Nick Willis, Nate Brannen, Will Leer, Lee Emmnauel & Others Racing in Philly on Monday Night

I guess the results and video are up now, so there isn't much for me to add... Willis brought Brannen through right on pace, around 2:51-52, and dropped with about 200 to go. Nate went for it and I guess just didn't have enough -- Merber coming up at the finish was just unreal. Pretty fun race to watch, all things considered.

As for the zero people who care how I did, I'll fill you in anyway. Ran a solid 11:16 steeple for my final collegiate race, including a fantastic water pit faceplant on the penultimate lap. It's been fun, letsrun! I look forward to trolling you even more as a non-competitor (rather than just a shitty d3 runner) in the future.

nyloco wrote:

Question 1 (who is Merber): Google is your friend

Question 2 (speculation on times). Google is your friend

When you Google something about running it usually points you to a Letsrun thread.

So why bother with Google when you can just ask on Letsrun and get better feedback?

Who took the video for the 1500?

And Swathmore Dude, congrats on finishing your college career with such a faceplant. At least it will be memorable for you.

letsrun's state of the art search function is a wonder of modern computerscience. The Rolls Royce of searchfunctions if you ask me.

Swarthmore dude wrote:

I guess the results and video are up now, so there isn't much for me to add... Willis brought Brannen through right on pace, around 2:51-52, and dropped with about 200 to go. Nate went for it and I guess just didn't have enough -- Merber coming up at the finish was just unreal. Pretty fun race to watch, all things considered.

As for the zero people who care how I did, I'll fill you in anyway. Ran a solid 11:16 steeple for my final collegiate race, including a fantastic water pit faceplant on the penultimate lap. It's been fun, letsrun! I look forward to trolling you even more as a non-competitor (rather than just a shitty d3 runner) in the future.

And your glasses fell off. I think I can speak for everyone that

1) wearing glasses in a rainy steeple is probably a bad idea

2) we all felt pretty bad for you

Didn't the guy from Haverford who won the steeple wear glasses as well?Swarthmore dude, at least you gave the fans at the steeple pit the blood they wanted. And good on you for finishing.

sandybeaver wrote:

And your glasses fell off. I think I can speak for everyone that

1) wearing glasses in a rainy steeple is probably a bad idea

2) we all felt pretty bad for you

Lee Emanuel absolutely blows since becoming Willis's training bitch

swarthmore dude, have you ever wheeled your track?

just morbid curiosity.

Wheeling a track isn't the correct way to ensure it is 400m. A track is first layed out in a rectangular shape meeting standards of 84.39meters in length and 73meters in width. You then go to the middle of the width at 36.5 meters and make the radius(curves). An engineer needs to sign off on the plans to verify the measurements. Only way of checking to see if it is 400meters in getting a set of blueprints and remeasuring. I believe TAC/USATF had to do this back in the late 80s/early 90s as some tracks were laid out improperly and some records had to be rewritten. Too old can't remember, but some tracks at California come to mind.

I thought if you measured 20cm into lane 1 with a wheel it was supposed to be fairly accurate.

You will be able to notice a gross mismeasuremen that way but wheels are just not accurate to the 1/4" that the IAAF demands over 400m. Plus wheeling exactly on a line X[i/]cms in is beyond human ability.

Well, it looks like maybe wheeling isn't the best way to do it anyway, but I don't know if our track has ever been wheeled all the way around. That said, if it were short, wouldn't someone have noticed before now? As far as I know, pretty much all the performances we've had over the years on our track are basically to be expected, given a little bit of variability (good days/bad days) and training phases.

I think this race, although certainly really fast, isn't really all that out of the ordinary. This meet is always pretty fast, but not absurdly so; it's a fast meet because it's the only date that works for all sorts of random schools across the east coast. So we get really good fields, and they're all looking for fast times to qualify for [NCAAs, ECACs, etc], so they come in well rested and maybe tapered. This was a much better field than we've had in the past -- I don't know why Nick Willis and co. chose to run at our meet (because, again, there's no previous evidence that our track is especially fast for any reason), but that led to a uniquely strong field where everyone knew what the goal pace would be.

I suspect Merber came in well rested, probably moving towards peaking at this point, and didn't really have a great sense of what pace he "should" be able to run. If you watch the video, or remember watching the race, he didn't look like he was focused on time. He knew the race was going to be plenty fast, so he just went out and raced, sitting at the back of the pack and kicking hard the last 200. He was fresh, and fit, and the time just came.

That sorta rambled a bit... but essentially, I'm saying that even though I can't verify anything about the track's length at this time, we shouldn't be all that surprised by one person's incredible performance. If the track were short, wouldn't more people be running big PRs?

Also thanks guys for the support w/regards to my race. Means more to me than I thought it would before I read your comments. Glad I could entertain.

uloco wrote:

So why bother with Google when you can just ask on Letsrun and get better feedback?

Good one.

I didn't mean for my message to sound like an accusation. I know many people who have run personal bests at this meet (including myself). So I'm hoping it actually is 400m.

If the track was short, the error would be magnified even further in the 5K.

Yeah it's cool. I didn't think you were accusing, just wanted to be clear that while I don't know, I have no reason to suspect it's short.

warwicktrackshorterthanmypen1s wrote:

I didn't mean for my message to sound like an accusation. I know many people who have run personal bests at this meet (including myself). So I'm hoping it actually is 400m.

Rumor is the track was patterned after the California tracks. Buy some tights and arm warmers dudes and come east if you want to go fast.

Penn Relays wrote:

how the heck did he ever lose to donn cabral?

Clearly Cabral's the better runner.