Did Des and Kara save the 10,000 last night? (pics)

Yeah, who doesn't love seeing women run 32:20 and only 2 men under 29?

It was an alright meet, but probably not what they were hoping for. Kind of sad to see so few fans. They should have had the pro meet preceded by a series of open 10ks like the night of 10k pbs held in England (except this year). I really liked that each athlete got $1000 minimum so no one would have to lose money on showing up - that should just be for an invited pro field though.

I watched it after the fact.

Fast forwarded a lot.

I appreciate their efforts, but it was mediocre at best.

Did the winners get $5,000?

Just shows 2 big names in US distance running can't help promote something that doesn't make sense.

1) Few 10,000 are run by top pros, they plan them out WAY in advance.

2) This was announced too late.

3) Who greenlit this idea? They could have posted on here before hand and I think 80% of posters would have said "not a good idea. Do it next year at best".

It is not the message it’s the messengers. Kara and Des have created a nice comfortable landing area for their careers. They are both respected by the masters and above female runners. They are no longer 25 and have nothing in common with the younger crowd. This hurts them when trying to sell an event to the crowd they needed. I love Des and Kara and came to the “save the ten with Des and Kara” to watch my son compete. There were a couple of hundred spectators that came to see Des and Kara that were all in my age group. There were Zero young folks there to see the event that didn’t have someone in the event.

Putting there names on it hurt the actual event when trying to recruit a field. It helped bring in some people that were there to see them. They have now backed themselves into a hole moving forward with this event. They still will not be able to assemble a world class field and the crowd size will remain at the couple hundred people.

Unfortunately the lack of spectators was predictable given the lack of a quality field. Then Des and Kara mentioned on their pre-race podcast the number of athletes who dropped out at the last minute and how they thought about just cancelling the whole thing. They put a lot of their own money into this too though there were some title sponsors as well (including companies not associated with running).

A+ for effort and good intentions but there already is a “save the 10,000” event. It’s called The TEN. The distance is not compelling enough to be done twice a year, especially with the flaws noted.

The TEN is plan A for top runners. Bryan Clay's 10k is plan B. There is absolutely no need at all to have a plan C 10k in Southern California in the spring. Two 10k's in this area during this time period is enough.

If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t admission free? If so, it’s really sad they weren’t able to get more attendees. As others have said, A for effort, but the results really didn’t move the needle.

The choice of location was a poor one. Saturday afternoon/evening had already been booked for lots of athletes with the OXY INV ( and no, I am not a coach there). It would have been better to have the "SAVE THE 10" races at Occidental following the sections of the 5000s. There would have been a number of carry-over spectators.

I appreciate that you went and are notionally supportive, but most of your take strikes me as wrong. Younger and "cooler" versions of Kara and Des wouldn't have made a difference as elite athletes don't care who the organizer of the race is. Off the top of my head and not necessarily in this order, they want: (a) prize money, (b) pacing lights and pacers, (c) quality competition, (d) great weather, (e) good fit in their race schedule, (f) easy travel/accommodation, and (g) as a nice-to-have, crowd support. You seriously think that some 24 year-old superstar saw it was late 40s Kara reaching out and said nahh because she is isn't cool enough?

This race ended up checking all those boxes except quality competition and crowd support, but several of those were last-minute additions such as pacing lights and extent of prize money. Plus the schedule was affected by the late announcement of the race.

I think most of the issue with field quality was the late-start in announcing and organizing the race in addition to its lack of history. Now that it came off well logistically, is a known race and with the other factors, I think next year if they do it. would be much stronger in terms of field quality. Runners can plan for it and will be attracted to it.

As for crowd support, I think there's only going to be so much fan interest in this country in spending an evening to watch 2 x 10000 races and that's it. I think field quality is key to that even with free admission. I'm not sure what The Ten draws in terms of crowds, but it's not a lot. Payton Jordan back in the day didn't have big crowds either, and most of the crowd was friends and family of college runners.

Yeah, I like running a lot and even if Fisher were racing a 10K time trial in my town, I don't see spending an hour of my life going to sit around and watch that.

This idea of "saving the 10,000," or providing additional opportunities to hit the 10K standard isn't new, 10 years ago, in 2015, Kim Conley tried to do the save thing with the "Pacific Pursuit." Kim and her husband/coach Drew Wartenburg, created a race for athletes to chase the qualifying standard for the Rio Olympics in 2016. It went just about as well as Save the 10,000 did attendance-wise, but actually accomplished the intended goal. The stadium at Sac State was mostly empty and they only had 8 male contenders, but they did manage to attract then Nike Oregon Project star Jordan Hasay. Of note, Sarah Hall and Emma Bates were also in this race but did not get the standard. The event could be considered successful because Kim Conley created an event for herself to get the standard and she did exactly that, along with 2 other women, something Save the 10,000 could not do, so props to her. I just find it interesting that neither Goucher nor Linden ever mentioned this race because what they have done is a direct rip off of it and executed far more poorly.

si.com

Kim Conley, Jordan Hasay headline Pacific 10,000-meter Pursuit

Kim Conley and Jordan Hasay??could become the first women to run under 32:10 for 10,000-meters on U.S. soil in December.

Open link

flotrack.org

Pacific 10,000m Pursuit - Videos - FloTrack

Watch videos for the Pacific 10,000m Pursuit track and field event on FloTrack.org. Join now!

Open link

Just another gig to make some much needed money. Since neither of them have a career going for them after retiring from racing. The problem for most pro runners that never got a decent degree or went back to school for an actual career like the rest of us. Unfortunately you now have another 3-4 decades to worry about a decent salary and saving for retirement. Good luck.

Wrong. Unless you think they're lying, which I don't, they didn't make any money off this event. Far from it. They talked a lot on their podcast about taking the risk financially to put on the meet and then hoping they'd get enough sponsors to pay for everything. I'm sure they weren't talking about catastrophic financial risk, but I'm going to guess it was in the tens of thousands of dollars each. Once they got sponsors, they added pacer lights, free attendance, free live stream, etc.

What I find pathetic is how many people immediately assume the worst. Why is it so hard for some people to believe that Des and Kara wanted to help the sport and elite/sub-elite runners by creating a race when there are so few high-level 10000s available, as opposed to feeding their egos and wallets? I mean, this is Let's Run so I guess it's a given, but get a life.

I'd quibble with some of their choices, such as I'm not convinced Mt SAC was the best location nor worth the apparently high cost. But kudos to them for the effort.

anyone know who won each race? can't find results anywhere

https://www.watchathletics.com/page/6593/results-save-the-10-000-with-des-and-kara

This event would make sense if it was a world stand qualifier. But as others have said The Ten is that event. There are 4 Americans with the standard as it stands. There are maybe 1 or 2 other Americans that could even achieve this standard in a perfect race. Sub 27 is ridiculously difficult