Go speed racer go wrote:
[quote]Questions wrote:
Most importanly to me, did Byers run his 3:37 with a 26.1 last 200? Did he blow away the field to win?
Why is that important? Wheating blew away a field of chumps.
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Because to Wheating, those were not chumps. A year ago most of those guys would have stomped him. And because you're using times as a reference point (where most of us are using the time along with the actual race to measure the success). And because I think if the race had been run at 3:36 we would be talking about a faster race for Wheating. And because with that kind of racing ability Wheating is not just a 3:36 runner in Europe, he's looking like he could be a winning factor in competitive races. By that I mean anything that is not going faster than 3:34 pace by half way, and we know a lot of big championship races start out slow. I don't know how many 800's he has run, but his 1:47 low (WIN) at stanford the other weekend also isn't too shabby.
That's why people are so impressed. He is green, and we don't need to look back through history to see if someone else was more green when they ran some other fast time because you really can't make an accurate comparison.
Byers was a freakish talent, no doubt. But I for one don't need him as a reference point to confirm or disconfirm the validity of Wheating's performance. I know well how big that was.
I'm sure you could go back to when Pre started running and find that one year he was trying out for the high school football team and the following year the was setting some high school two mile record, but again I don't really care.
Wheating is here and now, and I believe he's leading the country right now for the 1500. A sophomore, after less than 3 years of running. I think he's put himself in the top ten on both the mile and 1500 lists at Oregon, already. That is a pretty big accolade.