Holy sh**. Meet Paul Pollock aka the guy who ran a 17:20 5k 4 weeks b4 his marathon, bought a pair of Next% and ran 2:10!!

rojo wrote:

Weldon, tells me to not call people names on here and I generally agree as it doesnt' accomplish anything. But in this case I have to. How dumb are you guys who take that as the conclusion from what I wrote.

The point of my post was not to say that a 17:20 guy can run 2;10 in the marathon. The point was to say that a guy who has been running for a LONG time and never broken 2:15 in the marathon recently ran a marathon after a terrible buildup during which he was injured and only averaged 41 mpw. The buildup was so bad that both he and his coach realized there was no way he could PR so he should just run the half.

Instead, thanks to the new shoes, he ran 2:10.

I put the 17:20 in there so people woud know how bad his buildup had been.

You are not helping yourself here. Perhaps just let Weldon do your posting

How do you infer from the 17:20 Park Run that his 'build up was bad'. Was that his PB, or did he say " I was flat chat, but only in 17:30 shape so I'm glad I managed to run 17:20"???

You're a worry. You never make sense. I gave you the benefit of maybe doing clickbait, but no, you say you were serious. Doubling down like Trump.

41km/wk could have been all quality. 65km for me still gave me at >60 a long run, a medium run and a couple of good 10km's ...and I did no Park Run BTW, and still went through marathon (in an ultra) , in 3;10. No super shoes, despite an unknown Park Run estimator ( you have to have that surely) and a long time since a 3:10 marathon.

Holy moly, just thinking maybe my effort was even better than Pollock

Seriously, please at least pretend to be a journalist

I am Sam wrote:

65km for me still gave me at >60

Referring to age here 60+

...and while you're at it please add an edit function, stick to the important stuff.

rojo wrote:

Weldon, tells me to not call people names on here and I generally agree as it doesnt' accomplish anything. But in this case I have to. How dumb are you guys who take that as the conclusion from what I wrote.

The point of my post was not to say that a 17:20 guy can run 2;10 in the marathon. The point was to say that a guy who has been running for a LONG time and never broken 2:15 in the marathon recently ran a marathon after a terrible buildup during which he was injured and only averaged 41 mpw. The buildup was so bad that both he and his coach realized there was no way he could PR so he should just run the half.

Instead, thanks to the new shoes, he ran 2:10.

I put the 17:20 in there so people woud know how bad his buildup had been.

Now I’m just thinking Henry Rono had super-shoes. He seemed to run pretty well despite some questionable build-ups.

Tips from John Tracey

At this point we all know that the shoes work. Anyone sensible knows that they don’t give a 2’15 guy 5 mins. They might give a 4 hour guy 5 mins.

You might find the answers to Pollock's meteoric rise and superhuman ability to recover from a stress fracture a few weeks before running 2:10 in a previous thread (Scullion questioned it at the time): https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9729797

This has to be the most clickbaited thing I've ever seen. Clearly he was jogging during the Parkrun.

I have a story about myself. I once walked my dog at a pace of 22 minutes per mile, then the next day I ran a sub-16 5k. WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT!!

As I Always use to "preach" here ,,,,,,,,It`s not mainly about how many miles you run, It`s more about HOW you run your miles, even when you go for the Marathon. It`s about to know how to do the right mix of the main factors that contribute to the very best individual result.

- Your Magician , J.S - :)

what a mess wrote:

Trackfan55 wrote:

He’s also one of the most talented distance runners Ireland has ever produced. He ran 62:10 in 2014 pre super shoes like

You are the only intelligent person in this thread.

No surprise RoJoke never did his homework on this guy, embarrassed for him. ??‍♂️

This shoe trolling click baiting nonsense is getting out of hand. You make it sound like this guy was a 17:20 5k runner, put on the shoes, and popped a fast marathon. This dude competed internationally throughout his career. Ran the IAAF half champs a number of times and the 2016 Olympic Marathon. It's not like he came out of nowhere. The shoes don't take you from 17:20 to 2:10.

He ran a bunch of 1:04-1:06 half marathons in the earlier parts of 2019, plus a 28:59 road 10k. 1:02 half in 2014. You know who has run 2:09 twice & has a 1:02 half pb? Scott Fauble. Just stop it with this trash.

+1

I remember Scullion being quite agitated at the time about this because of the brother's WADA-issues

rojo wrote:

In his buildup to Valencia, he'd only averaged 41 miles per week. 4 weeks beore the race, he ran a Park Run in 17:20.

The training had been so bad he and his coach said there was no point in doing the full marathon as there was no way he could break 2:15. They decided to just run with 2:11:30 group for a half marathon to get experience at the Olympic standard pace before dropping out.

Quite frequently when in 17:20 5k shape, I contemplate a cheeky 65:45 half marathon as a nice solid training effort.

Rojo, you used to make me mad, but I now think of you as "beloved running personality Robert Johnson". Haters gonna hate.

It's still a pretty remarkable story. A guy who had never broken 2:15 and had not broken 64 for the HM for three years, at age 34 runs 2:10 - a five minute PB when his times at all other distances are going backwards. He's obviously not a scrub since he's on the NN Running team, but that's a ridiculous improvement. Most estimates I've read say the Vaporfly give you around 1:30-2:30 over the marathon (the hill I will die on is that Kipchoge is a 2:03 guy without the shoe tech), maybe Pollock is a super-responder

Maybe he’s inadvertently not over trained for the first time in his career, instead doing 40 odd quality miles per week and the aerobic work on the bike (which clearly works for some).

I imagine there’s also a mental component to it. Pressure was off, he’d only planned on doing half a mile, then from there he was in a flow state, felt good and ‘one more mile’ -ed it.

toozy wrote:

Maybe he’s inadvertently not over trained for the first time in his career, instead doing 40 odd quality miles per week and the aerobic work on the bike (which clearly works for some).

I imagine there’s also a mental component to it. Pressure was off, he’d only planned on doing half a mile, then from there he was in a flow state, felt good and ‘one more mile’ -ed it.

He is notoriously a very hard worker. Has been in phenomenal shape many times before succumbing to injuries that have derailed the final weeks of a marathon build. I’ve heard stories of Scott Overall (2:10 guy pre super shoes) refusing to do long runs with Pollock because Pollock would destroy him in them

Why couldn't Bernard Lagat run 2:10?? If this guy can do it with next% and he's only a 14:05/28:32 guy on the track, why couldn't Bernard Lagat run way faster than 2:10 since he just ran sub 13:10 and 27:49 a couple years before his marathon?? I thought the shoes automatically make you run these times???

Plenty of fast people have failed to run 2:10 with the shoes, it's not the shoes. These people are fast, quit discrediting them. Chris Derrick, what's his PR 2:11 or something? He is a 27:30 10k guy and low 13's 5k guy. Why can't he get the job done with the shoes?

Bill Rodgers was only a 28:05 10k guy and ran 2:09 for the marathon. So someone running 28:32 10k could reasonably run 2:10 if they have the most perfect day they could imagine.

NERunner0053 wrote:

This shoe trolling click baiting nonsense is getting out of hand. You make it sound like this guy was a 17:20 5k runner, put on the shoes, and popped a fast marathon. This dude competed internationally throughout his career. Ran the IAAF half champs a number of times and the 2016 Olympic Marathon. It's not like he came out of nowhere. The shoes don't take you from 17:20 to 2:10.

He ran a bunch of 1:04-1:06 half marathons in the earlier parts of 2019, plus a 28:59 road 10k. 1:02 half in 2014. You know who has run 2:09 twice & has a 1:02 half pb? Scott Fauble. Just stop it with this trash.

LAWYERED, ROJO! How about that!? Rojo is just super jealous he couldn't run as fast as people do now. And in 10 years people will run even faster than they do today. It's been going like this since forever! People 2000's ran faster than the 1980's, people in the 1980's ran faster than people in the 1960's, people in the 1960's ran faster than people in the 1940's....

Trackfan55 wrote:

toozy wrote:

Maybe he’s inadvertently not over trained for the first time in his career, instead doing 40 odd quality miles per week and the aerobic work on the bike (which clearly works for some).

I imagine there’s also a mental component to it. Pressure was off, he’d only planned on doing half a mile, then from there he was in a flow state, felt good and ‘one more mile’ -ed it.

He is notoriously a very hard worker. Has been in phenomenal shape many times before succumbing to injuries that have derailed the final weeks of a marathon build. I’ve heard stories of Scott Overall (2:10 guy pre super shoes) refusing to do long runs with Pollock because Pollock would destroy him in them

Plus the double digit stress fractures are kinda a dead giveaway that he has a tendency to overdo it.

Couple that with this context for the 17:20 Parkrun...

"For athletes, sleep is the most effective performance-enhancing tool there is, and in the months that followed his son’s arrival the lack of it often took a toll. Pollock would sometimes head out running at 2am or 3am, “getting the run done when you can,” and occasionally the house of cards came crumbling down.

He remembers doing a ParkRun in Belfast four weeks before the Valencia Marathon, using it as a hard 5K workout, but he blew a gasket and struggled to the finish in a pedestrian 17:20.

“I walked back home, absolutely knackered, and there was nothing I could do,” he says. “It’s crazy what a lack of sleep can do. "

And the whole picture starts to come together.