Gary Martin > Colin Sahlman

Do you know what Mahlon Sweet Field is? It's not a typo of "Hayward Field" ya muppet - it's the airport and it's 10 miles out of town sitting in the middle of nowhere. I'm going to hypothesize it's possible that a wind reading at an airport out in the open could be vastly different from that found on a track surface 10 miles away which is surrounded by structures (spectator stands). Given that similar to the wind reading at the airport we also had wind readings at the track I see no reason why the wind readings at both venues would not be valid. Goodbye.

Rojo. There is no wind, as I stated in my post above. The airport is in the middle of the valley, 10 miles away from the stadium. The stadium completely blocks the South side of the stadium. Look at the video. Where do you see wind of ant kind? It's blocked by the stadium. 18mph is 8mps, DOUR times the allowable. When it's blowing 2mps, every knows it. Look at the video. Where is the wind?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IdLSex0pgI

This is Hayward Field from the South.

https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2FJXJ17/an-aerial-view-of-hayward-field-on-the-campus-of-the-university-of-oregon-friday-april-23-2021-in-eugene-ore-the-stadium-will-serve-as-the-site-2FJXJ17.jpg

Don't forget the 4ft snowdrift lol

Colin and his coach were asked about switching to the mile to race Gary at nationals but they are opting to duck the competition because they "scheduled the 800m a while back."

Gary and Colin could work together and get another shot at the mile record but Brosnan's rigid structure that prioritizes time over competition will come back to haunt all his athletes at the pro level.

The guy who should be doing the 800m at nationals is Aaron not Colin. I am predicting 1:52 for Colin at nationals. Wasted effort.

These guys shouldn't race each other unless they're getting paid for it. Good move by Colin not to switch into the mile at NB.

I was thinking about whether I was going to weigh in again on this type of topic and then....

I saw his interview, he seems like a really nice, thoughtful guy, said all the right things, and at the end, maybe made me even more frustrated as a fan, to not get to see them race. I came away thinking, you just ran 3:56.2 even if dragged along, never in the race at all, I think Many forget that Webb while measuring his effort from the back, got up for 5th in that race I think? And wouldn't you really want to know if you were the best miler of your year? That may be a thing for the fans? But I would think you might want to find out...Reinhardt Harrison is even a bigger question mark, because he might be the best guy who never raced anyone in top tier in three years, being a 1:48.05 guy now and 4:01.

I also saw Gary Martin yesterday, watching PIAA meet on a big screen in the comfort of home, and in the 8 he was pushed to the limit and really had to dig down deep to hold the CB West kid off in 1:51.x . I think he has run a ton of races and quite frankly, looked a bit tired. Then again, he had run 4:01.56 1600 out in 2:58 the day before and a meaningless 4 x 8 earlier in 1:53.4 realizing he could not make a dent, kind of shutting it down. Add that to the other stuff and the 3:57.x he must have raced 12 times at least in the first 27 days of May?

A match up for the ages is not going to happen, and that's a shame, but only for Track crazy fans!! LOL.

“Pre Classic wrote:
3:56.2 on a wet track in 18 mph winds is more impressive than Garys 3:57.98
No it's not.
And let me preface this by saying both of these performances and young athletes are amazing - we should celebrate both of them.”

Confusing ……so to celebrate the performances and young athletes, should I host one, two, or four parties?

4 parties- for Gary’s performance, Aaron’s performance, Gary as an athlete, and Aaron as an athlete.

2 parties-for Gary’s performance and as an athlete; for Aaron’s performance and as an athlete

1 party-both athletes and their respective performances together.

I’m leaning towards hosting one celebration party. It would definitely minimize cost, but I fear that one might get more attention (high fives, photo requests, speeches, gifts, a cake with their face on it-made via frosting, etc) than the other.

My Mom’s stories about walking a mile or so to ride the school bus are proof that those conditions are possible.

"The mile record" surely you jest. That is not happening, unless they shorten the finish line and call it a mile.

Maybe add these three into The HS Dream mile, that will not happen? Two juniors. Add in Hogan from NYS, Langon from NJ, Barna from NJ, Sahlman and Martin?

Boys 1 Mile Run
Finals
=========================================================================================================
NAME YR TEAM MARK H# WIND
=======================================================================================================
1 Rocky Hansen 11 North Carolina 4:00.76 1
2 Lex Young 11 California 4:01.52 1
3 James Donahue 12 Massachusetts 4:02.98

Well we agree on something I was just going to type out. How many hard efforts has Gary Martin had in May? Probably more than he needed to (he could've run to qualify) and he very possibly could be on the other side of the mountain from his best potential effort now. The only true way to see who is the best is to level the playing field and that's the same race schedule up to a potential showdown and that was never going to happen.

Martin had the option to not run fast at all at this meet. He felt good so he went for it. Yes it’s hard to get the most out of yourself without competition but it’s even harder to get the most out of yourself on a date that was predetermined far in advance and on a huge stage.

And imo it’s easier for talented high schoolers to run solo because they’re used to it. After years of running competitive races, an older pro runner will find it very difficult to maximize their effort solo.

I think Martin,may have enough, that with a week or more of not hard racing, he could hold up, but we agree. There is one undeniable fact and I don't care what the "developmental" schedule(and considering this is his "last race" who cares) is ,that Sahlman could easily switch out of the 800, that just is, the whys and what fors? I am not sure anyone cares that much, do you..lol.

The interesting part is despite Martin staying around for the team, they did not get a trophy. Wood got 20 points from him and none in the 4X800 he ran in. I don't think Martin could have won all three events if they had dropped him from the 4X800 and added the 3200 which is what a state trophy would have required. Whereas, Newbury Park had a legit chance to win the California State title if the team had not gone its separate ways. Now California not running the 4X800 actually does tilt the State Meet away from distance oriented teams. It would have been amazing to see the state XC champs also win the track title.

I doubt theye were ever thinking team TRophy, I think they were thinking about getting three 2:01-2:04 800M runners, their only way to get to run in the State meet. I think that's the thought process, there. Plain and simple.

Was this some smart-arse attempt at sarcasm or humor? What you wrote is barely comprehensible. Like I legitimately have zero idea of the point of that response or what you are trying to say here.

If only there were an upcoming meet in which Martin and Sahlman could race each other at the mile so that we could find out whether the guy who solo'd 3:57.98 in a high school meet or the guy who ran 1.64 seconds faster, going out in 1:55 on a windy day, drafting behind the pros on a magic bouncy track is faster.

We can agree to disagree but a simple question I would ask you, is have you ever run in a meet the caliber of Prefontaine vs an Olympic/World Champion? If you haven't then you can't really know the effect that has - particularly on a young athlete. Before you ask if I have - yes I have so I can tell you this from personal experience.

The race Martin ran, he is expected to win and can easily win. But there is a different pressure associated with that. If he charges the first 800m going for a time there is a chance he pushes too hard, eats it in the last lap and get's rolled. He has a lot to lose. Committing to that is not as easy as you think. Mentally getting up for a race like that is a challenge. Sahlman on the other hand has absolutely nothing to lose. He's running against 8 of the worlds top 10 milers including the OC, the WC and his own national champ. If Sahlman had gone for it yesterday and blew out the back door and run 4.06 nobody would even bat an eyelid - he's supposed to finish last in that race and the fact he picked off Clayton Murphy is a bonus. Clearly there is no issue being mentally on point in that race. He would have been bursting with excitement to run that race - a race every single miler in America wishes they would have the chance to run in.

This isn't taking anything away from CS. 3.56 is an incredible time for a high school athlete. But so is 3.57 and in a solo effort with no help and no atmosphere it is more difficult and in context a much better performance.