Look at the improvement that Jearl Miles Clark made when she moved up. What would Mark Everett have been as a 400 runner? David Krummenaker moved up to 1500 and easily moved back down, now look what he's doing. What do you have to be afraid of? Your training for the longer event will just make you stronger for the shorter event.
2 years prior to Bob setting the AR, the WR in the 5k was 12:58.39 (Auita). It seems reasonable that in 1996, when Bob ran 12:58.21 and the only people to have ever run faster than 12:50 were Komen and Geb (Komen who didn't even run in the OG), that he was thinking he could be the best or top 3 in the world. I believe only 5 people had ever run faster than Bob when he first set the AR. I would be thinking I could be the best if I were Bob at that time as well.
M
womans running is a lot like the mens in the 80's. lots of good americans and europeans and a few very good africans. Times changed for the men, i bet the sport of womans running will change too.
Yes, I can see where Bob was going, but after a while it was time to move up. Like others on this board have said, you can't win at the highest level in the 5 and 10k without a kick, even if you push the pace. Jonh Schiffer once said Kennedy was the slowest guy ever to run under 13 in the 5k. After 97, it was time to move up. I dispute the point made by Hamiliton that things would have been the same in the marathon...the marathon is a different beast. There have been plenty of runners who can't run with the top 3 or so guys in the world but do much better in a longer event. Consider Toshinari Takaoka, 3rd at this year's Chicago Marathon. He has a PRs of 13:13 and 27:35. Tergat could lap him in the 10k. You could give Takaoka a 20m head start Tergat would probably beat him in the 100m. But at Chicago, he finished 2 secs. ahead of Tergat.
Conto wrote:
2 years prior to Bob setting the AR, the WR in the 5k was 12:58.39 (Auita). It seems reasonable that in 1996, when Bob ran 12:58.21 and the only people to have ever run faster than 12:50 were Komen and Geb (Komen who didn't even run in the OG), that he was thinking he could be the best or top 3 in the world. I believe only 5 people had ever run faster than Bob when he first set the AR. I would be thinking I could be the best if I were Bob at that time as well.
M
But how many miles do those 23 year old marathoners have behind them?
Kenyan 23 year olds are going to have many more miles behind them than American 23 year olds.
It's not age so much as it mileage.