How Gabrielle Wilkinson won the Millrose HS Girl's Mile

Based on what Tuohy has done the last couple weeks and the days leading up to this race, this was a perfect setup for failure. In the grand scheme of things, this is not too big of a deal. I blame this one on her coach, this is not a knock on her coach, but this move was kind of typical for a high school coach. Too much carryover in thinking from XC and her 5K, the mile is a different beast and I have not seen anything recently to suggest Tuohy could run away from a field that she is probably only slightly better than. Based on Tuohy's recent 1000, 600 and 200, speed-wise, she was clearly not ready to run a super fast mile. Tuohy's not good enough to dominate the best milers; however, I suspect if she had simply ran with the group, she could have pulled away over the last 2 laps. This is a good learning experience and I'm sure Tuohy will bounce back and run a fast mile, but everything points to her success in the mile is probably not going to match her success in the longer distances.

turtle friend wrote:

another thing that bothered me about this article

Wilkinson's "streetwise Philly" kick

hmmm... if she was a white girl from Philly i highly doubt he would call her kick "streetwise"

UGh

She’s not even from actual Philly. She’s from Wynnewood, which is part of a super Jewish suburb and she goes to a friends school.

The higher the quality of runners, the more specialization and physical make-up matter. At high levels, even in high school, there's a big difference between the 5K and a mile, and a lesser but still significant difference between a two-mile and a mile. Tuohy is extremely talented, but throw her in an 800 meter race against top high school competition like Wilkinson, and she'd probably look even worse. Likewise, put Wilkinson in a 5K with Tuohy, and the domination will be reversed. It's not just a matter of physical make-up, i.e. ration of fast to slow-twitch muscle fibers, but also the difference between training specifically for longer or shorter events. The training required for the 800 meters is so geared toward speed, with the mile being more balanced, and the 5K more toward strength. Throughout history, we've only rarely seen runners who can dominate over a very wide range of distances--Geb and Bekele--but even these distance GOATs would have had no chance in an Olympic or World Championship 800, and only a slightly better chance at the 1500. Of course, I'm not saying anything that many of the people on this forum don't know already, but for a developing 15-year-old who has become used to winning everything, it will become increasingly clear as her career progresses.

That's a horrible article.

It only needed to be four words:

Katelyn Tuohy blew up.

Wasn't Tuohy beat by like 5 other girls in this race? No write up about them?