Mottram's explanation to the interviewer of what races are considered "middle distance" during the interview linked on the front page. Anyone else agree with this definition of MD? I understood the general classification to be 800 to 3000 as MD, 5000 and up as long distance.
I think 800-1600/mile is middle distance. 3000, I dunno, it seems to be a mix of distance and middle distance. But 5k+ is DEFINITELY distance.
5k is middle distance
The 800 is "officially" a sprint, although "generally" considered middle distance. 5000m and up is long distance. Mottram is good, but he's wrong.
Abacus wrote:
Mottram's explanation to the interviewer of what races are considered "middle distance" during the interview linked on the front page. Anyone else agree with this definition of MD? I understood the general classification to be 800 to 3000 as MD, 5000 and up as long distance.
I agree with you. For me, 800m-3000m is mid distance.
I've heard some Ethiopian or Kenyan refer to races up to 10k as middle distance before, also (I think it may actually have been Geb)...if you consider how much longer the marathon (and even the half) are than the 10k, it makes a little more sense...a 10k is only 5.2 more miles than a mile, but a marathon is 20 miles further than a 10k...
these distances are PURE aerobic, and you can succeed at them with relatively little track speed...once you've got guys that might do one set of events without doing any that are "under" them, you can classify that as another group of distances
it may be common to see a 10k/marathon specialist, but it's also common to see a 1500/5k specialist...
according to IAAF.
Middle distance: 800-2000m
Long distance: 3000-10000m
I think you guys are missing the point. I think Mottram is trying to say that he's not limiting himself to a specifc genre of event in the track circuit. He's saying that since people classify him as a mid-distance runner, then anything from 800-10k must be. He defines himself as an all-around runner, rather than a specialist.
Once you consider how stupid it is to argue over what category to put certain race lengths in, and how arbitrary the length of a meter in itself is, you start to just say 'distance'. If we used the better number system of base 12 instead of 10 our milers might be racing 1728m... It doesn't matter.