:46/3:30 early. Now if you do a search, you'll find some posts by me saying he should come home, recharge his base for a couple of weeks, then go back for Worlds--like Steve Scott did. Webb didn't do that, and he fell off that peak by Worlds.

(2) FIRST OVER-REACTION? In 2008, instead of realizing what they didn't do (refresh his base), the Webb camp decides to build a bigger (and probably longer) base with more mileage, although they could have kept the training base the same, just doing it longer. Result: Overtrianing. At Nationals he sort of hung in there, but didn't have the extra gear he needed.

(3) SECOND OVER-REACTION? In reaction to the over-reaction of 2008, they cut training volume down, which might be correct, except the performances look like they cut it down too far. So you have a guy looking like he was sort-of "back." But it looks like he was hiding a lack of base with speedwork. But the speedwork on a too-small base won't hold as other people start doing their speedwork on top of a bigger base. Thus, you have the effect of looking at least descent, then going backward.

1. You don't show up at an event like the Reebok Grand Prix in NYC if you are not ready to race.

2. He seems to fluctuate farther away from his top performances than most, espcially in significant races.

3. I'm not saying he is their equal, but I don't recall Morceli or El Guerrouj ever finishing far down in a field, 12-15 seconds slower than their prs.

4. Maybe his is just someone who peaked a little early in his career. He might be a 3:53-3:56 type of guy for several years. But everyone has greater hopes and expectations.

Is AW mentally nimble or a bit obtuse, any idea of his SATs GPI IQ?

inconsistent philosophy of training ===> inconsistent performances

i'll always give webb and razcko a chance, because they probably know a lot more about it than i do, but sometimes it's just hard to make sense of what it is they're doing as measured by webb's performances.

Good speculation Coach D.

My speculation (it´s pure speculation because I don´t know much about the training of Alan Webb) is that since Webb overtrained in 2008, the recovering system of his body were harmed severely. The body doesn´t respond normally when overtrained and I know athletes who never came back from there. What I´ve heard he still does or has done a lot of hard long sessions and when looking his running it seems obvious that he still is very tired. After overtraining I think you have to start from the basics with none of deeply catabolic (causing breaking down) sessions, keeping the work anabolic (constructive) with easy enough training and good nutrition, sleeping habits etc. For someone at the level where Webb was, it´s hard to start from the basics again but now he seems to have fallen even deeper than last year. But I don´t know for sure, I hope he will come back.

Sunday, against a VERY tough field is going to tell us a lot.

It may be that the recovery from the overtraining (which can take months in some cases) occurs this year, and next year will be a major improvement. It is also possible that this year's performances can be explained by a longer than normal layoff to recover from the overtraining, which could represent itself as the inadequate base that I mentioned above.

But take a look at the IAAF list of all-time milers 3:46 and faster. Of the 8 people, HALF only did it ONCE in their careers. Aouita did it twice, Morceli 3 times. Only El Guerrouj did it frequently. And of course, Lagat, Coe, and Ovett NEVER did it. Cram did it once and never again ran within 2 seconds of that time.

So, before anyone buries Webb for running "only" 3:58, APPRECIATE WHAT HE DID in 2007. Two years later, and still NOBODY has run 3:46 or 3:30.54.

2 bad yrs for Webb! are you kidding me! he runs 3:42 1500 which equates to what? .....a 3:59 mile -maybe 3:58! and you call that being washed up! Give me a break! He's still in his prime. The problem I see in todays major track events is that of the 72' 5K race in which Prefontaine ran in. Everyone just goes along for the run and tries to position themselves and get set up for a final sprint to the finish. If youre going to race..and you have a goal- then go for it reguardless of whether you're out front or not. Run "YOUR" race- not someone elses. Zatopek, Clarke and Pre all ran their own races. When they didnt- then they lost. Same with Bannister. This is what I dont like about major events. Give me a guy..or gal who's willing to run their own race - now thats success.

A 3:42 would not be a good day for Myers.

You really need to get out of the 1970's. A 3:59 mile is not fast at the elite level anymore, just like a 28 minute 10000 isn't.

Just read the first page or two of this thread and maybe this has already been brought up but...

A serious question whose answer may answer Webb's ails: Does anyone know how is training is going? If he is only running 30 miles per week or something and showing up at meets (just enough to keep a pay check from Nike), it could explain why his racing is considerably more crappy than normal and why he looks out of shape/clunky.

If I could spend a few hours per week on my job and still make a decent pay check, I would consider doing the minimum during times of burn-out or other life issues.

I think it would be more fun to be in Rob Myers shoes instead of Webbs. For one, Myers is a decent miler, but does not have the pressure Webb has. A 3:40 for Myers is mediocre, but for Webb it is failure and leads to long threads on this site. If Myers ever runs 3:50 for the mile he will be heaven, and the new hero of US mile running. A very good, but not great runner like Myers can run a 3:33 1500 without excess scrutiny. Without a 3:46 mile on his resume Myers can be himself and get down to business. Right now a more relaxed Myers can outkick Webb. If Myers does not place or make a US national team he will survive, while Webb will be vilified.

Myers PR

3:53.41 mile (a tab faster than Webb's HS AR.)

3:33.55 1500

1:46.8 800

Watch out for Lamong and Myers. These two 3:53 milers when healthy can beat anyone in the US.