Megan Keith v. Parker Valby

Keith Kelley vs Parker Stinson. Who had better running career.

Keith beat Abbie Donnelly by about 50 seconds in Liverpool (Euro trials race) over 8.1k - Donnelly got bronze in the senior women's race in Brussels. She definitely appears to be a very promising athlete and is also 14:56 at 5000 this year. Runs for Inverness Harriers in the Scottish Highlands

Keith dropped a full minute since 2022, impressive. Is 5k her primary event?

That would indeed be an interesting matchup, especially toward which one took the pacing duty. I assume it would be Valby.

Keith got caught late and lost the British U20/23 5000 championship last summer. She reversed the order in the European U23 final by running her teammate into the ground. Literally. Eloise Walker fell during the final meters and missed a medal.

Beginning with that race it's been an improved and more relentless version of Keith. The commentator during European Cross Country last weekend mentioned that Keith was clicking along each kilometer at significantly faster pace than Grovdal in the senior race. But that race was 9 kilometer to 7 at U23.

Maatoug was spent and faded in that U23 race. Nothing left. I thought it might turn out that way, after racing NCAA, then Boston, then quickly to Europe. She managed that last year and got 4th at Europeans. But this time they changed the distances and it was a considerably longer race. That's not her forte, so soon after being an 800 specialist. The tip off was that Maatoug finished well ahead of Greta Karinauskaitė at NCAAs but this time Greta rallied to comfortably reverse the order. In fact, Maatoug wasn't the leading Dutch. She got passed late and finished several spots behind a teammate.

The Brits, Scots, and NI have had a lot of problems with their national coaches and national running organization recently, but are still producing a lot of high quality runners. I'm curious if you know if those in the British clubs are students, working, or receive some type of support?

Maatoug had everything working against her--end of semester, she will probably have to finish exams online from Europe, her several great races in the US recently took a lot out of her like you said, and flying to Europe. I'm sure she is physically and mentally drained.

The British adopted the 1990s/2000s Spanish see no evil approach to doping. Every major British track and field athlete is doping imho with the full support of the British sports authorities. Seems to go on throughtout the Commonwealth.

If their top 800m and 1500m runners were cheating, I think we would know since they are on the podium at high profile events and tested often.

Saem 5k PR but one lady has many many more followers.

Haha you're clearly american and pissed that the british system produces more success in distance running. American runners get burned out young by the high school and NCAA system. If you don't make it by 22 and go pro in the US, you're done. In the UK, most of our top pros don't peak until mid to late 20s, because the system supports you even when you're not at college. The sort of mileage high school kids are on in the US is unheard of in the UK, because most coaches train athletes with long term development in mind, plus are all volunteers so can't lose their jobs if they're not spitting out ridiculous 16/17 year olds. It's more fun to be a runner in the UK because of the club scene. You clearly have no clue what the commonwealth is. It's not some organisation where all the countries share secrets and follow each other. Pretty much its only purpose has been to put on the commonwealth games, which even now is unlikely to return.

This definitely applies to mid-distance and that very well could be from the mileage argument you pose. What the British system produces in the 800 and 1500 is very impressive. However i dont think it translates nearly as well to the longer distances. Has a British man broken 13:00 or 27:00 since Farah retired? McColgan and Warner-Judd are the only British women who have broken 31:00 since 2012, only 5 have broken 31:30.

I can't see the results because the European Athletics site actually allows results to be viewed only by those registered, which is absurd.

This is the U23 race with Keith and Maatoug. Very slow pace and then Keith takes off at 3k.

You can see results under reports - race analysis for the race.

How old is Valby?

Keith is 21 and has been progressing phenomenally well over the last few years. She’s more of a strength based runner (as evidenced by her XC exploits) and is a very bright star in the UK. She signed a professional contract with Newbalance earlier this year but is still studying at Edinburgh University, which is a pretty academically intensive university. There’ll be more to come from her when she graduates (much like Laura Muir when she was still at university).

I agree with you, the strength in depth in UK distance running isn't there. It is in middle distance. Occasionally though a brilliant long distance athlete is produced, especially amongst the women. I suspect that the middle distance training that they will have undergone for years (McColgan, Judd and Radcliffe used to do a lot of 1500m races) has been beneficial for that type of athlete's development. There is a lot of very good middle distance training going on in the UK, when I've visited Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and France, the track training going on has been pathetic. Lots of people running slowly in the inside lane, doing long slow reps with short recoveries.

Anyway, we have another promising young athlete in Scotland in addition to Megan Keith - Natasha Phillips, who is only 18 and has already ran 16.18 for 5000m, 32.57 for 10k and 1.11.19 for a half although I believe she is mainly a triathlete.

21yrs

I just looked at Keith's splits for her 14:56 run at London Diamond League. She went through 3k in 8:55, which is pretty fast.

That says she almost even-split it perfectly. Compare that with what Valby just did at BU; Valby might have a lot more under the hood, with even better pacing.