I am honestly sick and tired of all of these DL races that aren't going sub 3:30, 13:00 or 26:00

What are you talking about w/ the 10k?

There's only going to be 2 DL 10k's on the circuit this year, they don't race it that much at all

One of those has already happened and that was PRE, in which like 4-5 guys broke 27

Then the 2nd hasn't even happened yet, and that one is going to be DL Brussels at the very end of the season in which fast times usually always happen at that meet

So trying to point out the 10k isn't really valid

Note that the 10K at 2014 Pre was fast, with good pacing.

Also, the 10K at Brussels in 2011 where Rupp ran his 26:48 featured a healthy Bekele running 26:43.

When Kiprop ran 3:27 last year, the pacing was dead on spot, not toooooooo fast the first lap. Kiprop was brave and motivated, taking it from 500 out.

I can't remember what the pacing was like in Gebremeskel's 12:46 5000.

The point here is that it is not easy to get really competent, top quality pacing, let alone have the competitors respond to it.

And for me, I love a fast race, but an exciting race with a mediocre time can be OK too.

Horst Girth wrote:

When Kiprop ran 3:27 last year, the pacing was dead on spot, not toooooooo fast the first lap. Kiprop was brave and motivated, taking it from 500 out.

Well, the pacing wasn't that great. 53 first lap is too fast, but not fast enough to totally ruin the race.

Agree with OP from the fan perspective. The $ are only there for the athletes because of the fans. For decades, casual watchers tuned in to euro circuit to see WR's, not to see who wins(except very rare interesting head to head races). Only track nuts care about who wins. DL races are boring without real characters or records.

When there is a lot of money involved you get slower times. A bonus for fast times can stimulate, but i think the audience doesn't give a shit about fast times. They just want to see good races. Although i think if you hire good pacers you can partly solve this problem. But that's the problem i think. Good pacers are very rare, they always run 10 metres ahead of everyone. Som is doing well this year as a pacer, but that's about it. But then you find yourself questioning if you really want to see a paced race.

All hail wrote:

tired of it all wrote:

Let me correct myself.......sub 27 is a little unreasonable. Only 2 americans have ever done that and it doesn't happen but more than a couple of times a season these days anyways. But sub 3:30 and especially sub 13 shouldn't be that hard for these guys to do. I think if they set it up to where competitors were given prize money for placing top 3, top 5, etc and also running certain times, the meets would be much more entertaining. It's cool to see the big names competing regularly but if they are just lame races that are medium tier times it's like whats the point?

Only two Americans have ever gone sub 3:30 too.

Only two "Americans" have ever gone sub 3:30 too. -fixed, standard LR response

colemanball wrote:

Agree with OP from the fan perspective. The $ are only there for the athletes because of the fans. For decades, casual watchers tuned in to euro circuit to see WR's, not to see who wins(except very rare interesting head to head races). Only track nuts care about who wins. DL races are boring without real characters or records.

Do casual baseball fans only tune in to see perfect games?

I think when Gebremeskel hit 12:46, the pacing was a little erratic. I remember something like 7:40 at 3k (which is still flying), then 10:21 at 4k.

Don't forget that sub-3:30, sub-13:00, and sub-27:00 efforts take a lot out of the gas tank. Any single individual can't run them all season long. They have to be peaked for, or at least done sparingly, to avoid risking bringing your season to a premature end. In the meantime, racing weekly or bi-weekly on the DL circuit, you have to be able to knock down some prize money to make a living, especially if you don't command much in appearance fees. That often means hoping to sit and kick to place near the top without depleting yourself too much.

Unfortunately, distance running is not like sports such as baseball and basketball where strategic playmaking and motor skills are such an overriding part of the mix. Athletes there don't have to be able to perform within a very few percent of their aerobic/anaerobic best each time out. In track, 1-2% difference in aerobic/anaerobic performance separates winners from losers. In basketball, for the sake of argument, as long as you're in condition to perform consistently at, let's say, 90% of your aerobic/anaerobic top effort (which distance runners could do from non-specific off-season training), the deciding factors are shooting and rebounding skills, playmaking and passing skill, and so forth.

That said, I too find it boring to watch repeated 11.5-lap jogfests followed by a 400m sprint. As a fan, when that's all you have to look forward to for most of a season, it's easier as someone else said just to tune in mainly for championship meets when something more exciting is likely to happen. Or catch YouTube highlights when something else interesting does happen to unexpectedly occur. (Or better yet, the BBC's iPlayer's catchup coverage afterward via a VPN service if you live in the states, so you can view entire events or meets, and not just snippets.) Not that championship meets don't risk turning into jogfests as well because of having to go through rounds and race a final without adequate recovery. But I often get much more satisfaction from watching the chesslike arc of a season from developing talents such as Cain, Efraimson, Roesler, or Rudisha's comeback.

I'm interested to see how long Simpson and Coburn can keep up their current "stick it to 'em and watch 'em suffer" strategy of taking races out hard, or making big moves from a significant distance out. I love watching it, and they seem to be picking races carefully. And being a non-championship year is another big factor why they can afford to be doing this. I do wonder how long they can keep it up before going over the top of the peak. I'm pulling for them. Also wondering if we will see the same from them in 2015 during a championship year.

In the meantime I will continue to yawn at the men's races that fizzle due to wimping out. As mentioned above, one can understand only certain races can be barn-burners. But for pete's sake, in races where a pacer is specifically hired with input from the top guns to make the race fast, and then turns into yet another fizzle-out where they refuse to follow and simply chicken out, you just lose respect and interest in watching.

just sayin wrote:

epo is the reason the times have slowed from 1500-10000

that is where the drug has the greatest effect

I heard it's biggest effect is to make people stupid.

areusure? wrote:

tired of it all wrote:

What on earth is the point of running these races if you aren't going to try and run fast? Going for the win is pointless at these races- why not try to run as fast as you possibly can? It's like were seeing fewer and fewer sub 3:30 1500 races, sub 13:00 5000 races and sub 27:00 10k races these days. I can't believe it, track and field is getting so boring without these fast races.

Isn't the simple answer...then YOU go out and run those times to win the DL races instead of complaining about others?

I hate when people spout BS like this. Obviously we aren't professional athletes. We are fans. Is there any other sport where some people think that you have to be at a professional level in order to criticize the professionals? Fans provide support for the athletes, so I think we should be able to voice our complaints without idiots like yourself complaining about our complaints.

Don't get too mad, it's most likely because areusure? is still in high school and thinks that this is a clever/smart way of responding to a topic he knows nothing about. It's really one of the most immature ways of adding absolutely nothing to a conversation.

The purpose of this board is to discuss running in it's entirety. There are always things that need improvement in every sport, including this one. If the only way we could make those improvements was to "go out and do them ourselves" then this sport would crumble in a matter of days. We most likely won't make any changes by talking about them on this website but it's still fun to discuss them and try to figure out ways to make out sport better.

So stop with the negativity, it's not helping anyone.

The lack of a dominant, confident athlete keeps these races slow.

just sayin wrote:

epo is the reason the times have slowed from 1500-10000

that is where the drug has the greatest effect

I can remember the last really fast men's 5k in Paris two years ago and a lot of people on this board were saying the times were not legit because none of those guys could run sub 2:50 without PEDs.

So when there are a lot of fast times everyone thinks it's because of drugs but when races are slow the competitors are not really putting out the effort. So which is it?

But seriously, there have already been 2 ARs this outdoor season and a near miss in a 1500 record that is almost 30 years old.

Meant sub 12:50 with PEDs, obviously.

Times are irreverent. The win is what's important. If you can't appreciate that, I pity the fool.

The simple solution is to offer two prize grids. For example, places 1-3 get $4000, $2000, $1500 regardless of time. If the winning time beats a prearranged standard (e.g. Sub-13. 5k)then the prize scale becomes $6000, $3000, $2500, so that there is incentive to push the pace. Same for primes(sic?), $500 for the leader at 3k becomes $1000 if the time is met.

It's what I do, solve problems. Your welcome.

Prairie, I totally agree with your basketball/baseball and running comparison: it takes all the guys on the circuit many months of hard work in the off season to be able to peak at a particular time in the summer. And to maintain this peak i.e. to run back-to-back hard fast races is hard, especially in the 5000 and 10000.

As for your frustration at the number of races you see where the guys don't have the guts to take it out fast and early, you've gotta remember how important it is at the elite level to be tactically smart in races. I'd take the 2012 Olympic 5000 final as an example: finishing time of 13:41?!! I thought to myself,

"That's pretty crap considering the pedigree of gebrhiwet, gebremeskel, farah, koech etc.!"

But that's what it's usually like at major champs I'm afraid, unless the favourite knows that a good way to shake off his main rivals is to take it out fast from the start. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that has never been one of Mo Farah's tactics.

the nitty gritty wrote:

just sayin wrote:

epo is the reason the times have slowed from 1500-10000

that is where the drug has the greatest effect

I heard it's biggest effect is to make people stupid.

Oh, the irony.