Katelyn Tuohy takes on Sunken Meadow

the maths wrote:

Like I said, she's off the charts. To hold her to a 1.11 multiple of guys' times is clearly too conservative.

Before she's done, she might be more like 1.07, or something absurd like that.

You somewhat mix up the logic of the conversion factor in some of the things you say.

Rather than parse it all, I'll point out that the 1.11 factor applied to the boys' HS records at 1 mile, 2 mile and 5000m yields marks of 4:19, 9:25 and 15:06 for girls.

Let's see Tuohy approach those times before we say that the factor is too conservative in comparing her to "the guys".

The 1.07 you hypothesize yields 4:09 mile, 9:04 two mile and 14:34 5000m. Um, no.

1. The baseline *you* used was Ches. That's what we were talking about. As *you* pointed out, she's already significantly *faster* than 1.11 x *his* times, and still seems like she might have lots of room left for improvement. (Especially since one of those races, where she's *already* well ahead of that benchmark, was one where she clearly wasn't that close to all-out.)

2. Bringing mile-times on the track into it is kinda stupid, since that's not at all what we're talking about, and nobody thinks she's anywhere near as good at that as she is on the x-c course (at least so far).

3. Again, by the benchmark *you* used, she already looks to be somewhere around 1.10 x those times, and is clearly still getting better, and will probably run at least some of those courses again next year.

Will she be still better next year than this year? No one knows. But there's certainly a pretty good shot.

Changing those 1.1's to 1.07's would mean dropping another 25-30 seconds, I guess.

Maybe that was a little strong. Could she drop another 15, or maybe even 20? Yep, she might.

Maybe I should've said 1.08, or 1.09, to be more conservative.

The more I think about it, she *does* have a chance to push 16, if she really wants to go for it, at Balboa. (Even though I guess you've pretty much 'informed' us that it's 'mathematically impossible.')

We'll see.

So far, everyone who's doubted her, put limits on her, and told us what she *can't* do, has looked pretty stupid.

Wtfbbq wrote:

the maths wrote:

Rather than parse it all, I'll point out that the 1.11 factor applied to the boys' HS records at 1 mile, 2 mile and 5000m yields marks of 4:19, 9:25 and 15:06 for girls.

Let's see Tuohy approach those times before we say that the factor is too conservative in comparing her to "the guys".

Agree, though I absolutely would not doubt her hitting that 5000m time on the track.

She also seems like more of a 5000m specialist, so it's hard to compare her to Webb, who was an 800m/1500m runner. She probably won't get near the converted mile, but I bet if she ran a 10K now Webb wouldn't be able to match her based on conversions.

That may be, and perhaps that would have somewhat reduced the split, but looking at the Manhattan Results, it seems to me FM would have 6 runners in before NR's 4th, and Liverpool was way ahead of FM. Shenendehowa also seems somewhat ahead of where NR is. It seems a stretch to say NR could make it to Portland this year. but perhaps over the next month things will get better.

the maths wrote:

....

Rather than parse it all, I'll point out that the 1.11 factor applied to the boys' HS records at 1 mile, 2 mile and 5000m yields marks of 4:19, 9:25 and 15:06 for girls.

Let's see Tuohy approach those times before we say that the factor is too conservative in comparing her to "the guys".

The 1.07 you hypothesize yields 4:09 mile, 9:04 two mile and 14:34 5000m. Um, no.

The 1.07 conversion sounds preposturous only because a more accurate conversion factor should be 1.14 -1.15. Anything she does that is less than that is very impressive, IMO.

I like to debate the upper limit for guys but I am way more open minded when it comes to girls. Girls are so far behind guys that it would seem that there is more room for improvement. Tuohy is feminine but she is lean and has better form than almost any young man so she has a stronger core than equivalent guys. Many guys break 9 minutes these days for 3200. It doesn’t seem incredible that a girl could hit that time. If more than one guy had broken 15 minutes on a particular xc course, a girl should be able to break 16.

kmaclam wrote:

(she checked her watch multiple times in first 1/2 mile)

Did all of her teammates have the exact same watch or could someone call a uniform infraction and get her disqualified?

Remember the good old days when a protest was made because some team shorts were sown with white thread and some were sown with black thread?

Coaches sometimes tell runners to treat a race as a workout in order to keep the runner mentally fresh. You only have so many races that you can get mentally prepared for. Amazingly, sometimes runners will run almost the same time but walk away feeing like they could have run much faster.

I ran the vast majority of my collegiate races as "workouts" by this criteria. You don't go deep into the well in every race. Maybe 3 times per XC season. I think in general it is disrespectful to call a race a "workout", no matter who you are. I don't think her coaches meant it in that way, but I do believe my point still stands.

Duane wrote:

That may be, and perhaps that would have somewhat reduced the split, but looking at the Manhattan Results, it seems to me FM would have 6 runners in before NR's 4th, and Liverpool was way ahead of FM. Shenendehowa also seems somewhat ahead of where NR is. It seems a stretch to say NR could make it to Portland this year. but perhaps over the next month things will get better.

North Rockland is #6-7 in NY on paper right now at best.

thanks - I selfishly hope she goes to FL as I should be able to get to SD for that race.

Played with some numbers just for kicks, starting with the girls varsity merge results for Manhattan, then assuming Tuohy ran 13:00, NR 2 15:15, NR 3 16:15, and NR 4/5 16:45. NR average time would be competitive (4th overall, 3rd in NY I think) but since Tuohy is so fast, I looked at average for #2-5 runners and NR would have been (with my assumed times) around 13th or 14th) vs #2-5 runners for the field. The 13:00 may be too fast, but assuming slower moves the rest of the team back. This seems consistent with your assessment.

I hope she gets her feet wet with some international competition this year. I like that she's sticking to racing with her high school team. But WXC or Edinburgh would be good for her to see how she lines up against international competition.

I think most of us would love to see her got FL and crush the all time record. The only concern I have is that FL is so damn late in the year I wonder how anyone can peak for that race. But even not at peak, there’s no way she does not win / the only question would be whether she would set the record.

DC Wonk wrote:

I think most of us would love to see her got FL and crush the all time record. The only concern I have is that FL is so damn late in the year I wonder how anyone can peak for that race. But even not at peak, there’s no way she does not win / the only question would be whether she would set the record.

It's a real mistake to be talking about peaking with high school athletes. It very rarely happens. Generally what we see is that after the first race or maybe two of the season the performances stay very near the same level the rest of the season barring some sort of health related setback. She'd likely run 15 seconds either way of 16:00. Whether she gets the record or not isn't even a question. It's merely how much she will break it by.

Any running coach of an athlete of this caliber who is not planning workouts and races with a plan for peaking is doing a disservice to the athlete. Tuohy will likely dominate everyone no matter how she trains, but there’s no way an elite high school runner can run the same on the 2nd week of October and the 2nd week of December without planning for that.

Winning FL not be a big deal to Tuohy and her coach, but she is such a talent that it would be shame to have her run FL and not be at least in the +- 10% of peak. No matter what, I agree, she will crush everyone else. Hell, if she ran with the boys she would likely finish at least in the middle, if not higher.

DC Wonk wrote:

Any running coach of an athlete of this caliber who is not planning workouts and races with a plan for peaking is doing a disservice to the athlete. Tuohy will likely dominate everyone no matter how she trains, but there’s no way an elite high school runner can run the same on the 2nd week of October and the 2nd week of December without planning for that.

Winning FL not be a big deal to Tuohy and her coach, but she is such a talent that it would be shame to have her run FL and not be at least in the +- 10% of peak. No matter what, I agree, she will crush everyone else. Hell, if she ran with the boys she would likely finish at least in the middle, if not higher.

In the past year Tuohy has raced just under 50 times between track and XC, with some seriously big performance during indoor, outdoor and xc. That makes peaking very difficult.

Workout coach wrote:

Coaches sometimes tell runners to treat a race as a workout in order to keep the runner mentally fresh. You only have so many races that you can get mentally prepared for. Amazingly, sometimes runners will run almost the same time but walk away feeing like they could have run much faster.

The key word is "feeling" like the could have...doesn't mean that they could have.

The mind is a powerful tool. Katelyn did not run that race as a workout (I don't care what was quoted by whoever), I'm going on time and the course. Being about 20 seconds ahead of a time that many thought was possible, 16:30, is not a workout.

Sounds all smart and intelligen for Coaches to say, "it was just a workout", when in fact that's usually not true.

I have a friend who said that race after race after race, especially when he was beaten...back off a tad and claim it was just a workout.

Strange and questionable wrote:

kmaclam wrote:

I do not have any 'insider' dope, but would have to believe this was a hard workout (she checked her watch multiple times in first 1/2 mile) and certainly not an all out effort.

Why would she check her watch in the first half mile???

And why would her checking her watch lead you to conclude the type of effort she was making???

Because if her coach did indeed instruct her on how to approach the race (do you believe they didn't have a race plan?) with say, 'Go out in 5:20/5:20 and then run how you feel the last mile', how else could she follow coaches directive without looking at her watch? At the 1/2 mile mark she had tops 8 - 10 seconds on the field, indicating she was running well within herself as her margin of victory equated to a run at 23 seconds per 1/2 mile faster than the next fastest girl in the field. Somewhere later in the race (after Cardiac as the article says) with all the hard stuff out of the way, she felt good and finished strong. A progression run?

Xcxcxc101 wrote:

Touhy runs a lot. She was running fast and hard 2 hours before race time today. Her sprints off the starting line were not strides - they were sprint form- it was kinda weird to watch - as you won’t see things like that at a college meet. Who knows what her all out is now but I will say meylens speed ratings are confused by her and what she is doing. He is just wrong. But he will demand he is right

First off, I watched her warm up and it looked like 4 miles tops. And never did I see her running "fast and hard" Did the usual drills/plyos with teammates. And as far as that "sprint form" start - as I mentioned in above post, she went out very conservatively relative to the field. Early on I had her barely breaking the course record, but when she appeared out of the woods late in the race with 1/2 mile to go, it was obvious that she had it by a lot. Of course most all of this thread is just an excited fan base talking about, speculating, pondering, predicting, observing a female H.S. distance runner we've never seen the likes of here in the U.S. With our sport in such doldrums, this is a refreshing kick in the arsenal, no?