So your saying Sahlman who has run 1:48 and change is not the favorite in the 800. ?
Aaron Sahlman has looked pretty worn out for the last 5 weeks. Every since his lousy 1:56 in the DMR at Mt SAC Relays.
I saw him run on Saturday, and he was really struggling. He looks nothing like a 1:48 runner right now.
I think he looked the opposite. He won the DI CIF finals by pulling away with ease. Masters is all about qualifying not winning. Look what Sadie E did. She was also third. I wouldn't base the State Championship off Masters. Aaron put himself in front and got out off traffic and got an easy Q.
Those prelims are crazy. Does any other state require 800 and 1600 runners to run prelims the day before the finals? I remember some years where kids were running 4:11.x in the mile and not qualifying for the mile final the next day, while they'd win state in over 40 other states.
It certainly makes it a lot harder to double, let alone triple. A lot of athletes who think their best shot is the 800 or 3200 will skip the 1600.
Some of the top runners have already made that decision and dropped a race at some point in the last few weeks. Right now there aren't many runners left that are still in the 800/1600 or 1600/3200.
Aaron Sahlman has looked pretty worn out for the last 5 weeks. Every since his lousy 1:56 in the DMR at Mt SAC Relays.
I saw him run on Saturday, and he was really struggling. He looks nothing like a 1:48 runner right now.
I think he looked the opposite. He won the DI CIF finals by pulling away with ease. Masters is all about qualifying not winning. Look what Sadie E did. She was also third. I wouldn't base the State Championship off Masters. Aaron put himself in front and got out off traffic and got an easy Q.
I'm not talking about the place or the time, I'm talking about the effort. I was standing right next to the fence for his race and Aaron Sahlman didn't look very good. He was really straining.
On the other hand, Sadie took it easy in both the 1600 and 800. The way that Aaron and Sadie were running was very different.
It certainly makes it a lot harder to double, let alone triple. A lot of athletes who think their best shot is the 800 or 3200 will skip the 1600.
Some of the top runners have already made that decision and dropped a race at some point in the last few weeks. Right now there aren't many runners left that are still in the 800/1600 or 1600/3200.
I was curious about how much Fernandez raced in the weeks leading up to his famous double. Here are his performances starting with the league championship. He won all of these races.
And the 1600 and 800 have prelims at the state meet the day before the final That's 5 qualifying races to get into the state final.
Those prelims are crazy. Does any other state require 800 and 1600 runners to run prelims the day before the finals? I remember some years where kids were running 4:11.x in the mile and not qualifying for the mile final the next day, while they'd win state in over 40 other states.
Illinois runs prelims in every race except for the 3200m. That includes the 800m, 1600m and 4x800m relay.
Also, the kids who run 4:11.x and didn't qualify, would likely not have run that fast in a race somewhere else against runners that were running slower.
They were able to run that fast because they were racing people running that fast. They would have run slower in a race with people running slower. They would likely not have won other state races just because they had a faster time in a different race. Many times the state champion doesn't have the fastest pr.
