what could Kipsang run for a mile? (or 1500)

3.48

the mile is still an endurance event. he has endurance. he also has to be capable of running AT LEAST a 53sec quarter since he's so comfortable running 70 sec 400m pace (good raw speed and economy usually go hand-in-hand). saying "his training is geared toward the marathon, running a fast mile is a different animal blah blah". really? you don't think he's doing ANY strides at ~mile pace? any short steep hills for max muscle fiber recruitment & raw power? longer hill reps for speed endurance? of course he is. it's not his focus, but you know he stays in touch with running fast in his training. LOOK AT HOW SMOOTH HE RUNS 70s!!! good runners are fit AND touch all speeds year round. (rupp 60min and 3:50, mo f., etc) fresh & in current shape i'd say anywhere from 3:54-3:58.

Oliver wrote:

nah....prolly around 4 min. but the mile is a different game.

for most guys (not implying that kipsang is an ordinary guy tho) transfering from long to short and vice versa is a big deal.

If he raced one right away, I'd be surprised if he broke four just because of the difference between his marathon training and a mile race. Give him another shot at it and he'd probably run 3:55-3:56

Remember when Ryan Hall ran the US Road Mile Championship after his 2:04:58 at Boston in 2011...Lets just say it wasn't too close to a sub 4 (4:14 to be exact). I know this is using Hall's contested marathon time, but he literally ran the Road Mile 1 month after Boston, so I think this is one of the best examples of how marathon training does not all translate to a fast mile.

http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=2513&do=videos&video_id=45704

Beavus wrote:

Remember when Ryan Hall ran the US Road Mile Championship after his 2:04:58 at Boston in 2011...Lets just say it wasn't too close to a sub 4 (4:14 to be exact). I know this is using Hall's contested marathon time, but he literally ran the Road Mile 1 month after Boston, so I think this is one of the best examples of how marathon training does not all translate to a fast mile.

http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=2513&do=videos&video_id=45704

No, that is not a best example. Ryan Hall is way too inconsistent to use as evidence. And he ran 2:04 AIDED, didn't he?

What about Geb? Didn't he run a marathon before the 2003 or 2008 10k? How was his kick and his fastest mile during whichever race that was?

Hardloper wrote:

could of been a champ wrote:

I have no doubt that Mutai has been capable of a sub 60 half when in top marathon form.

Really? What clued you in on that, the fact that he's run sub-60 at least 3 times in the midst of many good marathons?

Which 3 marathons would that be?

hold the phone wrote:

You do realize the post was referring to Emmanuel Mutai, right? When did he run sub-60?

157 59:52a Emmanuel Mutai KEN 12.10.84 3 Newcastle-South Shields 18.09.2011

60:03 Emmanuel Mutai KEN 12.10.84 3 Lisboa 21.03.2010

224

Claiming he's been in sub-60 shape ain't exactly a bold claim.

could of been a champ wrote:

Which 3 marathons would that be?

Geoffrey or Emmanuel? Both have run 3 good marathons. I think you can figure that out yourself.

Are you seriously trying to pretend you weren't referring to wrong Mutai with your sarcastic post about "at least 3" sub-60 halfs? Please.

i'd pretty much bet it woud be 3'34 - 3'36 ( 1500s are more usual races )

he does have speed - any guy at 6'0 woud have a decent stride & that means speed + 2"03 is getting so damn fast that you do also need to have speed to do it

this is very vague, but paula says in her book she ran 4'01tt soon after millenium which may or may not mean prior to her 2"18 or after

assuming wilson is similar in speed profile to paula ( a noted non-kicker )

( 4'01/2"18'56 ) * 123"23 =

~ 3'34

i think he woud surprise a lotta people with his track speed for 3 - 10k - especially if you think of him as a 3'34 guy who's speed decays better than maybe anyone else with increasing distance

Kipsang's half marathon pr is 4:30/M, which is just under 28 minutes per 10k. He's run 27:32 for a road 10k, not much of a drop from the half but surely he can run sub 27 on the track. To answer this question, we'd need to hear from his coach about his shorter workouts.

the paula comparison is useful

in '02 she ran

- ? 4'01tt ( her book doesn't specify )

- 8'22 - shouda been ~ 8'20, as she split 5'37 then kicked the last 1k ( just got edged by szabo )

- 14'32 - a jog for 600m then ran last 4400m solo at 14'23 pace - probably worth about 14'23 if she'd run it hard from gun with some pacing

- 30'01 solo on a cold wet night - maybe 29'52.5 given warm weather & some pacing

- her 2 Ms of 2"18'56 to start & 2"17'18 to finish

i suspect her track season was more in keeping with the 2"18 as her last track race was that 10k & the 2"17 was more than 2/12 later - probably fully training for the M those 2/12+

assuming wilson is similar in track & road characteristics to paula & using the above

2"17'18 - 2"18'56 for above track distances proportioned to 2"03'23 ->

4'01 ->3'34 - 3'36

8'20 ->7'24 - 7'29

14'23 ->12'46 - 12'55

29'52.5 ->26'31 - 26'50

the quicker ends of the range are represented by 2"18'56

if you want to compare him to paula, then the quicker end of those ranges are the likely ones v her '02 season ( assuming wilson has no more "speed" than paula comparatively )

The situation of Paula and Wilson are completely different.

Paula started with short distances, and decided to move to HM and marathon after several years, understanding she never could win any important medal on track, due to the lack of final speed against Ethiopian runners.

When she moved to Marathon, in 2002, she had two very important championships in summer : European (where she won 10000m in 30'01", the real problem was not warm temperature, but a very strong rain lasting about 10 minutes which forced Paula to slow down from 2'58" per km to 3'06", between 6 and 8 km. After this the strong rain finished, and Paula finished the last 2 km again under 6', so we can suppose she could run about 29'50" without that situation) and Commonwealth Games (she won 5000m in 14'31").

Her training was an EXTENSION of speed. In other words, the goal was to maintain all the workouts of speed looking at the track, with more volume at the same intensity.

For that reason, the first competition she ran after the marathon debut in London was a 3000m in 8'22", improving of 6.0 her previous PB.

Only later in the career Paula became marathon runner full time, losing a part of her specific speed endurance, because at that point didn't have any interest to train for short distances needing higher speed.

On the contrary, Wilson started directly with long distances, at the age of 27 years.

He ran some 5000m and 10000m on track in Kenya, always during the most heavy preparation for some marathon, and always in the Police Championships (which is a must for all the athletes in Police, but of course the top runners are not interested in the result).

In his preparation, the shorter distance he uses are 400m, mainly around 61" / 62", with the last faster (may be 58.0) recovering about 100m in 40".

Going ahead in the preparation, the shorter distance on track becomes 600m (for example, 15 times in 1'35" > 1'33" with 1'30" recovery), and this is the max speed he uses.

Of course he goes for short sprints uphill (80m) at max speed, sometimes, far from the marathon, tests of 300 / 400m climbing for strentghening his legs.

But the most important trainings on track are intervals on distances between 1000 / 3000m, at marathon pace for 3000m (about 8'45"), faster for the shorter distances (5'42" - 2'48"), for a total of 14-18 km.

He uses also 27 km climbing (with a difference in height of more than 2000m, from about 550m till 2700m), like other Kenyan runners, for 2-3 times durimng the fundamental period.

For answer your question, I think that he can run the mile around 4'03" - 4'05" during the period of top shape for marathon, and around 3'59" - 4'01" two months before the race, when the goal is still to increase the aerobic power.

In theory, if he could have a period of 6 months of specific training for the mile, probably could be a runner for 3'55".

But of course these are all lucubrations without any real foundation.

I agree, Wilson can surely run a 4:06 mile solo at altitude "now" which equates to much better in perfect circumstances.

Anyone who is doing marathon training and can run repeat 400m at altitude, with 40 second recovery in 61 seconds can run 3:55 mile no question. It would only take maybe 2 months (lower mileage) of training at 58-59 second 400m pace (2-3 workouts per week). Then 3 or 4 races to get used to the pace.

workouts would be 8 x 400m @61 move gradually down to 58 (short recovery)

4 x 800m @ 2:04 move gradually down to 1:57 - 1min rec.

6 x three minute full efforts up a steep hill - 3 min rec.

lots of stride outs with full recovery - say 125 m at 14 seconds per 100m pace.

of course you'd start off

Within a season or two the same guy (dropping the marathon training) can run 352-3 mile no question, but how much lower nobody knows unless you try it.

You need to run a quarter mile in 50 if you want to improve further. And that means adding a couple of Kg on the ass&legs.

It is really great to see distance runners running properly, which is to say, you can't really run properly unless you are running 4:40 pace or a 2 meter stride for most.

At the end of the day, there is no point in getting a PB of say 334 over 1500m when you have the world record in the marathon.

there is no evidence of any dramatic slowing in that race, although i assume you watched track-side rather than on tv where we saw wet day

1km - 2:59.16

2km - 5:57.21 (2:58.05)

3km - 8:56.84 (2:59.63)

4km - 11:56.81 (2:59.97)

5km - 14:57.65 (3:00.84)

6km - 17:58.00 (3:00.35)

7km - 20:58.52 (3:00.52)

8km - 24:01.18 (3:00.66)

9km - 27:03.56 (3:00.38)

10km - 30:01.09 (2:57.53)

her 3rd - 9th km were virtually identical with just expected last km pick-up ( not much as she was at her limit that day )

again not accurate

by '99 she was a full-time 10k runner & didn't run any championship 5ks ( not counting commonwealth in '02 which was a low calibre field & meaningless title )

she'd still run 3k/5k/1500 on circuit in those years simply because there weren't any 10k races to run but she was a career 10k runner

her move then to M in '02 was no "speed-extension"

she'd been a fully-fledged 10k runner already for 3y, running shorter distances off it

the M move was from an already very high mileage base from 3y of 10k training

her last really serious sub-10k effort before '02 was atlanta 5k in '96, so she she is much more similar to wilson in that she had been running years of high mileage for 10k

her move to M in '02 was absolutely no surprise to anyone & nor a big move for her ( i really doubt there was any really big mileage increase - maybe 25 - 33% more ) & her debut 2"18 probably only a mild surpise at most

ventolin^3 wrote:

her move then to M in '02 was no "speed-extension"

she'd been a fully-fledged 10k runner already for 3y, running shorter distances off it

the M move was from an already very high mileage base from 3y of 10k training

her last really serious sub-10k effort before '02 was atlanta 5k in '96, so she she is much more similar to wilson in that she had been running years of high mileage for 10k

her move to M in '02 was absolutely no surprise to anyone & nor a big move for her ( i really doubt there was any really big mileage increase - maybe 25 - 33% more ) & her debut 2"18 probably only a mild surpise at most

ventolin^3

what you mean by speed-extension ?

For instance the runner that increases from 100mile to 133mile (your 33%) you say isnt a big increase ?

You have not added anything to what Renato said apart from correcting splits. The fast remains she would have run about 10 secs faster if it was not cold and raining. You added nothing to that

'she'd still run 3k/5k/1500 on circuit in those years simply because there weren't any 10k races to run but she was a career 10k runner'

How do you know that, my opinion (and unlike you I do not think I am always right even when getting the start point of a 1500m race wrong and your Geb Wet short course farce) is that she would have still run have run shorter distances as preparation. Remember your oft quoted 1500m tt

You also misunderstood Renato when he mentioned full time, he meant full time at marathon, not fullt time runner

You added nothing apart from those splits. I will suggest that Paula ran her best marathons off the back of 10kmm type training. When she moved too far away from that she ran less well over the marathon distance, but injuries may also have accounted for that

jsk wrote:

No, that is not a best example. Ryan Hall is way too inconsistent to use as evidence. And he ran 2:04 AIDED, didn't he?

What about Geb? Didn't he run a marathon before the 2003 or 2008 10k? How was his kick and his fastest mile during whichever race that was?

Ok...Considering that I said, "I know this is using Hall's contested marathon time" which was still equivalent to a 2:06ish marathon on another course, and "I think this is one of the best examples" meaning it is my opinion and there may be better examples, demonstrates to me you should read something before immediately dismissing it. As far as Geb goes, he never ran a marathon and a race shorter than a 10000m road run in the same year according to his IAAF profile, so Ryan Hall's road mile is still the best example I can think of demonstrating how marathon fitness does not translate to mile success.

hmmm, who to believe, Renato Canova or random guy on the internet?