Great interview with Steve Cram - says Jakob has no chance of WRs this year

Well I guarantee it's not doable off 1.52 at 800m.

It's been hypothesized and theorized forever across so many threads here and I think the general consensus is given his strengths as a runner, if it was to happen he would have to be 1.49.7-1.50.2 at 800m and hitting 1200m in 2.45.2/3 to allow himself a close in around 40.6 (54.1 pace) - even that seems insanely good off basically 2.45 flat.

It is doable but man, we need to see him treading into that sub 2.46.0 at 1200m territory before it becomes remotely entertainable.

His 1500m PR is 2:45.6 pace through 1200m.

Good post! I agree in everything you are saying here.

Well, the SleepingFireman is clearly awake here -your post here is, IMO, very good modulated and pointed! But your words about Coe’s and Cram’s best distances being around 1 k / 1200m (on account of 1500m endurance) very much confirm my main point: That I give (for now) Jakob’s training philosophy (the endurance based) an edge over Cram’s (working on one’s 800m speed) when it comes to 1500m performances…!

Yet the indoor record is faster than Jakob has ever run indoors.

Indoor records are also always slower than outdoor records. The tracks aren't comparable.

It isn't if he didn't make it to the 1200 in that time.

You're too loose with the times that you attribute to Ovett and Coe. They weren't "21x" runners over the 200, they were 21.7, which is 21-high. So they weren't fast enough to be "45x" runners over the 400, their limits would likely have been around 46secs even if they had trained for it.

Once again you have a point, because I’m obviously bias as a Norwegian fan of the mileage men Ingebrigtsen and Nordås… But I think it is a quite innocent bias (if you buy the fact that I didn’t mean to disrespect the British athletes -they were all stellar runners and talents, but my point was that they maybe were better in other distances than the 1500m, and that there were reasons for that -attitude / training).

I think our feelings (f.ex things we wish were true) colour our reasoning. If I was a brit and a Kerr and Wightman fan I might very well buy Cram’s reasoning, and even look for and find good arguments for his views. But since I’m a Norwegian I have chosen to search for the opposite, and when I find arguments and indications of a superior Norwegian approach I instantly think I am objective and have found the truth. But of course I may be very wrong, because the feelings (and the wishful thinking) decide how I weight the arguments and indications and probabilities, and this process could make an old fool reason extremely wrongly…!

I thought I had seen something in the things Jakob are trying to build (well, I’m obviously not the only one!) -a new and thoroughly approach that could bring him to places few have been, regardless of his talent or not. But of course I may be wrong, or his injuries ruin everything and will make it all fizzle out… And sure: I’ve got Nordås as a replacement if Jakob goes down -the first one is now going for even more extreme Ingebrigtsen training than Jakob (above 130 miles pr week, and with very little speed work), but maybe he too get caught by some kind of chaos / problems before everything is said and done… But I don’t buy the British approach before I have to, and probably nor even then (Maybe I can find some comfort in Moorcroft, who I know too little about..!)…

Sorry I had to rewrite this as I had read it incorrectly.

Yes 3.27.14 is 2.45.7 pace through 1200m if every meter was run on pace, but the logic is escaping me.

So of course based on this he could have run through 1200m in 2.45.7 - using some of the energy he expended in the final 300m to do so, but we have no idea what that now (in this hypothetical scenario) means for the final 300m he now has to run. If we apply the logic of even pace he runs, well, 3.27.14 because his final 300m will be 41.4.

Maybe you could explain your logic again. No one is theorizing Jakob can't run 2.45 and change for a 1200m, the question is if he did in a race, could he run well under 41 seconds for the final 300m? (and if it's 2.45.7 then that needs to be 40.2 which is faster than what he did off 2.46.8 in his PR race).

I just don't get the relevance of the data here even though it's factual.

Okay CD (Curiousdude) :) - let's make this simple. It seems as if you took slight umbrage with the comment of Cram around Jakobs speed and the 1500m record which is all fair, your feeling on that is no more or less valid then anyone elses. And you are almost certainly right that it's hard to argue against the training of Jakob with respect to running as fast as you can over 1500m. If Cram had adopted the principles that Team Inge is using, he might have run considerably faster. Jakob trains better for the 1500/Mile.

But here are the simple questions. 1) Do you believe Jakob will break the 1500m WR or not? Because whether or not Cram was training as optimally for the 1500m as he could have is irrelevant - he did. So under conditions of the time (consensus of training, racing style, tracks, pacemaking) he at one point was faster than any man, ever.

And unlike any other era, if he can't do it there can be simply no excuses. The biggest hurdle has always been getting the pace right in all facets of the race - right from the gun - especially when you pushing the boundary of current human limits - any one 100m segment not run optimally matters, and we have solved this as well as we ever possibly can with little lights that give you instant feedback and reference to where you need to be.

So here is the second question - if he doesn't end up breaking this WR or seriously challenging it (to me that's like running in the 26.2's/3's) and he is the strongest 1500m runner ever (completely indisputable) with the best pace judgement benefit we can possibly have - what do you believe will have been the reason for his inability to do so?

It is 2:45.6 PACE. Work on your reading comprehension.

Correct -well a fraction slower (2.45.71) but let's not split hairs. So based off this we know he is for sure capable of running in the low 2.45's with some gas left in the tank - the question is, is it enough gas to still rip off a mid 40 second final 300m? I'm not so sure.

Look I don't even know if he cares about that record, I would just love to see him commit to sub 2.46 and then see what plays out (totally selfish POV but that's what is making the event interesting at the moment)

An estimate of what he might have run at even pace for the whole distance is not a fact that he ran a given time for the 1200. You need to work on your comprehension. Probably too late. But Salvitore posted in detail on the pointlessness of the assumption above.

IAAF scores are almost worthless in events that lack depth. Girma’s 7:23.81 is superior to Kerr’s 8:00.67 yet the latter is worth more points. They are also inflated for indoor performances. Kincaid’s 12:51.61 is worth 1295 points which is equivalent to 12:37.23 outdoors. Is there anyone on the planet who thinks this is a sound conversion?

Indoor tracks aren’t any slower than outdoor tracks, not for distance events anyway.

Yeah I have noticed that and I actually agree with you on the final point - from 3000m upwards a well paced, fast distance race has no disadvantage being indoors.

What I have also noticed is how the points rankings are so much more favorably skewed to sprints vs distance. Like WAY skewed.

The best MD record is the 1500m at 1302 - the "worst" is the mile at 1292. Yet the 400m alone is a whopping 1320 points. How is that possible? And the 400m is the weakest sprint event scoring wise! The 100m is an insane 1355 and the 200 is 1350!!! Are world MD records so underdeveloped compared to the sprints? Are our human species' best MD runners that much worse than our best sprinters?

To give perspective to that, 1302 points in the 100m is 9.73 seconds - a time run 8 times in history by 4 athletes. Conversely, 1355 points in the 1500 is, get this, a 3min22.40 performance (laughing out loud). Going back to the "worst" sprint event - the 400m, 43.03 is seen as the equivalent of a 3.24.80 1500m (also laughing but not as much as for a 3min22.4)

Oh and finally, for those that love the mile more than the 1500m and want to know what that looks like compared to 9.58 in the 100m? That would be a, drumroll, 3min38.50!!!

Not only does the points system have limitations, it's complete and utter horsesh-t to be perfectly honest.

I think you mistake me for ObjectiveObserver, because unlike him I am not certain about anything when it comes to Jakob (or Nordås for that matter). But this uncertainty makes it very exiting for me, because so much unexpected seems possible around Jakob…

But for the sake of it I can try to answer your questions to the best of my ability:

1. Yes, I think Jakob will break the WR in the 1500m. And I think he will do that despite (probably) being a lesser talent in the event than f.ex Cram. -I think Jakob’s training is more solid in the long term, and I think his age means some unreleased potential. But all this is baring no new serious injuries, and a fully healed achilles…

2. There are two different answers to this question. One could say (as you maybe prefer) that he then would lack necessary 800m speed (training). But one could also say that he would need even more years with endurance training… (that also help a little on the 800m speed).

Interesting thread. But all you posters are forgetting a major factor - that Jakob will be racing the Olympics wearing a blindfold. :)

Didn’t read all 10 pages here but Coe/Ovett times vs now must include supershoe analysis.

and within 1 second from the 1500 WR.....

I wonder if you and the many other posters here who claim that Jakob has poor speed in the 1500m EVER watch the races!?

In last years Diamond League he won all his races, several of them by shifting gear in the last 100m running away from world class fields, inclusive Kerr in DL Osloand DL Lausanne. Jakob beat Kerr in these 2 races with 2.12 and 0.92 respectively.

Admitted Kerr won in Budapest with a margin of 0.27 (while Jakob failed to shift gear as
in the previous races) but it this evidence for Kerr being the faster of the 2? In my country of origin we say “ one swallow makes no summer” ( do you say the same in Norwegian CuriousDude?). Jakob was beating Kerr easily in the 2 DL races even though he was doing the front running when the pacemakers dropped out.

When Kerr had to do the frontrunning in the DL Zürich 2023 he didn´t managed to hold off
Nuguse running a disappointing 3:30.51 (Kerr had reportedly announced that he was going after Mo Farah´s high 3:28 NR).

How can you and your like minded maintain that Jakob has poor speed compared to the other top miler?