which makes us ask....just how good was lukas verzbicas?

Inside'r wrote:

Biggest difference between the two was that Ches was clean...

Biggest difference was age. LV skipped a year to eventually graduate on time at age 18 and Ches was 19 as a hs SOPH!

Neither was on drugs. Although that may have changed with Ches going to back to Kenya to train off season.

millenial wrote:

Les wrote:

Not saying Foster was the greatest master's runner ever, but he ran 2:11 at age 41 when the world record was 2:08. He was ranked 4th in the world that year. Lagat only ranked 7th when he ran 13:06 and has run only 2:17 for the marathon -- terrible for someone with his capability.

nobody cares about masters running

...until the become a master runner, which will happen, but only if you’re lucky.

lukas is GOAT

jackal reacher wrote:

Inside'r wrote:

Biggest difference between the two was that Ches was clean...

Biggest difference was age. LV skipped a year to eventually graduate on time at age 18 and Ches was 19 as a hs SOPH!

Neither was on drugs.

+1

And where is Lukas Verbicas now? So he won two high profile HIGH SCHOOL races. Cool story bro. Another that was a never was.

Another overrated dude wrote:

And where is Lukas Verbicas now? So he won two high profile HIGH SCHOOL races. Cool story bro. Another that was a never was.

Man how can you hate on someone after they get a career ending injury? "and where is he now?" lol.....bro Lukas would have lapped you on on a 1 lap course in xc....know your place

Another overrated dude wrote:

And where is Lukas Verbicas now? So he won two high profile HIGH SCHOOL races. Cool story bro. Another that was a never was.

Lukas the GOAT. Haters gonna hate.

I have to agree about Gerry Lindgren. He was a rare bird, a phenomenon who never disappointed me. Saw him beat Pre and Shorter in a two mile track race.

I photoed Foster in the Montreal marathon in 76 and in the drizzling rain cruising along by himself.b I was more impressed by him than most of the others. An archetypal older "Bear: 'phantom epitome and apotheosis of a time past..."

Yessiree Bob wrote:

millenial wrote:

nobody cares about masters running

...until the become a master runner, which will happen, but only if you’re lucky.

Beginning when I was around 40 years old, I checked masters race results for a few years and rarely saw a familiar name. Without the top runners competing it's not interesting. It's like the golf senior tour where guys that weren't successful on the PGA tour are suddenly winning tournaments.

very disrespectful. not surprising from a keyboard warrior though

Lukas would have mopped the floor with Ches and everyone else in the NCAA if he had kept running instead of doing triathlon

Lukas is truly one of the great what-ifs in running. But also in triathlon, as he had already won a junior world championship and some ITU races.

Thing is, he's only 28. Would love to see a comeback from him.

Lindgren

ronaldjunkey wrote:

Lukas is truly one of the great what-ifs in running. But also in triathlon, as he had already won a junior world championship and some ITU races.

Thing is, he's only 28. Would love to see a comeback from him.

My understanding is that the injury left him not only with an uneven stride (and he had perfect mechanics prior), and I will try to be delicate here, but I think he has other "gastrointestinal" issues related to the accident.

I watched that stream of his first college XC race. He was in the lead, even pushing the pack at like 4k/5k in. He just went into "no mans land" in that race and paid hard the last 1/3rd. He had also been posting Twitter pictures of his bloody feet from the types of workouts he was doing. It was clearly a type of training he wasn't used to. The recent success from JR. Triathlon had to be calling him after that.

LV might have been in the style of Daniel Komen...I think his sweet spot was about 3k. He had good enough wheels to go sub 4, but he couldn't crack 14 in the 5 despite a few tries. He got it down to 14:06i then Ches either the same year or year after when sub 14 for the first HS indoor sub 14.

Now if he had stuck it out at Oregon, who knows, maybe he would have excelled at the 10 like Rupp. They have similar height and build.

I would love to see Lukas wage a legit comeback. His posturing with NB wasn't too many years back, but it didn't seem right, all things considered. Something seems "off" with him, though, not just since the accident, since high school.

Didn't Lukas smoke Kirubel Erassa back in the day? And now Erassa is #6 all time at half marathon....this thread ages better by the day. Lukas was on par with Jakob Ingebrigsten. You can't tell me otherwise.

chokolate wrote:

Didn't Lukas smoke Kirubel Erassa back in the day? And now Erassa is #6 all time at half marathon....this thread ages better by the day. Lukas was on par with Jakob Ingebrigsten. You can't tell me otherwise.

Sorry, I meant #6 all time for AMERICANs....not in the world, obviously lol.

earth to derpy derp wrote:

Another Perspective.... wrote:

I agree with the fans. I remember the indoor meet mentioned above. 3 events. There was an indoor second place to Lagat, I think. Everyone remembers the XC races the most, but those were against a shallower pool of competition than the occasional pro race. Here's what today's youth may not realize:

Never joined his HS track team.

Never ran in a State-sanctioned HS meet.

Never ran a 1600 or 3200 that I'm aware of. (I followed him at the time and never heard about one, feel free to correct if you know of any.)

1. true

2. not true

3. the 2 mile is the 3200 and he ran the fastest time in high school history, not to mention he ran the 1600 and 3200 at the same meet you mention above

Somehow this thread surfaces and caught my eye. The 'another perspective' poster is exactly right as far as I could tell at the time or now.

1. Seems there is agreement.

2. Has to be true if #1 is true. Unnattached runners (no affiation with his school's team) cannot compete in State HS Federation (every State had it's own name for this). He doesn't appear in State Meet Track anx Field results, although he does for XC.

3. 3200 is not 2 mile. 1600 is not 1 mile. Neither of the non-standard events were held at the pro meet in question, at which Lagat ran the 5000. In fact, Bernie has never participated in a meet that held either of them that I'm aware of.

Let me borrow a line from the post a few years ago:

Feel free to post results showing Lukas running in the State Meet or another event organized and sactioned by the State School whatever-it's-called.

Feel free to post the results of a 1600 or 3200 in which LV participated.

Feel frew to post the results of the well-known indoor meet which various poster seemed to have mentioned featuring BL. Especially interesting would be 1600 and 3200 results. Good luck finding that!