At Arcadia, against Hall (who ultimately finished fourth), Webb--who had already broken four minutes in January--knew that he was the class of the field. He was going to win, however the race was run, and didn't have to run away from the others in the early going. He led Hall through 3/4 in 3:03 and didn't really "drop the hammer" until about 200 to go. Even then it looked more like Hall was fading than Webb was really accelerating.
Hall gave it a good shot, even tried a move on the last backstraight, but that was all she wrote. I remember on the third backstraight that it looked like Hall was working much harder than Webb, who was cruising.
In other words: Webb did enough at Arcadia to win and showed plenty in reserve. That reserve was used for the 3:53.
See title. Webb failed to break 4 against ryan hall but a week later against a pro field he dropped a 3:53. How does that happen.
Posted 12-30-2023
I am going to assume you were not around for the race. Let me set this up for you a bit. Ritz and Webb were just different than any American hs kid in years. It was expected Webb would run fast at Pre. It was a special race because El Guerrouj had come over and wanted to run fast I recall predictions for Webb were all over the place. Obviously the race predates YouTube. The access to guys was more limited than today. Letsrun was even way more fringe. I will never forget being at my grandma's house to watch that race. There was such suspense. Once the gun went off you can see how in control he was. He just kept rolling up on guys as the race went on. He hit that last lap and put himself out there for what ended up being a great race and record time.
The week before Pre was a tune up race for Webb. I do not think the meet even had a live stream. For as good as Ryan Hall was he just did not get the sort of attention Webb and Ritz got. Webb had had already run right around 4 in an indoor meet the winter before and beat pro runners. Webb probably would have run 4minutes his junior year but was injured. At Pre He ran 3;53 because he was super fit and confident. The field was stacked. The magic of Hayward Field I am sure helped as well.
Some of the details might be off as I am going off the top of my head. Curious how others remember it happening.
I was in HS at the same time as Webb. It was a great experience to watch him break the record. The energy around Webb, Hall and Ritz at the time was so awesome and Webb running 3:53 was truly mind blowing.
Same reason that Centrowitz won a Olympic gold 1500m at 3:50, but has run a 3:30pb. Every race isn't run all out, some are slow and tactical. Welcome to the sport of running.
Webb had already run 3:59i, and as a junior he ran a 3:59 1600 leg or something at Penn. Really he was cutting from 3:59 in January to 3:53 in May. Still a huge jump, but Kessler went from 3:57i to 3:51 in a similar timeframe, and I think he jumped from 4:08 to 3:57i. Also, the Arcadia race went through 1200 in ~3:03, while Webb went through 1209 in 2:58 at Pre. That's 5-6s right there, and the rest is probably just that Webb wasn't going all out at Arcadia.
Nike advanced him a prototype of the Air Zoom Victory super spikes that wouldn't hit the market until almost 20 years later. He also discovered double thresholds that week.
I was in HS at the same time as Webb. It was a great experience to watch him break the record. The energy around Webb, Hall and Ritz at the time was so awesome and Webb running 3:53 was truly mind blowing.
Sounds like ball want on the same level - based on comments on this thread. How good was he?
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