4:00 mile at altitude doesn't translate to anything at sea level.

What if it was at 30,000 ft. Would that be no more impressive than one at sea level?

I can understand OP's point. A 30,000 foot 4:00 mile would be more impressive than a sea level 4:00, but you still could not say you ran the mile in anything faster than 4:00 minutes. That's just the truth. For whatever reason your legs were not able to carry you fast enough to complete the mile in 4:00.

3:54 my a$$.. all the ppl who were all over his johnson after he ran a sub-4 at altitude- where are you now

Let me know when you've done one

wellll wrote:

I can understand OP's point. A 30,000 foot 4:00 mile would be more impressive than a sea level 4:00, but you still could not say you ran the mile in anything faster than 4:00 minutes. That's just the truth. For whatever reason your legs were not able to carry you fast enough to complete the mile in 4:00.

Okay, well what if you ran a sub 4 on a drastically downhill course. Now can you say you ran it in less than 4?

Pat Casey will win the 2011 1500 NCAA Title! Have fun kicking him when he is down, because it won't last long!

Mac Fleet's 3:59 last weekend equals a 4:08 by your logic.

Pat Casey wrote:

A 4:00 mile at altitude is a 4:00 mile. Period.

You do understand that NCAA races are tactical races and who makes finals is not always the fastest runners? You do understand that right? Now whether Casey's altitude time should really have been converted all the way down to 3:54 or not is up for debate, but to use the NCAA mile prelims to confirm your position is pretty silly.

It was Casey's first tactical race of the year, and a hell of a race at that. Fortunately, PC is still a beast and a class act of human being, unlike the OP.

Can you become to acclimated to altitude if you live and train there year round. Is it more beneficial to live at sea level and then go up for a month or so and then come back down. So someone living up there can get use to it so that they are able to run alot faster at altitude. Seem the conversions for altitude should be different for someone like Casey.

It was a little tactical but they still came through in 3:02.x and finished in 4:01. So that is not that tactical, he was feeling good and really is a 3:54 miler then he would be able to close faster than 59. Tactical isn't the reason, I am sure he just did not feel that good. Thats one of the reasons why winning championships is so impressive you can only do it 2 days a year, once indoor once outdoor. I am sure he will be back, run very fast again, maybe even in a big race.

long dong silver wrote:

Okay, well what if you ran a sub 4 on a drastically downhill course. Now can you say you ran it in less than 4?

You can say you ran a drastically downhill mile in less than 4 minutes. You cannot, however, call yourself a sub-4 miler.

Pat Casey wrote:

A 4:00 mile at altitude is a 4:00 mile. Period.

.

You're joking, right?

Anyone who knows anything about miling knows what a nonsensical statement that is

He said he had been sick and missed some training in an interview before this race.

HEY OP, TWO WORDS: DIEGO ESTRADA

SUCK IT!!!!!!!!!

Original dip$hit wrote:

A 4:00 mile at altitude is a 4:00 mile. Period.

Pat Casey was sick for two weeks at the wrong time. Stay tuned.

brogan1 wrote:

long dong silver wrote:

Okay, well what if you ran a sub 4 on a drastically downhill course. Now can you say you ran it in less than 4?

You can say you ran a drastically downhill mile in less than 4 minutes. You cannot, however, call yourself a sub-4 miler.

This proves my point that external factors can improve detract from the theoretical "quality" of a race, factors like altitude. If you say that a downhill mile is not a mile, than neither is a mile at altitude. To equate the downhill mile to a "standard mile" you must add a little time, and to equate an altitude mile to a "standard mile" you must take off a little time.

just remember that 4:00 mile at altitude does not mean the same thing for an altitude trained runner and a non altitude trained runner. The former will run closer to his sea level potential at altitude than the latter. So, the idea that you set a constant time reduction for all athletes for a given race at a given altitude. Even a percentage change would not work. Keino at Mexico City was in great shape but he was not going to run much faster at sea level (and never did), because he was born, raised, and trained at altitude and so the altitude did not affect him nearly as much as Ryun and others.

People like the OP hate on casey because they would like to believe that you need tons of talent and a school like oregon in order to run fast, so it helps them rest easy because they know if they only had a running school and nike they would be fast too!!!! Its just not true however!! Casey has done amazing with what he has in a small town in montana, it shatters the OPs world that it isn't resources like nike and oregon that make a runner fast, perhaps you people just don't have the grit and guts to be great???

You just don't have what it takes in many ways so keep bitching about faster runners to make you feel better!!!!