Grand Slam Track has cooked Americans

The obvious counter to that is Melissa Jefferson-Wooden who has done alright, but sprinting is definitely a different scenario to distance running.

I think you are absolutely right with respect to 2 guys - Grant Fisher and Yared Nuguse. Finally Nuguse has himself woken up and realized that being in 3.46 mile shape in February and then trying to continue that basically through April/May/June and then still have enough condition to make a team in late July is now beyond even his talent level. GST totally cooked that goose.

The guy we haven't spoken much because he's still made the teams is Fisher, but it's hard not to think about what he might have left on the table here. He was basically in career form in February. 3.33 indoor followed by 7.22.9 and 12.44.0. Why? Seriously why? Then right into GST where to be honest he was really saved by the Philly situation and the cancellation of LA. 3.48 low mile at Pre but then it starts getting a little murky.

Every race since then starting with the US trials has been pretty lackluster even though he did well enough in them. The most bizarre one was the US trials 5000m final where for some reason he was happy to just amble along in the pack from 3-4600m and not push the pace which left him fodder for Hocker. A lot of people said that was down to "getting stuck in the pack" which is nonsense, he just didn't have the condition to do what he was capable of and needed to do to beat Hocker. Similar situation in Zurich in the 3000m. So we get it now, Gressier is good off a slow pace (shock there), but how does he have more power than Fisher as a sub 3.50 miler? Fisher is easily the fastest mile guy in that race last night (sure Kejelcha has run faster lifetime but that was a long time ago now), he should be much better in a slower paced race than that. Was it the heat? Was it because he decided not to drink any water the entire race even though it was so slow that the energy to run across to the table would have been absolutely worth it in context? Maybe. I agree with you that with him it's a season long fatigue thing. He's just running on empty but at holding the pieces together well enough on the surface.

mile speed in a race like that wouldn’t have helped a ton, more 400 speed and fisher doesn’t have much of that, especially after racing perhaps a bit too much in grand slam. Gressier on the other hand has always had decent top end speed. I think grant is just cooked from a super long season

GST was a joke. It was barely the level of an easy workout. How is it possible that it "cooked" anyone?

I am curious about this claim too. For strength oriented athletes like Fisher, I’m more concerned that he wasted several weeks of good training bc of GST: he had to work his training schedule around stupid shorter races <10k at just above threshold pace ending in a sprint instead of getting in higher volume workouts with greater aerobic benefit. Even if he tacked on a workout after the races, it’s less volume (I’d imagine) and thus optimum aerobic stimulus than a full workout day. That, plus the added recovery costs of frequent travel. I don’t know, I could be totally wrong – maybe it didn’t affect him much fitness-wise, but he just had a poor-ish race by his standards. I’m also curious if the mental stress of GST had any burnout effect. Probably a small one if there was any, but at the top level a small % matters.

All that said, let’s remember Kerr and Hocker also raced GST; they seem alright thus far through the first round. Wonder what they did differently throughout the process to influence their outcomes to keep GST from affecting their in-season progression.

Which Americans are you referring to? Young and Fisher just ran season bests.

And that was in the heat/humidity.

wunderground’s history data is showing for Tokyo at 9:30pm on Sept 14:

82deg F, 94% humidity. 👀

That’s a misery index of 176!!! 😳

Is that data accurate?!?

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https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/jp/tokyo/RJTT/date/2025-9-14

Re: sprinters and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden being the obvious counter, it should be noted that people here tried to argue that GST was to blame for Gabby Thomas getting injured and withdrawing from worlds.

People with an anti-GST agenda (not saying you have one, but there are definitely people on this site who do) are quick to point the finger at GST anytime a GST athlete doesn't do well. It's become the equivalent of anti-vaxxers quickly claiming that anyone who has a heart issue or blood clot got it because of the vax.

Here's what I wrote in the WC Day 2 thread:

If Hocker, Kerr, Arop, Hiltz, Hull, Sydney, Paulino, and Naser all underperform, then I think it might be appropriate to point the finger at GST. Until then, I think we need to think more critically and not fall in the trap of making spurious correlations. Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Oblique Seville were both GST racers, so they certainly complicate the notion of a "Grand Slam Slump."

The other complication to your statement is Nico. He didn't run the first two GST meets and didn't have a heavy racing schedule overall, but he didn't medal tonight either.

I also find it difficult to believe that Fisher running a 14:39 5k, a couple of 3k races over 8 minutes, and a 13:40 5k had much of an impact on him.

At least they made some good money in GST. Errr never mind.

For Kerr it doesn’t matter because he basically only raced GST and London. The 5k in British Champs was a joke. He has plenty of time to recover. I’m interested to see how hocker does.

I totally screwed that up!😕 The Misery Index is a summation of the air temperature and dew point (not humidity).

The Dew Point at the time was 81deg, giving a Misery Index of 163, which is still very high.

Downvoter facts; par for the course here.

Yes that data is accurate, but it's stupid. Humidity is stupid. Misery index is stupid. Everything is in the Dew point. 81°dew point is impossibly oppressive!

Here's where we stand so far. (projected conditions)

9.13 Sa Day 1
6:05p M h3000sc 82° 75° SSW
7:50p W h1500 82° 75° SSW
9:30p W 10000 81° 79° SSW

9.14 Su Day 2
8:00a W Marathon 86° 75° SW
9:35a M h1500 86° 75° SW
9:05p W s1500 82° 81° E
9:30p M 10000 82° 81° ESE
--------------------------
9.15 M Day 3
8:00a M Marathon (81/73)
9:15a W h3000sc (82/73)
9:30p M s1500 (81/77)
9:55p M 3000sc (81/77)

9.16 Tu Day 4
7:35p M h800 (82/77)
10:05p W 1500 (82/78)

Don't overthink things when it comes to distance running. Injuries, illness, weather -- and just plain day-to-day variations in one's energy and strength levels -- are probably what determine the winners and losers in races most of the time. Everyone on the starting line is in roughly the same shape and it all comes down to how they're feeling that day and possibly their race tactics (which is not always something they can control, because they have to react to what other racers are doing). This is why distance running as a sport can be kinda boring to follow from the perspective of athlete storylines.

Grant lives and trains in Utah which has low humidity.

Conditions for the 5000 final on Sunday will be more reasonable. Hopefully Grant performs better.

An 81deg dew point (not sure how to do a superscript degree symbol on this phone) with 86deg air temperature would have been a lot worse than with just 81deg air temp.

An 85deg air temperature with only a 79deg dew point (Misery Index of 164deg) is arguably worse conditions than 82deg air temp and 81deg dew point.

Simply put, this is why you need an index that includes BOTH the air temperature and dew point, aka, The Misery Index.

81F dew point? That's wild. I wonder, from your experience, how much would that slow someone down in a 5k/10k? For a mortal like me, I don't think I will be able to run within 2 mins of my PB.

Hocker seems to have emphasized heat training this block, staying in VA to train.