Kara at Lisbon

winning pic

http://www.iaaf.org/LRR09/news/newsid=49913.html

The thing I wonder about is not Kara's performance at Lisbon, but why would AlSal set her up for such disappointment? When I read that AlSal was talking about 65, I was like, Geez, do you really think she's going to smash the WR?

I think Kara is an absolutely outstanding runner, and her victory today at Lisbon would have been much better received if her coach hadn't mentioned such ridiculous possibilities before hand. I mean, would Hall's coach come out and mention that he wouldn't be surprised to see Ryan run 2:03 at Boston, even if Ryan was absolutely nailing workouts leading up to race day? You just don't say that publicly even if you think your runner is capable of doing it. Just shut your mouth and let your runner run because that's all that matters... not what you as a coach thinks your runner can run.

Too bad this is your last post. Im not worried about it, however. And so, I guess this will be mine. I wanted to know what YOU thought, I wasn't really interested in what you thought about MY projection. You were the one who decided to come on and chide what was posted instead of simply making a case for what YOU thought. Do you see that difference? I dont think its necessary to write a mini-novel in order to wall up every thought with air tight reasoning to develop a thread for discussion purposes. Apparently, you can't allow for people to be "silly" without feeling compelled to belittle and caustically post your reply. You claim you dont like to see people aggravated, but your snobbery betrays you.

"The whole argument" is spotty in the sense that, to spark discussion, one only needs to develop a talking point and leave enough hanging for others to put in their opinions. Maybe you don't like that, but it's not about you. However, if you read the thread carefully, I guess you haven't done so, then you would have noticed that I had already conceded to a better and more reasonable response from "Jax involved." Jax's post described the phase of her training and declared that she shouldn't really be running any faster than 68 minutes or she would jeopardize her Boston attempt. Further, it was mentioned that Kara would have the effects of her highest level of training to contend with which were excellent comments--all without whining about the original post. In one of my replys, I agreed and acknowledged that I hoped Kara would run closer to the suggested 68 to 69 range as presented in a well constructed and thoughtful response. Along the way, I have not been steadfast in holding to my projection, which was not based on a silly desire to see her crush a WR, but simply based on a few generalizations which are not way out of line. They were: The Half WR is soft (like it or not...by the way I can demonstrate it is at least 2 minutes slower than it should be, but I won't right now); Kara has shown recently that she has sufficient speed which was documented over more than one race; Kara has taken her marathon training seriously and both she and AlSal were hinting that she had evidence from workouts that something special could happen; This wasn't her debut at longer distances (and as I so aptly stated in a folow-up post, it isn't uncommon for elite runners in repeat attempts at the longer distances to see a 3-4 second drop in the average Per Mile time across the distance. So, as simplistic as it may be, I wasn't being giddy and saying, "OMG, OMG, this Kara is so amazing she must be able to run SOOOO fast as to crush everyone and every time ever run." I was simply saying, based on the above, she might be able to run the 65:43 if everything lined up favorably.

Was it a "wacky" projection? Maybe. In fact, YES, in light of the other, better posted responses. But I conceded to a better, subsequent post. AND, whether my original thought was MORE "wacky" than your original projection, wacky is wacky...silly is silly, and ridiculous is ridiculous. So, by default, you condemed yourself with all your verbal venom by steeping yourself in hypocricy. I'll take being silly to being a hypocrite any day.

Thanks for the banter.

I think the simple explanation is that splits on the course were off. No idea why, but the race only had chip splits for 7.5k, 17.5k, 20k and finish.

Looking at the times for the top 10 men and women, something is obviously off, since the 10K between 7.5k and 17.5K was way too fast, and the 2.5k between 17.5k and 20k was way too slow (double the split for a 5K, and you can see something's off).

No idea if the 20K-21.0975K splits look okay. Some look a bit slow. I'd guess that Lel and Gharib covered the last 1097m in under 3:02, but it was a new course, so who knows how accurate things were.

Lugar no Escalão Lugar Geral Dorsal n.º Nome 7,5 Km 17,5 Km 20 Km Tempo de Chip Tempo Oficial País

1 27 50 GOUCHER,KARA 00:25:03 00:55:09 01:04:49 01:08:29 01:08:30 EUA

2 31 52 TIMBILILI,ALICE 00:25:13 00:55:38 01:05:22 01:08:58 01:09:00 QUE

3 32 61 KIPTOO,JANE 00:25:17 00:55:43 01:05:29 01:09:06 01:09:07 QUE

4 39 51 PROKOPCUKA,JELENA 00:25:18 00:56:37 01:06:21 01:09:57 01:09:58 LET

5 45 64 MALOT,LEAH 00:25:58 00:57:53 01:07:56 01:11:35 01:11:37 QUE

6 58 55 ROSA,MONICA 00:26:55 00:59:52 01:10:16 01:14:13 01:14:14 POR

7 65 53 WORKITU,AYANU 00:25:17 00:59:54 01:10:55 01:15:01 01:15:03 ETI

8 68 69 COSTA,FILOMENA 00:27:27 01:01:02 01:11:43 01:15:30 01:15:33 POR

9 73 63 IVANOVA,GALINA 00:27:28 01:01:02 01:11:47 01:15:47 01:15:50 RUS

1 1 3 LEL,MARTIN 00:21:50 00:48:29 00:56:53 00:59:54 00:59:56 QUE

2 2 2 GHARIB,JAOUAD 00:21:50 00:48:29 00:56:53 00:59:57 00:59:59 MAR

3 3 4 CHERUYOT,ROBERT 00:21:50 00:48:29 00:56:53 01:00:02 01:00:05 QUE

4 4 30 NGATUMY,GEDION 00:21:51 00:48:30 00:56:55 01:00:04 01:00:06 QUE

5 5 7 SHAURI,SAMUEL 00:21:51 00:48:43 00:57:19 01:00:31 01:00:33 TAN

6 6 14 MUTAI,EMMANUEL 00:21:51 00:48:46 00:57:26 01:00:44 01:00:45 QUE

7 7 1 WANJIRU,SAMUEL 00:21:52 00:48:44 00:57:59 01:01:23 01:01:25 QUE

8 8 31 KEMBOI,DAVID 00:22:08 00:50:14 00:59:23 01:02:51 01:02:53 QUE

9 9 34 RAMOS,JOSE 00:23:11 00:51:12 01:00:09 01:03:21 01:03:23 POR

10 10 5 CHELANGA,JOSHUA 00:22:52 00:51:12 01:00:09 01:03:23 01:03:25 QUE

charlie day wrote:

[quote]wisest man in the world wrote:

Here\'s the thing, I know everyone wants to hype her up. But let\'s be honest about things:

The reason for the hype is money. The athlete, along with his/her friends, family, agents, coaches, etc. make a lot of to do about a potential world record performance. It generates interest. As a result of the interest, meet management gets all excited about inviting an athlete to participate in their race. They offer big appearance fees, etc. to get the athlete to come.

Smart marketing. Too bad the hype backfired.

Money is the reason wrote:

The reason for the hype is money. The athlete, along with his/her friends, family, agents, coaches, etc. make a lot of to do about a potential world record performance. It generates interest. As a result of the interest, meet management gets all excited about inviting an athlete to participate in their race. They offer big appearance fees, etc. to get the athlete to come.

Smart marketing. Too bad the hype backfired.

I don't think it backfired. It gave me interest in the race and I made a point to check results as soon as I could. The more her name gets out there, the more she will benefit. I am not about to go out and by me a pair of Goucher arm warmers, but I imagine many people would if those were for sale. Had Salazar came out and said she was in the middle of training but going for a win, I might have not cared and just waited until she ran a "bigger" race.

Doesn't that series imply that Kara went from 25:03 to 55:09 between 7.5k to 17.5k? Maybe I'm missing something but I think this is saying she ran a 30min 10k in there?

Old Runner,

Are you the same poster as "Old Runner Guy"...the poster that repeatedly insisted that Floyd Landis was innocent?

I think that Kara would feel worse if:

a) She didn't beat a solid field handily

b) the men had run within 1-2 minutes of THEIR best times

Take the "W" and the $$$ and kill it in Boston

First Letter B wrote:

Doesn't that series imply that Kara went from 25:03 to 55:09 between 7.5k to 17.5k? Maybe I'm missing something but I think this is saying she ran a 30min 10k in there?

The bottom line is that we don't have reliable splits. So we don't really know if and how much she might have slowed down in the last 5K. No way she ran 4:10 for her last 1k, though; that would be a complete staggering disaster (I know, because my worst marathon bonk was about that pace).

One side-note: when I googled for other news accounts I came up with this one from the Oregonian. I have no doubt that the reporter did nothing more than read LetsRun (note the unattributed "reportedly").

Ross Perot is senile wrote:

Old Runner,

Are you the same poster as "Old Runner Guy"...the poster that repeatedly insisted that Floyd Landis was innocent?

No. I'm just Old Runner. I've had the handle for a few years. I don't post often, but I've taken to training again and am inspired recently. Besides, I don't 'know' whether Landis IS guilty, but if I were a betting man, we wouldn't see him cycling again.

Best to you.

She looks like a 400m/800m runner. Ht. Wt. ?

splits wrote:

The bottom line is that we don't have reliable splits. So we don't really know if and how much she might have slowed down in the last 5K. No way she ran 4:10 for her last 1k, though; that would be a complete staggering disaster (I know, because my worst marathon bonk was about that pace).

The gap between Kara and the chasers stayed essentially constant at 30 seconds from 17.5k to the finish. She wasn't running away anymore, but it doesn't look like a dramatic fade either.

This is an entertaining thread. Charlie and Old Runner, you two have way too much time on your hands if you're duking it out on this troll-infested message board. Since no one else has chimed in, I'm going to have to act as referee. It would appear that Charlie did gloss over Old's posts. And his tone was definitely a bit condescending. However, I think he ultimately has the stronger argument here based on the facts. Old projected a fairly outrageous (optimistic??) time and asked what other people thought. Charlie then told him what he thought (which was, apparently, that Old's prediction was nuts). In conclusion, Charlie was kind of a dick. Old was being a little too sensitive and protesting a bit too much. The rest of this back-and-forth is pretty much irrelevant drivel.

And to include Goucher, I predict she goes 2:23 at Boston.

the diceman wrote:

This is an entertaining thread. Charlie and Old Runner, you two have way too much time on your hands if you're duking it out on this troll-infested message board. Since no one else has chimed in, I'm going to have to act as referee. It would appear that Charlie did gloss over Old's posts. And his tone was definitely a bit condescending. However, I think he ultimately has the stronger argument here based on the facts. Old projected a fairly outrageous (optimistic??) time and asked what other people thought. Charlie then told him what he thought (which was, apparently, that Old's prediction was nuts). In conclusion, Charlie was kind of a dick. Old was being a little too sensitive and protesting a bit too much. The rest of this back-and-forth is pretty much irrelevant drivel.

And to include Goucher, I predict she goes 2:23 at Boston.

You're all idiots. old runner, did you really accuse someone of venom and hypocrisy? Talk about drama queen. this is lets run. Charlie Day sounds like an ass. but at least he didn't predict Kara to run way under 56. Some times i just don't know what people are thinking. who cares about womens running anyway?

Big Al did the same thing when he was on top of his game. Making predictions. Now he's doing it for Kara. She should just let the running do the talking for her.