Chris Derrick, 3.51-1500, the end of the road, or not?

Correction: there was a typo in the post where I stated 2731 was a disappointment, and this should be referred specifically to the 351 which is a disappointment not 2731. Sorry for the mistake. Actually based on his 5000 m time of 1308 I think the Derrick could have ran 2716 at his best for 10,000 m on the track.

Chris Derrick is WAY too smart to be spending his life running in circles. I would have expected him to be moving on by now.

I was thinkingthe same thing I ran that in college as a decent d3 runner and the guy is running that (not looking very smooth either) I'm a range where if he just hung off the back and even faded the last lap would still of been l 3:45 made me question why he is there.

I was thinking either

1) he is/was hurt and has a different goal with these "races" than the other team members

Or

2) He is just on the team because of his name & experiences to help the younger guys get better

Either way as bad as the 1500 was it was nothing compared to him not putting a gap on the girl in the mixed relay 4x400 that's gotta hurt the ego no matter who you are haha

Also I just watched it again and Chris Derrick ran 57 mid that's not great for someone who has the prs he does. Also shelby houlihan went 55 so yea that's rough

Chris is a very smart guy and seems to be a good guy. He seems to be valued by his teammates and a wise elder, connector etc. I'm hoping Bowerman/Nike can allow him to gracefully hang it up and become some sort of part-coach, part content creator/host, community manager and so on. The team's big enough where they can use someone in that role to support the athletes, build the brand, and be an ambassador.

Derrick is one that Jerry just can't seem to get right for whatever reason. Majority of the team is doing very well and Derrick just never got there. Very disappointing. Maybe he needs a coaching change or to just hang it up early. 57 was embarrassing.

justpointingitout wrote:

I was thinkingthe same thing I ran that in college as a decent d3 runner and the guy is running that (not looking very smooth either) I'm a range where if he just hung off the back and even faded the last lap would still of been l 3:45 made me question why he is there.

This guy went to college.

I agree that there are some athletes that Jerry's training just doesn't click with, or it breaks them. How Tim Nelson and Simon Bairu never saw great success in the marathon is beyond me.

But Derrick has never been a speedster, i recall him saying while at Stanford his top end 400m speed was 56. Very similar to Ritz actually. Chris managed to run 3:39 in college, I think Ritz was 3:40-42. Chris has to find other ways to get around the fact he doesn't have Olympic type speed. He must have some unreal running economy and anaerobic speed to run so close to his mile pace for a 5k.

Besides, like someone else mentioned the race was not really set up to be a 3:40 race, Chris got cooked by 600m. If he can get back close to 3:40, I think he could run low 27:00.

It could just be me thinking this, but something about the way he appears looks 'weak'..he looks thin but not toned, and he looks kind of drawn and tired. It's the same look that German Fernandez had later in his career. I wonder if it's a nutrition problem?

correction..... aerobic speed* or speed endurance or aerobic power. Whatever you want to call it, he can run - relative to him - really fast for a long time.

While 3:51 is laughably slow for someone with Derrick's credentials, it seems that he is (relatively) healthy based on his 7:56 3000m and 13:46 5000m from the last month. Those are still a ways off his best results, but more in line with what you'd expect a 3:41 (rather than 3:51) 1500 runner to run.

Maybe he is in the middle of heavy marathon training? He certainly didn't have much turnover in the shorter events. I would expect a 3:51 runner to at least run 54 for a 400 relay split, unless he didn't care.

Scrambled eggs wrote:

I agree that there are some athletes that Jerry's training just doesn't click with, or it breaks them. How Tim Nelson and Simon Bairu never saw great success in the marathon is beyond me.

But Derrick has never been a speedster, i recall him saying while at Stanford his top end 400m speed was 56. Very similar to Ritz actually. Chris managed to run 3:39 in college, I think Ritz was 3:40-42. Chris has to find other ways to get around the fact he doesn't have Olympic type speed. He must have some unreal running economy and anaerobic speed to run so close to his mile pace for a 5k.

Besides, like someone else mentioned the race was not really set up to be a 3:40 race, Chris got cooked by 600m. If he can get back close to 3:40, I think he could run low 27:00.

It’s impossible to only be able to run 56 and maintain 58 for 1500. He may have only run 56 at the end of a workout maybe, but no chance that was close to his top speed.

Huh? The race was exactly on 3:40 pace.

Why are you so sexist? Girls get better grades than boys in English classes/courses.

Yeah his split at 700 was 1:44.478 and his first 300 wasn't blazing fast either (44.4). That is ideally paced to run in the 3:42-46 range depending on whether you like to run even, kick in hard, or hang on. Not much evidence that he could run much faster than maybe 3:48 even if pace was suited to him. See some of the runners like Gwen Jorgensen, Elise Cranny and Marielle Hall who managed to run solid times for them (if not their best) even with sub-ideal pacing.

But the leaders were right at 3:40 pace. Other poster claimed that race was not at that pace.

Yeah I was agreeing with you. Derrick was not in a crazy-fast race nor did he get out at a crazy pace (for an athlete to run mid 3:40s). He just wasn't that fast on the day.

I didn't know let's ruin was such a scholarly place please forgive my errors. Next time I will only use a computer. That way hopefully I will avoid the autocorrect errors that give you the inability to understand what I am saying.

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

Derrick is one that Jerry just can't seem to get right for whatever reason. Majority of the team is doing very well and Derrick just never got there. Very disappointing. Maybe he needs a coaching change or to just hang it up early. 57 was embarrassing.

Intelligent post. No one blames Jerry Schumacher, he always gets praise for one of his successful runners. Jerry ruined CD!