When I was in college, prior to traveling to compete at Boston Univ, my coach told us the track at BU was 5m short. After running a 20sec personal best in the 5k, I started to think maybe it is.
I just find it interesting that all these record attempts by OTC are happing at BU and not at the Armory or Reggie Lewis.
RammerJammer wrote:
When I was in college, prior to traveling to compete at Boston Univ, my coach told us the track at BU was 5m short. After running a 20sec personal best in the 5k, I started to think maybe it is.
I just find it interesting that all these record attempts by OTC are happing at BU and not at the Armory or Reggie Lewis.
I doubt it. There is some paranoid people that measure tracks with measuring wheels at my pitiful D3 college's indoor track. I would bet that someone's done it there as well.
Salazar has roots in Boston and I thnk he is good friends with someone involved at the BU meets. Also Salazar probably has control of who can enter the races so Galen doesn't lose and everything can be perfect conditions.
It's not short. BU is fairly open to admitting it has one of the best suspension systems you can find. What does that mean? More returned energy to the athlete, coupled with wide and high banked turns, makes for much faster times.
When my team shows up at some random HS for a meet I tell my kids how excited I am because this track is only 394meters. Kids get in their head they are getting a short track and an easy PR so they go after it to really get a fast time. They usually do. They run fast because they believe they will- psychology is fun sometimes.
this here wrote:
RammerJammer wrote:When I was in college, prior to traveling to compete at Boston Univ, my coach told us the track at BU was 5m short. After running a 20sec personal best in the 5k, I started to think maybe it is.
I just find it interesting that all these record attempts by OTC are happing at BU and not at the Armory or Reggie Lewis.
I doubt it. There is some paranoid people that measure tracks with measuring wheels at my pitiful D3 college's indoor track. I would bet that someone's done it there as well.
Not paranoia. A reasonable question for a corporate organized and corporate controlled meet. If a record is set tonight it is tentative unless and until the track is measured.
You guys are idiots.
detached observer. wrote:
Not paranoia. A reasonable question for a corporate organized and corporate controlled meet. If a record is set tonight it is tentative unless and until the track is measured.
Corporate organized? Are we counting the coaching staff at BU as corporate now?
I didn't think it was a secret that Bill Squires coached at Boston State (where Bruce, the BU distance coach, ran- per his bio on the BU athletics website) and also coached Salazar in high school. Rupp's running at BU is probably some dark conspiracy, though.
Never mind that Rupp has set indoor records at Arkansas and Birmingham as well as BU. Salazar probably snuck in and shaved a few meters off the track last night, aided and abetted by the coaching staff at BU.
As for the large amount of fast times at BU, I posit that if you bussed all of those athletes over to Reggie on the day of the Terrier or Valentine meet, the times would be largely similar. The fast times at that track are more of a function of having 1000s of athletes all ready to roll on the same time in perfect conditions.
It's the same reason people say Stanford is short. Opportunity + conditions + large sample size = lots of fast people.
Whoops, forgot Rupp's mile last year wasnt an AR. So that should be that Rupp has set records at Arkansas and Birmingham, but NOT BU.
Definitely short, then.
former turrier wrote:
[quote]detached observer. wrote:
Not paranoia. A reasonable question for a corporate organized and corporate controlled meet. If a record is set tonight it is tentative unless and until the track is measured.
"Corporate organized? Are we counting the coaching staff at BU as corporate now?
Who selected the competitors and the number of competitors in the events."
Where else do you get four runners and a pacer for a 1K, for example? What contribution did the BU coaching staff make for this meet? Whose idea was this tack-on meet on Jan 16?
"NOP's record attempts will be live | Indoor Track and Field 2014 on ...
http://www.flotrack.org/...Indoor-Track-and-Field-2014...Flotrack/.../24057-N...;;;
Jan 3, 2014 - Flotrack will live stream the Nike Oregon Project's record attempts from Boston University"
Hate to break it to you, but BU has had this multi-team meet going on for a number of years. I know this because I ran in a couple of them. My guess (I have no inside info, but I'm also not an idiot) is that after Rupp's race last year, Salazar approached Lehane about having some of his athletes come back to run some more meets- hence Rupp is running here, the Terrier, and the Valentine meets as well.
As for where you get pacers for a 1k, well, any reasonably good D1 team is going to have a couple of 48/9 sec 400m walkons who could run a half-decent 600. How fast do they need? 1:21 or so? Where else do you get four runners for a 1k? Have you ever been to an indoor track meet in the Northeast? It's a very common distance.
I guess the coaching staff didn't do anything, except organize the entire meet and let the pros run. I'm sure, again, this is all some big corporate conspiracy. There's no possible other motive for a professional runner to run an American record attempt in a non-major championship year.