GBP wrote:
You people need to relax. Her running this fast, frankly, makes sense. Lets look at this step by step:
1. She has the talent - 2nd at the NCAAs in 2:03.10. Plus, it's impressive that she's able to do it from a small school.
2. Unfortunately, she doesn't get sponsored. Running without a sponsor means she doesn't have the chances that a lot of other athletes have, including getting into faster meets, which would have helped her drop her time earlier in her pro career. Plus, she's gotta work a job and split her focus.
3. 2008 is an Olympic year and she goes into it focused on improving and being ready for Nationals. She strings together several good races, progressing in a reasonable way throughout the spring and early summer before Nationals. She runs her season a lot like a college athlete would - starting slow in March at a small invite, moving on into the Stanford meets with faster competition in April and May, and continuing on into June.
4. She finally has a breakout race in 2008 at Nationals, getting 5th and setting a pr of 2:02.01. This is the perfect race to show someone with her talent that she can compete for a spot on the US team and perfect motivation going into 2009. This is also her last race of 2008, as she didn't go to Europe. If she had, she'd possibly have lowered her pr by more in 2008. Remember, she's not sponsored and doesn't have the opportunities to seek out faster times abroad like a lot of athletes.
5. Getting 5th at Nationals allowed her to get into some bigger domestic races for the first time in her career in 2009, like Reebok and Pre. Taking the confidence she gained from the year before, she realizes she's able to run with better competition and does. She runs a pr in May of 2:01.49 for 4th at Reebok. Again, this was her first chance to run in a major invite.
6. Then she gets the opportunity to run against the best field of her life, to date, at Pre. Taking the confidence she has gained from Nationals last year and Reebok and a perfect race setup, she's able to win in 2:00.18. The race really did break perfectly for her. She was forced to run harder on that 600 than she had ever run in a race before to keep in somewhat of contention, even if she was still far behind, then was able to just turn off her mind and kick. This race gave her even more confidence, but more importantly, a chance to go to Europe for the first time in her career as she now has a competitive time.
7. At Nationals she runs terribly in the final, clearly mentally out of it and tactically ridiculous, but is still able to kick for 4th, with some hope of making it to Worlds.
8. She goes to Europe for the first time in her career and is able to get into bigger and faster meets than she has ever been in. Now she's in the perfect position of being in a field to help drag her along, with the confidence that she can run with those girls, but without much pressure. She continues to run a slow first 400, but is able to get two victories both in pr's.
9. Now she faces the pressure to run sub 2:00 as neither of the other girls ahead of her at Nationals have the A standard, thus keeping the door open for her to go to Worlds. It's her one poor race as she feels the pressure, like she did at Nationals.
10. In Monaco she rebounds from that poor race and just runs relaxed and most importantly A FAST AND TACTICALLY SMARTER FIRST 400! It's the first fast (sub 60) opening 400 she has ever run in her life. It actually puts her in position to run a fast time.
11. She'd been running such a damn slow first 400 for so long that she couldn't possibly run that fast of an 800. She didn't have the confidence to go out harder or, frankly, the balls to do it till now.
To me, her progress makes a lot of sense. This season happened because of last season. Her 5th place at Nationals last year got her into drastically better meets than she'd ever been in. Those meets were early in the year - Reebok and Pre. Getting into those better races and running well at them allowed her to, for the first time in her career, continue her season on into the summer and European circuit. It's likely that she would have dropped her time by more last year, if she had gotten the chance to race in Europe, which would have made the amount of time dropped this year smaller. This is what happens when a talented person finally gets both the confidence to compete and the competition needed to run fast times. Plus, you can't run a fast 800 if your first 400 doesn't put you in position to do so. For the first time in her life she finally had the perfect combination of confidence, a fast race, and a f*ck it mentality to run a big time pr. Congrats to her!