Nico Young 3:54.07* - Is his 4:02 mile the fastest mile ever run in Flagstaff?

What does this translate to? 3:54?

If I recall from the my old racing days, the NCAA conversion in Flagstaff is 9 seconds for the mile. So 3:53. Pretty damn good.

The official NCAA conversion is 3:54.07.

This is incredible. Ok this is the straw breaking the camels back, Nico young is the future of American running

Double if statement

If Nico had done this 3 weeks ago

And

If he had actually run the non altitude equivalent of 3:54.0

Then he would have broken the world indoor junior mile record by 1.0s

Video of the race:

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CZAvwjXluFt/

jjjjj wrote:

Double if statement

If Nico had done this 3 weeks ago

And

If he had actually run the non altitude equivalent of 3:54.0

Then he would have broken the world indoor junior mile record by 1.0s

…but then again, if Hocker also had run his 3:50 a few weeks earlier last year, he would have the indoor WJR…

This is really impressive and kind of unexpected. Great performance althouth hard to believe the altitude adjustment is 3.54. Bodes well for Nico.

What is the shoe conversion?

Looking the results here is interesting. For instance the 3k is incredibly slow...winning time of 8:42, with lots of legit NAU guys running 8:50-9:10

Does altitude really affect them that much? Don't they do race pace training up there anyway? Or am I missing something?

I hate the guys that come on here for nothing more than to diminish a great accomplishment - but I must say it seems that for how much he is a distance guy, he probably doesn’t deserve the full conversion, since he doesn’t actually have to run at 3:54 pace, when speed is his weakness.

Nonetheless I’m very happy because Nico has been one of my favorite runners these last few years and it’s great to see him keep improving.

Nico will not be the first Young bro under 4 officially. Lex is breaking 4 tomorrow with Colin.

Could the Young’s be the first family in world history to have three teenagers break 4 in the mile in the same year?

He is really impressive. I must say I was skeptical of his long term potential coming out of high school, but everything we’ve seen from him since he’s been at NAU has been stellar.

I’ve never liked the conversions being used for qualification, but a lot of people also doubted Christian Soratos’ altitude conversion a while back until he proved them wrong. Does anyone know how they account for the odd track size at NAU? It’s not 300m but it’s oversized, so do they subtract from the altitude adjustment for that?

Must mean Kip Keino was in 3:19 1500 shape when he won the Olympics in 1968!

The app I have won’t let me plug in 12890 feet

ienjoyracing wrote:

I hate the guys that come on here for nothing more than to diminish a great accomplishment - but I must say it seems that for how much he is a distance guy, he probably doesn’t deserve the full conversion, since he doesn’t actually have to run at 3:54 pace, when speed is his weakness.

Nonetheless I’m very happy because Nico has been one of my favorite runners these last few years and it’s great to see him keep improving.

I agree that for an aerobic monster like Nico he's more likely in 3:55-56 shape, but that's still an awesome time for someone who posters were knocking on for having "no speed". And for him to come back an hour later and run a 1:54 at altitude shows he wasn't completely fried by it. What I noticed the most, though, is how much his form has improved over the past year or so. In the video below, there's almost no trace of the flailing arms and bobbling head he had in high school - this might be the most relaxed I've ever seen him at the end of a race.

No, people born at altitude and trained there are not going to drop as much time coming down from altitude as sea level athletes that move up. So, Kip never came close to 3:34 even at sea level. On the day, maybe he was a 3:29-30 guy but we'll never know. This run is more than I expected from Nico Young at this distance. He should absolutely be able to run 13:10 this spring.

His form now is terrific. Maybe not quite beautiful, but hips down he’s always been good. Now the head bobble is gone and he’s a little more upright/forward leaning than before when he was a bit back.

He should absolutely be able to run 13:10. I was there tonight, and he ran out of gas a bit the 3rd 200 of the 8, but he is so competitive and tough — the back stretch he was fighting, kept fighting and got himself back in it. Like I said before, I used to doubt him, now I really don’t see any reason to. He’s an absolute stud, seems like a great guy, and he still looks like a kid. His body isn’t anywhere near what he will look like in 5 years.

I don’t know about the conversion, maybe it’s not quite a 3:54.0, but it’s also a middling meet in a weird part of the season. I thought he couldn’t kick well enough to be great (and he’ll never kick like Hocker), but everything is there to be a top US 5k guy for years to come.