Emma's greatness is underappreciated

How many runners have won more national titles than Emma Coburn? It can't be too many.

Agree. She really is under appreciated. She has never lost a US title.

In her long career she really had only one really bad race. It just came at the worst possible time so now it is one of the defining moments of an otherwise fantastic career.

Reports of her death have been greatly exaggerated. Ten US titles is an amazing accomplishment. GOAT.

She has done some very consistent and impressive things in a super strange event.

According to the points tables, her best non-steeple race is her indoor 9:15 two-mile. That's the only distance she has a score over 1200 in.

Compare that to someone like Schweizer who has four events where she has a mark of 1200 or better: 1500, 3000, 5000, 10000. You may say: "Well of course Coburn could run 3:59 or 14:40," but I dunno.

10 US titles in the steeple is worth like 3 in a real event like the 1500 or 5000.

Could Schweizer achieve a 1200 mark in the steeple, which would be 9:17? We dunno. It’s an incredibly difficult event. Most people aren’t cut out for it.

We do know that Coburn has run much faster in the steeple than Jenny Simpson ever did, and Simpson is one of the USA’s best female runners of all time. That should tell you how good Coburn is.

Congratulations to Emma Coburn on US championship #10!

Uh, not to take anything away from Coburn, who is a badass, but this isn't really how it works.

Jenny did not steeple for very long. She went on to be one of the best in history at what is possibly track's most competitive event. She was too good for the steeple.

I’m trying to imagine a more pathetic sentence and failing. Maybe it’s time you consider:

To be clear, I’m not saying Coburn is a better runner than Simpson. Just saying that the fact that Coburn is a better steepler than Simpson tells us what a high-caliber runner Coburn is. By her own account, Simpson specialized in the steeple for over 4 years. It’s not like she just dabbled in it. Her main impetus for switching to the 1500 in 2011 was to avoid injury because, as she says, the steeple is such a tough high-impact event. All the more reason to celebrate Coburn’s sustained success.

Of all the bizarre sh!t I’ve read on this website over the years, this has to be one of the most wtf comments I’ve ever seen.

Seriously, wtf does that mean?

IYKYK

insider track gossip.

to expand on that, i think the story is that she was doing a workout on a high school track, and pushed somebody out of her path, who happened to be disabled.

I would drink her steeple water

For better or worse, when you chose to only run the steeple you’re always going to have somewhat of an asterisk next to all of your titles. Fan of her and Jager but that’s the truth. Especially when Jenny Simpson could have chosen to stay with the steeple and I’m sure would have beaten Emma for some US titles. Idk who, but I’m sure someone like rupp could have taken up the steeple and beaten Jager too