Random Swedish runner beats US half marathon record while US men continue to sit on their hands

sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:

Saw the news about the Barcelona half marathon. 28-year-old Swedish runner Andreas Almgren ran 59:23 to finish second to Kibiwott Kandie by one second. This was his debut half marathon race. He has a 5000 track PR of 13:01 and a recent road 10k of 27:20 at Valencia. Never heard of this guy until I read the news about the Barcelona half. American runners have beaten these times in recent years, indicating they have the ability to beat the American half marathon record if they take a serious attempt at it.

So why not go for it? What do they have to lose? Wouldn't it be nice for Grant Fisher to have another American record to his name or a different runner get their first American record? Do their contracts not have an American record bonus? What's with their hesitance here? Why are the US women runners unafraid to go for the American half marathon record while the men don't even give it a try?

sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:

Saw the news about the Barcelona half marathon. 28-year-old Swedish runner Andreas Almgren ran 59:23 to finish second to Kibiwott Kandie by one second. This was his debut half marathon race. He has a 5000 track PR of 13:01 and a recent road 10k of 27:20 at Valencia. Never heard of this guy until I read the news about the Barcelona half. American runners have beaten these times in recent years, indicating they have the ability to beat the American half marathon record if they take a serious attempt at it.

So why not go for it? What do they have to lose? Wouldn't it be nice for Grant Fisher to have another American record to his name or a different runner get their first American record? Do their contracts not have an American record bonus? What's with their hesitance here? Why are the US women runners unafraid to go for the American half marathon record while the men don't even give it a try?

sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:

Saw the news about the Barcelona half marathon. 28-year-old Swedish runner Andreas Almgren ran 59:23 to finish second to Kibiwott Kandie by one second. This was his debut half marathon race. He has a 5000 track PR of 13:01 and a recent road 10k of 27:20 at Valencia. Never heard of this guy until I read the news about the Barcelona half. American runners have beaten these times in recent years, indicating they have the ability to beat the American half marathon record if they take a serious attempt at it.

So why not go for it? What do they have to lose? Wouldn't it be nice for Grant Fisher to have another American record to his name or a different runner get their first American record? Do their contracts not have an American record bonus? What's with their hesitance here? Why are the US women runners unafraid to go for the American half marathon record while the men don't even give it a try?

runn wrote:

sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:

Saw the news about the Barcelona half marathon. 28-year-old Swedish runner Andreas Almgren ran 59:23 to finish second to Kibiwott Kandie by one second. This was his debut half marathon race. He has a 5000 track PR of 13:01 and a recent road 10k of 27:20 at Valencia. Never heard of this guy until I read the news about the Barcelona half. American runners have beaten these times in recent years, indicating they have the ability to beat the American half marathon record if they take a serious attempt at it.

So why not go for it? What do they have to lose? Wouldn't it be nice for Grant Fisher to have another American record to his name or a different runner get their first American record? Do their contracts not have an American record bonus? What's with their hesitance here? Why are the US women runners unafraid to go for the American half marathon record while the men don't even give it a try?

Mu opinion, after about 50 years of observing this sport, is that the problem with most American runners now is that they don't race enough and they see too many races as building up to the "target" race at the end of the build up.

They run the wrong races- they should be running these fast, European races being pulled along by faster runners and yes they should go for it more often.

If they want to stay domestic because of the cost of traveling to Europe, the various groups should get together and set up races with a larger number of faster runners on a flat course somewhere.

That marathon they did in NY to get trials qualifiers was a step in the right direction.

There are places in the US where the weather is typically decent in the different seasons and there are places that are flat. Loop courses whether in a city or park could attract a crowd.

By racing more often they could go for it and risk "failure" more often.

Ostersund wrote:

sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:

Saw the news about the Barcelona half marathon. 28-year-old Swedish runner Andreas Almgren ran 59:23 to finish second to Kibiwott Kandie by one second. This was his debut half marathon race. He has a 5000 track PR of 13:01 and a recent road 10k of 27:20 at Valencia. Never heard of this guy until I read the news about the Barcelona half. American runners have beaten these times in recent years, indicating they have the ability to beat the American half marathon record if they take a serious attempt at it.

So why not go for it? What do they have to lose? Wouldn't it be nice for Grant Fisher to have another American record to his name or a different runner get their first American record? Do their contracts not have an American record bonus? What's with their hesitance here? Why are the US women runners unafraid to go for the American half marathon record while the men don't even give it a try?

He’s not a “random Swedish guy”. Your American-ness is sticking out.

4:20 is not that fast wrote:

runn wrote:

Mu opinion, after about 50 years of observing this sport, is that the problem with most American runners now is that they don't race enough and they see too many races as building up to the "target" race at the end of the build up.

They run the wrong races- they should be running these fast, European races being pulled along by faster runners and yes they should go for it more often.

If they want to stay domestic because of the cost of traveling to Europe, the various groups should get together and set up races with a larger number of faster runners on a flat course somewhere.

That marathon they did in NY to get trials qualifiers was a step in the right direction.

There are places in the US where the weather is typically decent in the different seasons and there are places that are flat. Loop courses whether in a city or park could attract a crowd.

By racing more often they could go for it and risk "failure" more often.

Trying to keep up with faster runners is only going to result in a big positive split every single time.

HRE wrote:

There was another thread here not too long ago asking a similar question about US runners and our half marathon record and why no one seems to be making a concerted effort to break it. To get a real answer here we'd probably need to know what sort of incentive there would be for runners capable of breaking the record to take some real shots.

I remember writing that the half marathon is kind of an orphan event, i.e., it's not contested in the Worlds or Olympics, meets that are real focal points for our best people who maybe don't want to arrange their training and racing schedules to maximize their potential at a half marathon. I have to believe that the financial incentives to post a really fast time in the marathon or the 5,000 and 10,000 are bigger than they are for the half marathon. You'd have to see some actual contracts to answer this definitively but I suspect you're correct about contracts having performance bonus clauses but maybe they have bigger bonuses for fast but non record times at the Olympic distances than they have for a record performance in the half marathon. In professional sports if you're trying to figure out why athletes do Thing A instead of Thing B the answer is almost always because they believe there's a better payoff from Thing A.

HRE wrote:

There was another thread here not too long ago asking a similar question about US runners and our half marathon record and why no one seems to be making a concerted effort to break it. To get a real answer here we'd probably need to know what sort of incentive there would be for runners capable of breaking the record to take some real shots.

I remember writing that the half marathon is kind of an orphan event, i.e., it's not contested in the Worlds or Olympics, meets that are real focal points for our best people who maybe don't want to arrange their training and racing schedules to maximize their potential at a half marathon. I have to believe that the financial incentives to post a really fast time in the marathon or the 5,000 and 10,000 are bigger than they are for the half marathon. You'd have to see some actual contracts to answer this definitively but I suspect you're correct about contracts having performance bonus clauses but maybe they have bigger bonuses for fast but non record times at the Olympic distances than they have for a record performance in the half marathon. In professional sports if you're trying to figure out why athletes do Thing A instead of Thing B the answer is almost always because they believe there's a better payoff from Thing A.

Ostersund wrote:

sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:

Saw the news about the Barcelona half marathon. 28-year-old Swedish runner Andreas Almgren ran 59:23 to finish second to Kibiwott Kandie by one second. This was his debut half marathon race. He has a 5000 track PR of 13:01 and a recent road 10k of 27:20 at Valencia. Never heard of this guy until I read the news about the Barcelona half. American runners have beaten these times in recent years, indicating they have the ability to beat the American half marathon record if they take a serious attempt at it.

So why not go for it? What do they have to lose? Wouldn't it be nice for Grant Fisher to have another American record to his name or a different runner get their first American record? Do their contracts not have an American record bonus? What's with their hesitance here? Why are the US women runners unafraid to go for the American half marathon record while the men don't even give it a try?

He’s not a “random Swedish guy”. Your American-ness is sticking out.