Dear Americans if you want AR be prepared to run sub 12:49 this year. Sincerely Bernard Lagat

Wow, somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed today....hate to be your husband.

Haha. I love it.

Did I break the record for ventolin insults in one post?

I wanna prize you f***ing morons.

may have a decent shot wrote:

i know this may not translate well to te 5k but he did run 2:48 low on the usa red dmr at penn. Now i know it does translate to a fast 1500 with the strength lagat has. What that could translate to is a chance that this old kenyan american is still our best chance at gold in the 5k at worlds and could def run 12:49 in a good race.

You have to think a guy like lagat, being the 2nd fastest 1500m runner of all time and the strength he's shown in tactical 5ks that in his prime this guy could have been pretty close to bekele's 5k world record. Its safe to say while 12:49 is a great feat for a runner his age, he's not an ordinary runner and is def past his prime.

Of course the fastest 1500 runner of all time didn't manage to break 12:50. I don't know if he was still "in his prime," though . . .

he wasn't in '03 ( but dragged it back in '04 )

he wasn't in prime 1500 shape in '03

in his prime in late '90s he was

~ 47.60 / 1'42.80 -> 3'25.7 , 4'42.2 , 7'19.9 , 12'48.1 , 27'11.2

a rough estimate for him in '03 was ( just to nearest 0.2s for 400/800 ) :

~ 49.00 / 1'44.80 -> 3'28.1 , 4'44.5 , 7'21.7 , 12'47.4 , 26'59.8

seeing as he whipped himself back into 3'27 ( possibly even 3'26 shape in athens ) in '04, i can only imagine he had some injury at end '02/early '03 which killed off some of his speed training & he had to concentrate more on endurance - a situation which manifestly was rectified the following year

fwiw, i'd estimate he lost nearly 1.5s 400 & 2s 800 speed in '03 ( temporarily ) compared to his prime 1500 of late '90s

following on, just a prelim estimate for him in '04 ( again, only to nearest 0.2s for 400/800 based on how relatively poor he looked in zurich before & how good he looked avenging loss to bernie with that ?1'47 finish in a ?3'34 )

~ 48.00 / 1'43.40 -> 3'26.5 , 4'43.0 , 7'20.7 , 12'48.6 , 27'09.6

he was posibly somewhere within 0.5s of his 400 & 0.6s of his 800 prime that day - not bad after 6y of beating up his body

another slow day, so i thought i'd have a go at what greatest 1500 - 10k woman of all time woud come out as :

wang '93, prelim estimate of nearest 0.25s for 400/800 :

~ 55.00 / 1'57.25 -> 3'50.5 , 5'13.8 , 8'04.4 , 13'56.1 , 29'10.3

caveats :

- that 1500 race, they ran a huge last 700/400 - have to dig it up

- she ran pretty damn quicker last 1k in her 3k

- obviously no 5k that year

- her 10k splits were 15'05/14'26 & just kept getting quicker that last 1/2

however, 10k may have been a tad too far as far as her optimal distance goes - theoretically capable of 29'10 off her 400/800 but her actual flattened out 10k time was possibly ~ 29'20

this is a very important concept :

optimal distance

( even if you set the wr for it/around it )

I didn't think it would ever happen but I would have to agree with Ventolin3. Wang Juxia could have run faster than her current 10000m WR. Below is the final part of 2003 World Championships in which she ran sub 30:50 and the last 1600m spilts

Wang Juxia (Chn) 18 yrs old

final 1600m of 10000m

70.68

68.82/ 2:19.50

67.99/ 3:27.49

61.08/ 4:28.57y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0IytBXo6HE