Which is more important, place or time?

I would much rather win the gold medal at the Olympic games than break a world record at a smaller meet. World records can be broken, but if you are a clean athlete (or don't have a cheater like Marion Jones on your relay team), you will never have that gold medal taken away from you. So definitely place when it's a huge meet like the ones you mentioned.

in a race (particularly a championship race): place

in a time trial or an ordinary meet: time

in an ordinary meet is your time to play and see how fast you can run.

runkeller wrote:

it would be meaningless to set a major record (at a smaller meet) and not win a major championship (thinking NCAA, US Champs, World Champs, or Olympics).

Exactly. Look at Alan Webb and Galen Rupp! They get a lot of crap for choking under pressure.

To be the best in your sport you can't just post the best mark, you have to be able to show up when it counts.

Place- It's more important to win the big race than to put up fancy times.

Whether you are talking about your city championship, the state meet, or the Oly games- the goal is to beat whoever is in the race. if you happen to run fast in the process, so be it.

runkeller wrote:

In order to win, obviously, you would have to run fast times,

i dunno. in most of the championship races that I've seen, the race times have been significantly slower than what you'd consider fast, relative to the elite level at least. especially at the 800m distance.

I remember the story but can't place the names. Two sprinters, both American, going to the Olympics in the 100. One said he was going to break the world record, the other said he was going to win the gold. One ran a world record time but finished second. The one focusing on the place won the gold. Place is always more important UNLESS you need the time to get into something (trials, world champ, Olympics).

I think Time, definitely. Once you've run, say, 3:49, 12:59, 26:59, you'll always be able to say that you have run that fast. No one can ever take THAT from you.As for medals, didn't they take OJ'S Heisman away from him? Times are far superior in my mind.

woo hoo! wrote:

World records can be broken, but if you are a clean athlete (or don't have a cheater like Marion Jones on your relay team), you will never have that gold medal taken away from you.

[quote]

As for medals, didn't they take OJ'S Heisman away from him? They took his gloves too

Place is more important in my mind. Winning is what it's about. I might have a faster PR than another guy, but if he beats me head-to-head I think he's the superior runner. Because it's about racing, not time trials.

Don't get me wrong, I think records and fast PRs are cool too. But they are second in importance to wins. And I think that's true in most sports. Take the case of Tom Brady this year. Dude broke some all-time records and won 18 games in a row, but I'm sure he would ultimately consider the season somewhat of a failure because the Pats didn't win when it counted. And Alan Webb is another example. Last year he broke the AR in the mile and had the fastest 1500 time in the world, but he couldn't win the WCs. I'll bet if you asked Webb, "Would you rather have run slightly slower times last year leading up to the WCs and missed the AR in the mile if it meant Gold in Osaka?" I don't know Webb personally, but I'd be willing to bet he'd want that Gold, hypothetically.

A virtual reality bet on a hypothetical comment about an imagined conversation recorded on an anonymous message board............. sweet.

Let's ask Ryan from last weekend's London Marathon.

Was he happy with his 2:06:17 5th place or would he rather

have won the race or another marathon in 2:08 or 2:09?

I'd rather win Boston with a 2:10 than come in 5th at London in 2:06.

The next native born runnger that wins Boston will be a huge. You'll get a ton of press.

I'm not sure which I'd pick

Boston vs Oly gold.

Hall pass monitor wrote:

Let's ask Ryan from last weekend's London Marathon.

Was he happy with his 2:06:17 5th place or would he rather

have won the race or another marathon in 2:08 or 2:09?

Good analogy that deserves thought. Some consider London the most prestigious marathon for elite runners and all would have to put in the top 5 in the world right now. So taking 5th at London with a superb time is probably, in my mind, more special than winning another marathon with a slower time.

The problem with the marathon, unlike track, is that there is no consensus 'top' goal. In track it is easy, win the world championships for that year and the Olympics every 4 years. Every track athlete dreams of winning the Olympic gold, but what do marathoners dream of winning? Is it NYC, Boston, Chicago, London, Berlin (the 5 World Marathon Majors) the Olympics, or another one? Also in running marathons an elite runner can run 3, maybe 4 marathons a year?

Ultimately, for a marathoner, it is more difficult to pick your battles as you are never going to get the top 5, 10, 20 marathoners in the world in one race...it just isn't happening.

Obama 2008 wrote:

I think Time, definitely. Once you've run, say, 3:49, 12:59, 26:59, you'll always be able to say that you have run that fast. No one can ever take THAT from you.

As for medals, didn't they take OJ'S Heisman away from him? Times are far superior in my mind.

woo hoo! wrote:

World records can be broken, but if you are a clean athlete (or don't have a cheater like Marion Jones on your relay team), you will never have that gold medal taken away from you.

The OJ analogy is horrible because they only took the Heisman away from him because it had value, not because they felt he didn't deserve it. He actually still holds the title of "Heisman Trophy Winner".

As far as records go, and I could be wrong, but they can take those away as well if they find that you cheated. If Marion Jones had set a record, it would have been erased from the record books just as her medals have been taken away.

Time. To me the best runners aren't the ones that win, they are the ones with the best PRs. It's probably because I think the purpose of a race is to see who can cover X distance the fastest, not who can cover it first. By fastest, I mean fastest given the conditions.

I would much rather get a fast time. It feels so much less satisfying to beat someone in a slow time compared to losing but with a fast time. Not that I want to lose, but win or lose, I want a fast time.

So if I'm in a race and I'm coming down to the last mile and I'm with someone around my level, I know that I can usually hold back a bit and outsprint them at the end because I have a good kick. But I would rather go hard for the entire mile and lose to them in a faster time.

I realize most people feel otherwise but I am not running to look good compared to other people. To me, competitors are just tools I use to try to get a fast time.

I agree.

What would Roger Bannister say? How about Geb?

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. - Pre

The purpose of running is to test the limits of the human heart. - Unknown

I could give a flaming pile about any hardware I may earn. I want to know how fast I can run. - Me

Any athlere who says time is not a true competitor.

The goal is to win every single time you line up. You do that, everything else will take care of itself.

Who's career would you rather have had, Emil Zatopek or Sandor Iharos who had the WR for a little while after Zatopek?

Thats what I thought.

In my view, the number one concern in most races should be to race the people and if you run fast in the process, that's a bonus. At the same time, you don't fully progress as a runner unless you're willing and able to get as fast as you can get in absolute terms. Obviously, those two goals aren't always accomplished in the same race. A few races are specifically set up in a time trial format so people can chase qualifying marks or records, but most races should be run with the goal of beating people.

We've all probably known many college runners - and indeed entire college teams - who sought out only those time trial races during the non-championship weeks of a track season. When the championships rolled around, even though they had by far the best performances in their conferences, they were totally incapable of running well in hot or rainy or windy conditions or if the pace was slow or screwy. They were in great shape for getting hoovered along at a fast, even pace in perfect weather, but they simply couldn't operate outside that comfort zone. On the flip side, more of those people qualified for the biggest meets, sometimes making All-American, while the people who paddled them at the conference meet never did anything beyond that level since they couldn't run a fast enough pace when it was required.

The best runners are ready to win any kind of race in any kind of conditions because they can run a fast absolute pace and they're constantly concerned with beating anything their competitors can throw at them and they aren't daunted by lousy weather. By definition, that's why they get the title of "best." At the world level, the best 5,000 runners can run 61 pace the whole way if that's what's called for, and they're also able to throw down a 1:56 800 for laps 9 and 10 or run 51 for the last lap to win if the opening pace dawdles.

A strong competitive fire as evidenced by high finishes in important races and superb fitness as evidenced by fast PRs ... the ultimate runner has both.