37 YEARS AGO - 3.32.2 1500m

I was in the stands that day and I still have the super 8 film. We were all going crazy cheering for Bayi.

His MO was to go out hard and try to hang on and everyone knew it was a just matter of time before he hung on and delivered. He'd tried for the record a few times and the other runners all bet that he'd fade.

Walker was a lousy tactician throughout his career. JIpcho was trying to win everything.

It was great to see Bayi put it all on the line. Very much like Herb Elliott did in the 60 Olympic final.

It's great to watch someone back themself.

silly old fossil wrote:Ventolin, when did Bayi ever run 1:44.5 for 800?

i got him mixed up with walker behind kipkurgat

bayi ran 1'45+

it strengthens his case for over-distance, because if you can run potentially 3'28.5 - 3'29.5 off shit slow 800, then you are basically exhibiting little speed degradation

1'45.0/3'29.0 ->7'24.8 , 12'54.1

1'45.0/3'28.5 ->7'22.7 , 12'49.3

"Drunk for a penny. Dead drunk for two pennies. Comatose at letsrun.com" one might add

Tyrannosaurus Rexing wrote:

History wrote:

no guys on drugs....!

Yes, steroids, amphetamines, and blood transfusions had not been invented yet in 1974. And people back then were only honest, but today, everyone is evil. Ah, the good ol' days....

White American distance runners are not evil.

MalOz wrote:

Walker was a lousy tactician throughout his career.

Uh.. and exactly HOW do you suggest that Walker could have improved on his performance that day?

I'm certain that you yourself own an Olympic gold medal, or at least Commonwealth silver to back up your criticism.

He had the juice to beat him that day, but not the courage. They all waited for him to fail.

Walker could have won it.

He almost blew it in the Olympics later.

It doesn't take an Olympic medalist to spot a poor tactician.

In those days Walker was physically the most dominant miler / 1500 runner in the world, but in the big races he made it a lot harder than he should have done.

And I did move in those circles you revere, and the opinion was that he was "million dollar legs, 50 cents brains." Paraphrase.

This was a great 1500, without question--one of the most daring and thrilling front-running performances ever.

As usual, however, this thread is littered with foolishness. To take just one bit of foolishness: there was blood-doping and steroids in 1974. The idea that this was a time "before drugs" is just laughable. Do we know if anyone in this particular race was doing any of that stuff? No, of course, we do not; and there's no point in speculating. But be assured that "peformance enhancements" were very much available.

In terms of the intrinsic merit of Bayi's time, it's worth remembering that this was the first 1500 WR set on an all-wether surface track. If we conservatively say that the shift from cinder to all-weather "equalled" one-half second per lap, then Bayi's 3:32.1 is "equal" to something like 3:34.0 on the surface that Ryun ran 3:33.1 on. So, Bayi set a new WR, but he was almost certainly not better than a '67 Ryun. Likewise Bayi's 3:51.0 mile WR--also on all-weather, and significantly inferior to 3:51.1 on cinders.

And, finally, will everyone please giving any credibility to what Keino's 3:34.9 Mexico City race was "really" worth? The crazy talk is just ridiculous.

i think it is also worth mentioning that when ryun ran his 3:51.1 on CINDERS, his splits were 1:58.0/1:53.1. Insanity.

old tymer wrote:And, finally, will everyone please giving any credibility to what Keino's 3:34.9 Mexico City race was "really" worth? The crazy talk is just ridiculous.

why ?

we have addressed ad nauseam what sprinters times in mexico were worth at sea-level - 9.95/19.72/19.83/43.86

to believe that distance times aren't amenable to sea-level interpretation is idiotic

here is peronnet & thibault's seminal work on the problem ( post 27 )

it gives keino's time as worth ~ mid-3'26, but i don't think they factored in less wind resistance ( seems only VO2 measured ) & only considered the hypoxic effects on metabolism

that pushes the time out to probably 3'28+, which is a decent starting point for discussion

ventolin^3 wrote:it gives keino's time as worth ~ mid-3'26, but i don't think they factored in less wind resistance ( seems only VO2 measured ) & only considered the hypoxic effects on metabolism

that pushes the time out to probably 3'28+, which is a decent starting point for discussion

Bingo. That's precisely the crazy talk I was referring to. All of this is utterly, hopelessly meaningless.

eh ?

what crazy talk ??

you clearly are clueless about science

these guys almost certainly being physiologists considered only the metabolic effects of altitude

we have easy to use tools now to factor in the 2nd part of the puzzle - the physics effect of less air resistance :

http://myweb.lmu.edu/jmureika/track/wind/400alt.html

which for keino's overall time ( 57.31s pace for 400m at mexico ) , mid-'3'26 physiologically gets adjusted to

~ 3'28.2

if you have some legit scientific refutation, post -it

if you are going to post head-in-the-sand nonsensicalities, don't waste mine or other's time

Vent3:

This is complete crap. The post 27 you referred to in the post above is very unimpressive. The test group is described as "trained individuals"--meaning what? How many, how well trained, etc.? We all KNOW that there's less o2 at altitude, and that distance performances suffer as a direct consequence...but what do you really know beyond that?

Further, this text group ran a "5 minute maximal exersion" session. Which is fine, but it's merely one data point. For a world class 1500m we're talking about 3.7s minutes, not 5 minutes--a huge difference given the subject at hand.

I would suggest that a MEANINGFUL test of all this would involve:

-tests to exhaustion at regular intervals: 1 minute, 2 minutes, 4 minutes, 8 minutes, or something even more fin-tuned. Why? To find the "average" point at which the benefit of altitude turns neutral, and when it then turns negative. One cannot do a single "5 minute" test and presume that it represents some linear effect--it clearly does not.

-tests of enough athletes, and of varied populations, so that we can actually get a sense not simply of the "average" effect of altitude, but of outlying cases--those most and least affected by it. Because, after all, if we're talking about Olympic 1500m finalists, we are NOT talking about average cases--we are talking about exceptional cases, outliers.

The real issue here is that altitude does NOT affect every athlete the same way--some suffer more, others less, and that becomes very interesting and critically important when talking about outlier cases.

Have you ever run on the Mexico City track? I have--I competed there in one race in 1975. I was not runing 3:40 pace (it was a 5000 race), but it was fascinating that there was very little effect for nearly a mile, but then it came on like a ton of bricks--once it hit, there was nothing "slow and steady" about it--nothing "linear" at all.

At the end of the day, Keino was a 3:34.9 1500 runner. The fast surface and lowered air resistance probably "more or less" balanced out whatever negative effect there was FOR HIM over that PRECISE DISTANCE. Maybe he's "really" a 3:34 flat guy, perhaps, who knows? But for the 10 millionth time, there is NOTHING else in his performance history to suggest that he was very much affected by competiting at altitude (either moderate, or in the case of Mexico City, significant), or that he was truly capable of surpassing about 3:34 for the distance.

You can juggle numbers till the cows come home, but it truly means zip.

Thanks for posting this! There's a purity to that race that is beautiful and refreshing.

inference is obviously well-trained sub-elite athletes

as long as they are well trained then extrapolations can be made - basic scientific method which you are clearly clueless about

the conclusions are in the table

read it

no

for a well-trained sub-elite athletes, 5'00 of exertion is plenty good enough to extrapolate from

learn some science

that is nonsensical suggestion

we are not interested in tests to exhaustion, but race scenario of controlled flat-out maximaum exertion for a given distance

as for "linear effect" - get a clue & do some number-crunching - they give 4% increase in 1500m times & 7% for 10k for mexico

their table offers no "linear effect"

outliers ?

you clearly have no scientific clue

draw upon a large enough population & you will get outliers included in the final distribution

& for studies to get published in reputable journals, they woud have had to satisfy the criteria of "large enough population"

again no scientific clue

if you have enough athletes, there will be a viable normal distribution attained & confidence limits of 95% can be obtained

a very small standard deviation woud suggest that human physiology is very similar in all groups & that is supported by observation that i have seen no research published suggesting certain groups have different biochemical systems in place to handle hypoxia

have you ?

thank you

but study of significant number of trained athletes under scientific controlled conditions is of far more interest to me than your one-off anecdotal report

drivel

you have no proof for this but your nonsensical wishes

perronet & thibault give a much better idea of "knowing"

if you are ignorant of the subject don't look stoopid by professing your ignorance

drivel

he ran a 3'53 mile in kisumu which is ~ 1131m up ( barely over 1km criteria for altitude performances ) & that was 2nd fastest mile ever within 2s of wr

he also more than proved he coud run fast at sea-level with wrs at 5k & 3k, latter which was 6s faster than previous wr & lasted 7y

no

it only means zip to morons with no scientific background &/or inability to do some basic research without prejudicial thinking castrating their judgement

Your insults are amusing, if tiresome and entirely predictable. You clearly have more endurance for this foolishness than anyone else. Good day.

here's some estimates to shock posters

keino didn't often chase times ( despite wrs ) & was more of a racer

at his peak ( presumably mexico, but he was pretty good in '65 too ), on a synthetic '70s track with perfect pacing & pacers to bell in 800/1500, & lesser distances in 3k/5k, i'm starting to think his line of fit may have been ( to nearest 0.25s ) :

47.50 / 1'43.25 ->3'27.7 , 7'26.2 , 13'01.7 , 27'46.4

i think he resembles morceli somewhat & perhaps aouita & woud have had some serious 800 ability off his 1500 training ( asbel showed that with a 1'43.1 not long ago )

he was doing primarily 1500 training, so his actual 5k & 10k woud not have been likely that quick, but for 3k, he did run 7'39wr on dirt & presumably solo ?

knock off 1s/lap for synthetic & that's a 7'32 & another 5s for no pacing to 2km ( at 1s/lap for drafting ) & that will get you down to 7'27 - close enough

like i said, morceli/aouita come to mind

as for ryun, i do think he had sub-1'42 ability in '67, but that his over-distance over 1500 was inferior to keino's ( both ran other distances off primarily 1500 training )

the line that suits him best off initial try is :

46.50 / 1'41.75 ->3'25.7 , 7'24.2 , 13'00.6 , 27'50.5

the key to ryun somewhat oddly is his 400 ability in '67 - that info ( even a relay leg ) woud be invaluable

Keino was a superstar. Ryan was super too.

All these discussions about converting times due to surfaces and weather is just meaningless crap. Their times are what they are, they did what they did.

Races are random events. No matter how well they're planned.

Just enjoy those athletes for what they did. The only place these meaningless discussins exist is on the boards.

your missing the point

the point suggested is that recent guys like hicham/bernie/noah/morceli/etc are likely no better than some of the elites from yesteryear

it's putting the seemingingly matchless ability of recent guys into perspective - they weren't matchless

It is 37 years ago, people can barely break 3.30. With improved equipment, better training , better incentives, do you expect us to be running 3.32? Drugs argument is ridiculous.