Could a fit Alan Webb break 3000M WR?

malmo wrote:WTF are you talking about? Rono had excellent technique.

malmo

I'm going on recall of old magazine report of his Koblenz race in '78 where he got crushed by Bronislaw 8'15 to 8'17 ( had to look up the times).

IIRC the hard running was apparently in last km & his technique fell to pieces.

Looking on youtube, his technique looks good, but they were not the fastest of races & anyone's technique can look good in a slow race.

Side issue : It might be of interest to the great man if he comes to this site, that he did actually greatly underperform with "only" a 13'08WR

I do think '78 for him represented something along these lines :

51.50 with

1'49.05 ->3'34.76 , 7'32.20 , 13'01.53 , 27'18.69

1'49.00 ->3'34.58 , 7'31.66 , 13'00.39 , 27'15.79

1'48.95 ->3'34.48 , 7'31.11 , 12'59.26 , 27'12.89

1'48.90 ->3'34.22 , 7'30.56 , 12'58.12 , 27'09.98

He really was capable of giving 13-flat the fright of it's life !

I'd also like Mr.Rono to join this thread and confirm that he was able to break 51 seconds in the 400, so as to refute this nonsense of yours, ventolin. I have NO DOUBT that Rono was capable of a high 50.xx for 400 meters in 1978.

You know ventolin, we always hear about the Kenyans poor techinque, yet when you actually take the time to review the films, they gain ground over each barrier. For some, prejudices are hard to bury.

As for Ronos ability at 800 and 1500, I think you are a bit ambitious. I'd put him down for 1:51/3:37-8.

Here are Henry's WR splits in Berkeley on a warm, windy afternoon, winning by almost a minute! Throw out his first lap and he basically ran 13:04.

You have to remember, Henry didn't have pacers, nor a crowd to hoover on. Most of his runs were exhibitions of joy, constantly alternating between surges and recovery.

WR Berkeley (all splits 400 meters)

1:07 (67)

2:10 (63)

3:14 (64)

4:15 (61) 1600m

5:18 (63)

6:20 (62)

7:24 (64)

8:28 (64) 3200m

9:31 (63)

10:35 (64)

11:38 (63)

12:09 (31) 4600m

13:08 (59.4)

Henry Rono (1978)- 13:08.4 (2:42.0, 2:36.0, 2:39.5, 2:37.0, 2:33.9)

Henry Rono (1978)- 13:49.0 / 13:33.4 = 27:22.4 (2:36.9)

MAPIV wrote:

I'd also like Mr.Rono to join this thread and confirm that he was able to break 51 seconds in the 400, so as to refute this nonsense of yours, ventolin. I have NO DOUBT that Rono was capable of a high 50.xx for 400 meters in 1978.

I have strong doubts that he could break 52.

Henry Rono wrote:

To MAPIV

You are right I had more speed.I didnt focus on running 1500m to go under 7:30 minutes for 3k.

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3221635&page=4#ixzz1C5zPbUqz

Of course, Rono's words do not constitute proof for some, but my guess is he knew more about his 400 speed than posters on this board.

Just when and where did Henry say anything about his 400 speed? I'll put him at 52 point.

I'll put him at 50.9 at his best in 1978. I guess the man himself (and I don't mean ventolin) would have to inform us if he has some idea what his 400 speed was. He was a tremendous runner and I guess he didn't really run 1500s and 800s, as far as I know, but I have a hard time believing he couldn't have run under 1:50 also...

Lack of pacing costs ~ 1s/lap & "standard" record attempts have pacer to 3k, saving ~ 7.5s with perfect drafting ( I assume his Berkeley run was solo from gun to tape ? ).

That would get him close to 13-flat anyways.

That is probably immaterial for him as I believe all 4 WRs were solo.

Waxing & waning obviously aren't the way to run the best time, so that is paramount factor.

13'04 pace for last 11.5 laps with surging on straights & relaxing on bends !?

13-flat solo flat-out isn't too far-fetched.

"1'51/3'37" ?

Have to disagree on that one.

Mo Farah used to be a 3'38 guy & 1st serious elite 1500 he got down to 3'33 & his 12'57/27'28 aren't too far of Henry's possible 5 or 10k.

He also has an ancient 1'48.69pb, so 1'51 for Henry looks ungenerous

If you are running close to 13'00 it really is pretty ridiculous to do it off only 3'37, it does indicate

~ 7'33.6 , 27'06

which is certainly not his DNA.

He had much better basic speed than thought off.

That loss to Ovett in the 2 miles made him look slow; Ovett was in possible 800m WR shape that year

Everything that's been said about natural "types" of runners is based on assumptions like, for example, the mid-d/distance world records being as good as the sprinting world records, in which there isn't nearly the variability of training methods, etc.

There have probably been hundreds of track athletes who were capable of breaking the 800 WR but simply didn't train for/run the event. And I believe those who have unsuccessfully made attempts at moving up have often trained improperly. A "natural" 200/400 runner trying to move up to 800 will get nothing out of jogging easy miles and the like.

ALL of the athletic talent in track and field is in sprinting. So because of that, the people who have set 1500 and 3k records have only had 48-49 speed. As the events go up (and the talent pool gets even thinner) even less natural speed is "required" to be competitive in that event on the world stage. For some reason, we make up a lot of crap about "natural types" of runners, when, generally speaking, there is mostly only faster and slower.

If every 100, 200, and 400 runner of all time had run distance, and trained correctly, the record books would look completely different.

Malmo, just out of curiosity, what was your flat out 400m time during your prime years? A ball park figure would suffice! There's always a lot of talk about the elite's basic speed, and usually they are assumptions rather than facts so I was merely interested if you'd share your personal experience. Thank you.

One factor that I find to be of interest in this discussion of 400 speed relates to whether we are all discussing the same notion or not...For example, if athlete A is capable of running a 400 meter race in 51.5, this of course indicates that on a relay leg he might run under 51. When I think of a distance runner's 400 speed, I have a propensity to conceive, perhaps subconsciously, of a relay split with a running start, maybe due to the fact that this more accurately reflects what the distance runner does, i.e., he simply continues and for the most part is not starting from a dead stop, where you factor in reaction time and the possibly laborious first few meters in getting up to speed. And ventolin, I wonder if your calculator is based on an open 400, which of course is much more impacted by these factors than a long distance race or a relay leg might be.

MAPIV wrote:I'll put him at 50.9 at his best in 1978. I guess the man himself (and I don't mean ventolin) would have to inform us if he has some idea what his 400 speed was. He was a tremendous runner and I guess he didn't really run 1500s and 800s, as far as I know, but I have a hard time believing he couldn't have run under 1:50 also...

i was going to give you some serious shellacking, but you actually are not wrong :

i tried that 50.9 line :

50.90

with

1'48.20 -> 3'33.76 , 7'31.52 , 13'02.00 , 27'24.01

1'48.15 -> 3'33.58 , 7'30.97 , 13'00.87 , 27'21.11

1'48.10 -> 3'33.40 , 7'30.43 , 12'59.73 , 27'18.20

1'48.05 -> 3'33.22 , 7'29.88 , 12'58.59 , 27'15.30

my gut instinct was always that he was long way off his 5k, less off his 10k & probably not much of his 3k

i dunno, i'll have to dig up his 10k splits - that 10k is too close to what he ran & it wasn't anywhere close to even pace

ventolin^3 wrote:

"1'51/3'37" ?

Have to disagree on that one.

Mo Farah used to be a 3'38 guy & 1st serious elite 1500 he got down to 3'33 & his 12'57/27'28 aren't too far of Henry's possible 5 or 10k.

He also has an ancient 1'48.69pb, so 1'51 for Henry looks ungenerous

Eldrick, you do realize that everyone has their own performance profile? Some run faster at the shorter end, some don't get rolling until the event goes longer. Everyone has their own 'fingerprint'.

Henry's low end stopped at the mile - about 4:00 (his PR). I figure on a good day he's hit 3:37 in the 1500, but 3:38 would have been a good effort too.

What Mo Farah has done is irrelevant to Rono's fingerprint.

malmo's 52.00 : it wont be with 1'51

52.00 with

1'49.70 ->3'35.38 , 7'32.13 , 12'59.81 , 27'10.87

1'49.65 ->3'35.20 , 7'31.59 , 12'58.67 , 27'07.97

1'49.60 ->3'35.02 , 7'31.04 , 12'57.53 , 27'05.07

1'49.55 ->3'34.84 , 7'30.50 , 12'56.40 , 27'02.17

1'49.50 ->3'34.66 , 7'29.95 , 12'55.26 , 26'59.27

it is possible rono's endurance didn't "last" perfectly to 10k ( or even 5k ) & his best distance was 3 - 5k, but 1st line is out ( he did 7'32.1 ) & 5k/10k for subsequent lines look too quick

Remember, although I don't have Rono's splits per se in his 7:32.1, I believe he ran his first 2000 in 5:04.5 and his last 1000 in 2:27.6, so it would not be surprising if his 1500 splits were something like 3:49/3:43, so there is no doubt that on that day a 4 minute mile would not have been the limit for Rono, as you've acknowledged above. I would guess that with more even splits, Rono could have run 7:30 that day, and probably about 3:34 or 3:35 also.

I think a better question for this thread would be: Could a fit Alan Webb run faster than the then 3000 meter world record of 7:32.1 set by Henry Rono almost 33 years ago?

Assumption would be that they spent the entirety of the season running just the specific distance asked for.

Hicham himself never ran a serious 800 in his life, but if he'd spent '98 running just 800s off same 3'26WR training, I wouldn't have been surprised to see a 1'43.0

You are being a little unfair on speed necessity.

Komen ran 3'29.4 off no discernible speed.

Daniel Kipchirchir Komen has run 3'29.0 off even less discernible speed ( he once disgracefully failed to qualify from a heat of a 1500 indoor championship, being outsprinted by a bunch of 3'33/3'35 guys in a slow prelim ).

If you have enough endurance, you can run fast enough at shorter distances to impact the World.

It was just to show that a big drop can happen when you run proper elite races : 3'38 to 3'33 in his case

Why are you basing your line of fit on 400m and 800m speed for a guy who never ran the 400 and 800? I just don't get the methodology here. Why don't you base your inputs, I don't know, on races he actually ran?

malmo wrote:

Eldrick, you do realize that everyone has their own performance profile? Some run faster at the shorter end, some don't get rolling until the event goes longer. Everyone has their own 'fingerprint'.

Henry's low end stopped at the mile - about 4:00 (his PR). I figure on a good day he's hit 3:37 in the 1500, but 3:38 would have been a good effort too.

What Mo Farah has done is irrelevant to Rono's fingerprint.

AMEN.

Glad to see some folks politely talking sense on this thread. Watch and learn, V^?