Is Deena's best marathon behind her?

The photographer at the Chicago Marathon who fell off the photo truck shooting Deena a few years ago didn't think her days were over ;-)

I think you're right that she will not medal in Osaka, primarily because the Olympics will be held in Beijing.

touche. Point taken. Sorry

I believe in Deena but you can't compare her with Francie L Smith. FLS ran very low mileage her entire career and never ran years of 140 mile weeks. Deena has a medal and may very well get another but I wouldn't count on her making an Olympic team at 40 years of age.

Why the hell would it be 'painful'?

She could come back with some down time. But the fact is, it is extremely difficult to remain on top in the marathon for more than 18 months.

Mark Plaatjes said that after 5-6 marathons, a runner needs to take a break for 12-18 months before doing another marathon. There is something to be said for this.

When it all "cilcks" in a marathon, it is due in large part to not only training, but REST. Even Meb has said, "You need the confidence to rest".

deena is just as likley to run faster by backing WAY off and then resuming training.

If high lifetime miles use up a distance runner's time at the top, Haile should be past done.

Deena way underdid mileage in college, and took several years afterward to gradually build up.

Geb planed out for a while (if you can consider 2:06-2:05 planing out). A 2:09 then a DNF in 2 succesive London Marathons indicated all was not smooth sailing.

When a world class athlete starts having a string of marginal performances, fatigue is usually the culprit. The Knute Rockne approach of "working harder" is counter-productive.

All we know right now is that she's near her peak-- maybe a year past it, maybe a year or two from it. If she plateaus/declines over the next couple years, I hope she tries Western States.

Meanwhile, Kara Goucher's best marathon lies ahead. And damn, that's a tantalizing prospect.

deena can still be competitive but she doesn't have too many top level marathons left, i would guess 2-3 tops. being 35 doesn't really help either. she proved she can perform in the heat in athens, hopefully she can do the same in beijing.

kara goucher is the future of the marathon for american women. she has run 4:05, 8:34, 14:55, 31:17, and 1:06.57 all within the last 2 years. she too has a bronze medal in a major international competition. when she moves up she will give deena's AR a good challenge. age is on her side a bit more so than deena as she will be 30 this year.

There are a number of women in the US that could run (have the talent) at least in the mid 2:20's right now if they trained specifically for the Marathon, however they are all concentrating on other distances. They are not drawn for whatever reason to the Marathon like women are in Japan, Russia, Kenya, and Ethiopia, to name a few countries.

In Japan, the Marathon is almost like a religion, and the women and the men take the Marathon, the specific training and Marathon racing very seriously.

I don't know, perhaps the fact that if you are a Marathoner, your racing opportunities are limited to two all out Marathon races per calendar year, as opposed to cross country/track/road racing variety throughout the year if you concentrate on shorter distances, especially below 10000 meters.

Terrance is smart wrote:

If high lifetime miles use up a distance runner's time at the top, Haile should be past done.

Haile is a little bit more than human. Maybe Deena is, too.

Deena is a great runner one of the best I have seen, her only problem is that some times her mind is not as strong as her body, if she works on that she will medal in the next Olympics.

She also is a wonderful person and works very hard.

US women wrote:

Why are US women literally 2-3 miles behind the best in the world?

Look at Deena's running logs over the past several years, and then look at the other top US female marathon types logs. Should be pretty clear after that why there is only 1 American up there with the best in the world.

I have a feeling that Deena's last race, regardless of how it goes, will be the Beijing Olympics. She's been at a high level for such a long time and I think her goal of winning a gold medal is her last goal. Just a thought...

say what? wrote:

NYRR ... wrote:

Boston and Italy have been her only races over 10k with elite fields and she failed in both of them.

She \"failed\" at boston because she had to go to the bathroom. Not exactly a valid data point.

So what you have is one \"failure\" here. Quite a trend.

When Paula Radcliffe needed the toilet in London 2005 she won the race and set a new womens only record. Based on that, Deena Kastor DID fail in Boston if we are to compare her to her peers (as we should).

Heroes die hard wrote:

She is a great ambassador for the sport. Her best days are behind her but she is still the best we have. She has no chance of a medal but we can all play pretend on August 17th.

That's nothing new. She had no chance of a medal in 2004 either.

She has a spectacular career. I don't think she'll care much about making an Olympic team at 40. And Western States? That will not happen, and why even wish that on her?

Next!