ryan foreman wrote:
I get the talent and the PRs. But who says he is improving at an "incredible rate"? He's been running for a lot of months now. 13:26 is about what you would expect for someone who was a sub 13 runner, had a major injury, then has
GRADUALLY worked his way back over about 9 months.
But yes, I'm impressed. It seems like if he can keep on doing what he's doing he can get back to where he was. However, I don't see the World Championships happening for him this year. He needs to focus on 2015-16.
Totally disagree. Chris only raced 2 months ago with a 3000m race in 8:05, an indication of about 14 flat shape. Granted he said he may have been able to go a few seconds faster, but it was his first race back.
Payton, only 2 months later, increases the distance by 2k and yields 13:23 shape. Clearly, Solinsky hadn't expected such a result.
"Gradually" would be the Craig Mottram case study. Hamstring injury, surgery, long recovery spanning well over a year and a half. Same as Solinksy. But Mottram's return to racing hung in the 13:40s for a while and it took him a whole season/year to get to the 13:18 that eventually got him to London. And he was a whole lot of talent.
We have the start of Solinksy's arc of improvement here. Within two months Chris will likely be running 13 flat.