Bowerman Mile Pacers Should Be Shot!!!!

Agreed. Wish they had a few of the Brooks Beasts to rabbit. Those guys would have pulled them through right on schedule. Not 4+ seconds slow at 800.

I dunno. I kinda feel that if the pacers had been right on schedule there just would have been a big gap between them and Kiprop and company.

Geez. You don't like the pace, run faster. When did people start losing the ability to run fast on their own ? Christ, there's now even pacers for 800m. You can't judge 2 laps ? Seriously ? Excuses for everything.

They were terrible. That 2nd 200m segment they completely hit the breaks, probably a 31 sec 200m for that segment. Just pathetic really.

You're right. You want to run a PR in the mile when you're the best in the world? You should have to go out and do it all by yourself.

All the former elite distance runners set their PRs running wire to wire from the front and won the race.

It's not an excuse. The pacers are paid to do a job and they failed. I get it, it happens in our sport, but this was out of line. These guys are professionals. Don't they know what a 1:52-1:54 pace is? Yes, Asbel and company could have ran faster. But they trusted the rabbits. Maybe that was the problem. The guy was talking about running a fast race. He seemed to have tripped and almost fell. Maybe that was some part of it. Bottom line the pacers could have been better. At least Asbel was near the front this time unlike most of his races where he is at the back with a lap to go. Didn't help Drew out either.

Not Ideal wrote:

All the former elite distance runners set their PRs running wire to wire from the front and won the race.

All their records have been broken and left in the dust by guys who, much more intelligently, used pacers.

Rudisha's record is the exception, but he's not really "distance".

Come on, be serious. Kiprop can run 3:47 without any help at all.

This was a tactical race and always was going to be tactical, just like last year.

This is the mile, not the sprints. Having lots of big names in one race nearly always turns it into a tactical affair. Monaco is a notable exception.

Kiprop said at the start of this year he doesn't want to run fast before the Olympics. That fell on deaf ears at Letsrun.

If Kiprop can run 3:47, then why hasn't he? There was no excuse for the guy to run slow today. It also makes zero sense that because "this is the mile" people have a reason to run slow. It's idiotic. Guys should be going for it at this point in the few races they have before the Olympics.

eh ?

he was 12+++m behind last year with lotta wide running on bends before & nearly won !

he was in 3'26 shape...

That's a pretty harsh thread title.

Stick them under a bridge in Boulder and may only the fittest survive?

Seyta - My comment was entirely sarcastic and directed at the person above my post saying, "if you don't like the pace run faster".

Metric Miler - I think the purpose of this thread was to point out how awful a job the rabbits did. If you watched the race they were supposed to bring the field through in 1:51-52 and they came through 4+ seconds slower than scheduled. It wasn't supposed to be a tactical race at all. It was set up for Kiprop to try and run 3:47. He figured out pretty quickly that the rabbits were failing miserably and the goal of running a solid time (mile PR for him) was gone. After that it turned tactical.

Not only did the rabbits screw up Kiprop's goal but they made it even more difficult for Hunter to have a shot at the HS record.

Those guys get paid really well to run a few laps and they completely failed today.

Gotta agree with Metric on this. Get a lot of really fast guys in a race and they all watch each other and a quick race can go out the window. It becomes tactical. Put Asbel and maybe one or two other quick guys in a race with some good pacers and you will have something.

No need to shoot any pacers. Just don't hire them.

I realize that pacers are routinely used in certain meets and races to enhance performance by providing aerodynamic and neuromuscular assistance. If all international meets and races stop using them, there may be a dearth of world records and superfast times for a while (although Rudisha has very convincingly shown that even world records are still possible without drafting assistance). I don't believe that's a big problem. Performance expectations have similarly needed some adjustment where, for example, doping rules have been more stringently enforced or technological limitations on equipment have been imposed. Performance expectations have adjusted in many other sports where rules have been tweaked or tightened, often resulting in a better entertainment product and better competition. I don't think that distance running needs these aided time trials; in fact, I think that they've generally hurt the sport. To anyone who is not already inured to this practice, it's bizarre to watch races in which the leaders for most of the race aren't actually competing in the race, and where race leaders routinely and lackadaisically quit when they're still in the lead, sometimes by substantial margins.

Metric Miler wrote:

Come on, be serious. Kiprop can run 3:47 without any help at all.

This was a tactical race and always was going to be tactical, just like last year.

This is the mile, not the sprints. Having lots of big names in one race nearly always turns it into a tactical affair. Monaco is a notable exception.

Running fast is a tactic.

I miss Matt Scherer that dude is such an unsung hero

The pacers did get out to a big lead and nobody went with them except Kiprop who decided to not run unnecessarily fast. Not their fault the field didn't follow.

It was an awkward situation, do the pacers run way ahead of everybody or pull back and just lead the field?

Has anyone been able to find official splits for the mile? It's amazing to me, watching the race replay on youtube and on TV, that on none of the channels did they have any splits appearing on screen ... not just for the mile, but for all races.

Surely at a Diamond League meeting they had the technology set up for lap times ...

Anyway, as for the pacing during the mile ... it wasn't great but I don't think it was as bad as some seem to think.

The only really bad part was they seemed to slam on breaks after the first 100m, causing the pack to bunch up very badly behind them (I was sure someone would fall), but after that they got back onto a respectable schedule.

Unofficially, working off the Eurosport version on youtube and the onscreen clock (not always totally accurate, I know) I got splits of 57.2 and 1:54.0 for the lead pacer at 400 and 800 (58.5 at 409 and 1:55.4 at 809),

After that, having to pretty much guess (no good angle on any video I've seen) Iguider leads at 1200 at 2:55.4 ... so a big slow up there, but the pacer actually was opening a gap the third lap, then slows to let the field close up some.

Slower than requested, if they actually asked for 1:51-52 at 800 (unnecessarily fast I think, unless going for the WR) but 57.2/ 56.8 isn't awful and a guy like Kiprop could negative split off of about 1:54.7 at 880y for a sub 3:48 (his PR is 3:48.50) if he was dead set on getting a PR.

What was odd to me was the pacers knew they were too slow the first lap, and picked it up the second lap, opening up a gap immediately. Then Kiprop suddenly decides to surge to latch onto their back, on the backstretch, The first pacer drops, then only 50m into the third lap Kiprop decides to drop off the second pacer and a gap opens up again. The second pacer looks back a few times and slows up around 600 to go, to let the field regain contact and drops out just before 1200.

It looked like the second lap Kiprop thinks "alright, I'm going for a quick time", then 400m later changes his mind and drops back. Maybe he really was set on a super fast halfway split, so pretty much said "forget it" when it was 1:55 ... but to me that's a decent split and he definitely could have ran fast off that, but simply decided not to go for it.

I really don't know where everyone is getting this idea from that Kiprop even wanted to run fast.

He has said specifically he does not want to tackle any world records this year and focus entirely on the Olympics. Why would he go and run a mile in Eugene in May in 3:45?

And to the guy that suggested Kiprop can't run 3:47 because he hasn't, please. That is going through 1500m in 3:32. Actually easy for Kiprop, did you see Doha?