Has Stanford's Amy Weissenbach (2:00.98 pb) quit running?

I'm not a Stanford runner but close enough (in the Pac12) to speak to the fact that there exist two very separate types of athlete on their team - the serious ones (Saunders, Cuffe, Tonn) and the fitness classers (Chapus et al). The former have enjoyed undeniable success, while the latter road the coattails of their high school success into a berth at a premier institution and gave up the minute they hit campus. For some, the pull of the entrepreneurial spirit is too much to resist, but others simply can't handle the fact that they are hot stuff in a small market. In LA they'd just be one of the crowd, but in Palo Alto the swimmers and football team take their pick from the girls. Sounds crazy, but one look at the instagrams of some of them tells you all you need to know. They aren't exactly embodying the professionalism that the coaches preach, if you know what I mean.

I think Weissenbach falls somewhere in between, she's hard to read and not very talkative on or off the track so I never got a good read. All in all I say good job to her, I hope she finds success in whatever she does.

Why do you keep repeating your error? You even quoted me and in those quotes, it shows nowhere that I used statistics.

If I used statistics and distributions, then maybe you would have some kind of valid point.... But I DID NOT USE STATISTICS. Nor did i ise any distributions. Claiming I'm using distributions doesn't even make sense because I'm talking about ONE runner. You are the only one talking about distributions and statistics here. Not me. Read this over and over again until you finally get it.

Women's running is NOT deeper. People lose their mind when a pro US female goes sub 15 for 5k. No one cares if a guy is that far off the world record. It is like that all the way to the marathon. The marathon world record has been under attack on the men's side for the past few years. Has the women's marathon wr been broken or even threatened by several people??

Just admit you are wrong or stop replying.

and the men?

not tru wrote:

Why do you keep repeating your error? You even quoted me and in those quotes, it shows nowhere that I used statistics.

Yes you are applying statistics because you're incorrectly trying to use a linear time difference (8 seconds) to say 2:00 equals 1:49 and then again incorrectly trying to call it "physiological", when actually it's theoretical and doesn't represent true physiological differences between the populations.

Women's running is NOT deeper. People lose their mind when a pro US female goes sub 15 for 5k. No one cares if a guy is that far off the world record. It is like that all the way to the marathon. The marathon world record has been under attack on the men's side for the past few years. Has the women's marathon wr been broken or even threatened by several people??

Just admit you are wrong or stop replying.

Ha, why don't you just admit you're wrong and stupid and stop trying to argue with someone who knows statistics and the state of the sport better than you do? You can't argue with statistics- your opinion is moot.

NCAA D1 track and field varsity athletes: men- 8,567; women- 9,640

Women have men beat demographically in everything from the half marathon and down, and esp. in the 18-34 age groups in everything up to the marathon:

You're out of touch with women's running. Paula has statistically the toughest record of any event, men or women, being closer to the theoretical limit. Her performance is a significant outlier at this point, because it is so close to the theoretical limit.

Alani wrote:

From looking at this weekend's Husky Classic entries, former Stanford runners Michael Atchoo and Dylan Ferris are entered as members of the Strava TC. Have never heard of this group before. Anyone know? Ferris had been running with the New Balance Silicon Valley club for the past couple years.

New Balance Silicon Valley is now Strava Track Club. Change in sponsorship and really a good sign that a "non-shoe company" is interested in club running.

I did. Worked there up until about 2 years ago. But Palo Alto certainly gets the point across of the locale to which I am speaking of.

How many people here would like to trade the balanced and rewarding careers they have for career that calls for total dedication to eating certain foods, running 100 miles/wk, avoiding alcohol and other indulgences, breathing thin air, spending hours on underwater treadmills, sleeping 12 hours daily . . . for a small chance of getting an Olympic medal. There's a reason 99% of pro runners are deeply religious. You do it because you believe you are on a mission from God. Other than that, it's hard to justify.

broho wrote:

Crowdfundmeagogo wrote:

Rojo, I am very glad to hear that you don't think that money is important to you. Pleas send me the proceeds from your trust fund. Send me the money. I don't want to have a stinking job either. Send me your money. You won't miss it, I promise. I guarantee that I will put it to just as good use as you have. I really just want to sit around and watch a lot of TV and listen to Rush and Cowherd. Please send it as soon as possible because I have already worked tons more than you deem necessary.

POY. lmfao

Send him some of that cake, rojo, he deserves it.

Hey rojo, did you send this guy some of your unwanted money?

Amy and Cami's high school charges 40k plus a year in tuition. Both families have lots of cash. Neither one needs to worry about how much income their career generates.

Even by LRC standards, this thread has so much inanity and silliness that I was tempted to respond. Then I remembered that this is exactly why "Arguing on the internet is like the special Olympics."

Carry on!

Or, as our English friends would say, "Jesus wept!"

This is a mistake I see made time and time again on these messageboards.

You cannot compare women and men's records linearly like this, because the difference is not linear but more exponential. One reason for this is because of things like the top women having straighter bodies (i.e. bodies shaped more like men) than the rest of the women, giving them a larger advantage over the field. The men have no such advantage.

dgfdgfdgdgdgd wrote:

This is a mistake I see made time and time again on these messageboards.

You cannot compare women and men's records linearly like this, because the difference is not linear but more exponential. One reason for this is because of things like the top women having straighter bodies (i.e. bodies shaped more like men) than the rest of the women, giving them a larger advantage over the field. The men have no such advantage.

At last, a post that is not bompomane (bombastic, pompous and inane).

1) Surely someone has "run the numbers" to see what relationship best fits the data. Any examples/citations/suggestions?

2) When you say "straighter bodies" what exactly do you mean? Smaller hips? Smaller breasts? Less body fat?

Is there any evidence for this?

Is "straighter body" a proxy for some other factor, such as a different hormone mix, anorexia, "excessive" testosterone in utero, etc?

3) I can think of many other possible explanations besides "straighter bodies" for a non-linear relation between men's and women's times. Have any of these been tested?

4) In the Mercier tables mentioned up thread, the conversion factor appears to be a weighted average of past performances, with arbitrary weights. This seems very crude.

At the very least, the weights should be derived from the data, not imposed on it. Now that computing is cheap and data plentiful, many ways to estimate such relationships from panel data are feasible. I can't believe this is the state of the art. Am I missing something?

More participation doesn't mean more depth.

Looking at the NCAA 5000m list this year in terms of percentage of world record / percentage of first in NCAA:

Data:

1st man: 1.0568 / 1.000

1st woman: 1.0787 / 1.000

10th man: 1.0779 / 1.0200

10th woman:1.10458 / 1.0240

20th man: 1.0911 / 1.0325

20th woman: 1.1186 / 1.0370

30th man: 1.0977 / 1.0388

30th woman: 1.1280 / 1.0458

40th man: 1.0990 / 1.0400

40th woman: 1.1363 / 1.0534

50th man: 1.1017 / 1.0425

50th woman: 1.1410 / 1.0577

60th man: 1.1043 / 1.0450

60th woman: 1.1433 / 1.0599

70th man: 1.1070 / 1.0475

70th woman: 1.1468 / 1.0632

80th man: 1.1096 / 1.0500

80th woman: 1.1504 / 1.0664

90th man: 1.1122 / 1.0525

90th woman: 1.1527 / 1.0686

Graph:

http://i.imgur.com/8jdkpKf.png

Not only are the women farther off from the world record at every level, the women are farther away from first in the NCAA and the gap grows as you go down the depth chart. The men are far deeper than the women.

Trend continues to 500th place

http://i.imgur.com/bDEMKpN.png

Clam Evans wrote:

More participation doesn't mean more depth.

Looking at the NCAA 5000m list this year in terms of percentage of world record / percentage of first in NCAA:....

Not only are the women farther off from the world record at every level, the women are farther away from first in the NCAA and the gap grows as you go down the depth chart. The men are far deeper than the women.

Interesting stuff.

Where did you get your data?

So let me get this straight, the 3 star recruits they brought in for 2012 Chapus- dream mile champ, Weissenbach- gatorade athlete of the year, and Hatton all quit the team before their junior year? It's unlikley this is a coincidence and it probably had something to do with the team atmosphere or the coach. Didn't Weisenbach almost make the olympic team in 2012? Seems strange to me that somebody could just walk away from olympic level talent especially when she seemed so happy in April-May 2014.

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/251566-NCAA-Division-I-West-Prelims-2014/video/746373-Stanfords-Amy-Weissenbach-thrilled-to-have-such-great-teammates#.Veqhe6R0xdg

I wouldn't call 2:01 Olympic level talent. Maybe if she was 1:58.

Black Med Student wrote:

So let me get this straight, the 3 star recruits they brought in for 2012 Chapus- dream mile champ, Weissenbach- gatorade athlete of the year, and Hatton all quit the team before their junior year? It's unlikley this is a coincidence and it probably had something to do with the team atmosphere or the coach. Didn't Weisenbach almost make the olympic team in 2012? Seems strange to me that somebody could just walk away from olympic level talent especially when she seemed so happy in April-May 2014.

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/251566-NCAA-Division-I-West-Prelims-2014/video/746373-Stanfords-Amy-Weissenbach-thrilled-to-have-such-great-teammates#.Veqhe6R0xdg

Yargs. wrote:

I wouldn't call 2:01 Olympic level talent. Maybe if she was 1:58.

Black Med Student wrote:

So let me get this straight, the 3 star recruits they brought in for 2012 Chapus- dream mile champ, Weissenbach- gatorade athlete of the year, and Hatton all quit the team before their junior year? It's unlikley this is a coincidence and it probably had something to do with the team atmosphere or the coach. Didn't Weisenbach almost make the olympic team in 2012? Seems strange to me that somebody could just walk away from olympic level talent especially when she seemed so happy in April-May 2014.

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/251566-NCAA-Division-I-West-Prelims-2014/video/746373-Stanfords-Amy-Weissenbach-thrilled-to-have-such-great-teammates#.Veqhe6R0xdg

and yet, after rounds, and from many countries, 2:01 will get a woman to Rio.