How will Sara Hall do in the steeplechase

I think she'll be a DNS, unless she's been working on the technique for a while.

she looks frail. a strong breeze or elbow could send her tumbling in a rough event like that. her best bet is to use her superior speed and fitness to stay ahead of all but the top few, to stay out of trouble.

agreed that she is too frail. she's doesn't look strong enough to be a good steepler. hopefully I'm wrong! that's pretty exciting that she's giving it a try. she was always pretty good in cross, not that that's necessarily a great predictor.

I thought that was a typo, and maybe she was supposed to be in teh 1500 or 5000 or something. Has she ever even run a steeple - college, HS, anything? That's not an event you just jump into as a pro.

Where did you see the entries? I couldn't find them on the Stanford website.

There's no way all those people will be running. The list says "preformance list". It doesn't look like an entry list to me.

ponytayne wrote:

http://www.sml1.com/recordtiming/stanford/invite09/accepted_running.htm

Those are all accepted entries. Declarations started today, so there will be attrition, but those are the initial entries.

Hall was born in Springdale, Arkansas. At the age of 10, she was modeling in Dallas, Texas where she was living in the suburb of Farmers Branch, Texas, where she briefly attended R. L. Turner High School.

How tall and how much does Sara weigh?

ponytayne wrote:

I thought that was a typo, and maybe she was supposed to be in teh 1500 or 5000 or something. Has she ever even run a steeple - college, HS, anything? That's not an event you just jump into as a pro.

A well-known Minnesota pro (a ~13:50 5k / 23:30 8k runner) decided to "jump into" a steeplechase last year. Went out at American Record pace, ended up running 9:01 and would have lost to a DIII guy if the race had been 50m longer.

Hall is small and petite, but hardly "frail".

A good portion of her routine has been strength related, and her coach is quick to acknowledge that.

Further, Liz Jackson (former BYU runner and American Record Holder in the steeple) was FAR more frail looking than Hall.

Hall at least has muscle definition, Jackson was just a waif.

One quick hit to the steeple and her frail bones will shatter. I think she only weighs 80 pounds.

A well-known LetsRun poster by the name of Malmo decided to "jump into" a steeplechase. It worked out pretty well for him.

Any idea who is coaching her now, that might give a clue to the decision ?

Malmo did not just jump into the steeple as a pro several years beyond college. He was winning Junior national championships and running it all through college long before he ever started running the big european meets and setting ARs.

hall graduated Stanford in 05 or 06, is a pro, and as far as anyone knows so far, has never run a steeple competitively. big difference from malmo.

I thought Malmo set the AR in 1977 in only his second try at the steeple?

an even better question!

who cares?

Dingler wrote:

I thought Malmo set the AR in 1977 in only his second try at the steeple?

WTF?