"The 5000m split of 14:14.60 was ample evidence that the race would [be won] by the stongest closer."

You are correct and I had the same thought as I read it. Otherwise it was a good recap.

webby wrote:

Seems like the heat made the ostensibly slow pace quite hard for everyone...

It was 81F, 53% humidity & only 11mph wind. Plus it was cloudy. With official temperatures taken in the shade, that indicates the conditions as even better. From June through August, it's usually worse than 81F/53%/11mph. This was actually one of the coldest USATF days in years.

man will you shut the hell up. usually the 10k is run later in the evening, when temperatures are chilled. and official temperatures are taken in the shade? yes that is true... now do you think the track is shaded? no, you idiot... so obviously the temps will be higher under the sun. my god, i f***ing hate you. and who are you to bash any of the runners in the race, which you are doing by saying you are "disappointed". could you have beaten ritz, rupp, or abdi? f*** no, so shut your f***ing mouth.

ff wrote:

man will you shut the hell up. usually the 10k is run later in the evening, when temperatures are chilled. and official temperatures are taken in the shade? yes that is true... now do you think the track is shaded? no, you idiot... so obviously the temps will be higher under the sun. my god, i f***ing hate you. and who are you to bash any of the runners in the race, which you are doing by saying you are "disappointed". could you have beaten ritz, rupp, or abdi? f*** no, so shut your f***ing mouth.

It was still run later in the evening. Unless we cater to running the race between a 1 hour window of 9:00-10:00pm, then it's unbearable? Far as the shade comment, it was cloudy... meaning the normal couple of degrees hotter adjustment was non-existent.

Let's see if I can reply civilly. There have been many races run in more challenging conditions. I just did not think the race was won because of a strong close. It seemed like people just fell off of the pace rather than any strong move made after a relatively slow first half. If the conditions were not kind of tough, I would have expected more people to be in the pack at the end off of that pace.

ttc wrote:

This was actually one of the coldest USATF days in years.

But were the conditions optimal for a 10k? No. Will the times be slowed because of the conditions? Most likely.

You seem to be disappointed in the results, and unwilling to attribute much of your disappointment to the conditions. I think you're off the mark. Those conditions make a fast 10k rather challenging.

I think my use of the word "closer" was interpreted by some to mean "sprinter." I just meant it to mean the athlete who would be strongest late in the race, more akin to how the word is used to describe the best relief pitchers in baseball.

By that defnintion, the race was won by the strongest closer on the night: Abdi. He was by far the strongest in the last 800m, and --unpressed-- he ran 65.6 for the last 400. He also ran the second half considerably faster than the first: 14:00 vs. 14:14. Again, the strongest closer.

David Monti, Race Results Weekly

Lazy Llama wrote:

But were the conditions optimal for a 10k? No. Will the times be slowed because of the conditions? Most likely.

You seem to be disappointed in the results, and unwilling to attribute much of your disappointment to the conditions. I think you're off the mark. Those conditions make a fast 10k rather challenging.

I totally agree the conditions weren't optimal. We'd all run slower too. But most summer days/evenings are 82F MINIMUM. This is as good as it gets, unless creative scheduling is set up. If our guys had trouble with a 28:00 10K pace, then they're 28:00+ 10K'ers right now. I don't know why we always have to excuse it and say that a summer race was run in some heat. That's pretty redundant and silly. "I run summer track meets, and I normally run fast when it's not hot". Yea, well when the f*** would that be? Not often, so I guess you're a 28:00 10K'er unless you race 10:00pm in California or travel to Oslo.

With that explanation I agree completely. It seems like the strongest man won by holding a solid pace while the others could not. As I mentioned in my first reply, it was a good recap - thanks.

You make absolutely no sense whatsoever. Some of these guys had PR's around 27:30....all run in optimal conditions (which I bet most of our PR's were set in). They run in less than optimal conditions...although temperate for summer in the US...and run 40 secs off their PR's in a championship race...usually run at a less than optimal pace anyway.

What's odd about the results dimwit?

ttc wrote:

It was 81F, 53% humidity & only 11mph wind. Plus it was cloudy. With official temperatures taken in the shade, that indicates the conditions as even better. From June through August, it's usually worse than 81F/53%/11mph. This was actually one of the coldest USATF days in years.

Those conditions are bad for a 10k, regardless of what it's normally like in the summer. They didn't set their PRs in the middle of the summer in bad conditions. There's a reason why everyone ran slowly, and it isn't because none of them ran tough.

ttc wrote:slower too. But most summer days/evenings are 82F MINIMUM. This is as good as it gets, unless creative scheduling is set up. If our guys had trouble with a 28:00 10K pace, then they're 28:00+ 10K'ers right now. I don't know why we always have to excuse it and say that a summer race was run in some heat. That's pretty redundant and silly. "I run summer track meets, and I normally run fast when it's not hot". Yea, well when the f*** would that be? Not often, so I guess you're a 28:00 10K'er unless you race 10:00pm in California or travel to Oslo.

You're clueless.

Thanks for the reply, David. I took the sentence in question to mean that you thought it had turned into a kicker's race -- which I now understand that we agree was not the case. There had been a lot of pre-race speculation that it might come down to a kick (and that this would not be good for the likes of Ryan Hall) -- which I always thought was an unlikely outcome . . . so I may have been influenced by that. I also think that a lot of us saw the early pace without understanding the conditions fully and wondered if it might be turning into a tactical race. Anyway, I didn't mean to nitpick your article, which I agree was a great recap. I just wanted to see if others saw it as a war of attrition, as I did.

ttc wrote:

If our guys had trouble with a 28:00 10K pace, then they're 28:00+ 10K'ers right now. I don't know why we always have to excuse it and say that a summer race was run in some heat.

ttc - should we just assume that you were drunk when you wrote this? I think we're all having trouble understanding your point. The facts speak for themselves - the weather was a factor in the times that were run. You really think Abdi, Ritz and Rupp are all 28:00+ runners now? What would have caused them to get in worse shape than they were a few weeks ago? Are you that far removed from your running that you don't remember what it was like to run a 10000 when it was 82 degrees?

How many world records in the 5000 and up do you think you will see in your lifetime when the temperature is over 80? The correct answer is either ZERO.

David Monti wrote:I think my use of the word "closer" was interpreted by some to mean "sprinter." I just meant it to mean the athlete who would be strongest late in the race, more akin to how the word is used to describe the best relief pitchers in baseball.

By that definition, the race was won by the strongest closer on the night: Abdi. He was by far the strongest in the last 800m, and --unpressed-- he ran 65.6 for the last 400. He also ran the second half considerably faster than the first: 14:00 vs. 14:14. Again, the strongest closer.

But, by your definition the offending sentence is just a tautology and unnecessary. If there is a lead pack at the 5k mark, it doesn't matter whether they ran 13:30, 14:00, or 15:00 to get there, the strongest closer will win. You are only saying that if there is a pack at midway, the runner who runs the fastest second 5k wins. Of course!

And it is even unnecessary that the winner runs the second half of the race faster than the first. If Abdi had won the race while running 14:30 for his second 5k, he still would have been the strongest closer.

chaz22 wrote:

But, by your definition the offending sentence is just a tautology and unnecessary.

Thanks for the criticism which all writers need in order to improve their work.

David Monti, Race Results Weekly

ttc wrote:

It was 81F, 53% humidity & only 11mph wind. Plus it was cloudy. With official temperatures taken in the shade, that indicates the conditions as even better. From June through August, it's usually worse than 81F/53%/11mph. This was actually one of the coldest USATF days in years.

You keep writing this based on something you saw on weather.com -- I'm going to go out on a limb and guess they get their data from the airport, which is west and not in the city. I live just north of the stadium and it was 85 degrees there at 9:30 p.m., after dark, after the race was over. It is always 4-5 degrees warmer in the city, look up the urban heat island concept if you don't understand.

You act like you were there and you know the conditions -- you were not. Now go away.

Just like NCs it was won by an east african, who should be more use to the warm conditions both nature and nuture.

Abdi never dropped the hammer the last mile. They dropped a few 66 and then went back to 67. The top 3 should be able to handle that pace for the 5k.

Yeah 65.5 is a heck of kick. way to close.