One race does not burst a bubble wrote:
It's one race! Justyn may have stepped to the starting line knowing he didn't have a chance at even a sub-4, yet still feeling willing to get race experience. He may have done a hard workout two days earlier, for all anyone knows. Or maybe he's been under the weather or challenged by an injury. Sometimes a runner puts his reputation on the line when he/she races when not nearly in top shape, but doesn't care what LetsRuns finest think, because running a hard (relatively) mile when knowingly sub-par is still experience. That's invaluable training, especially for a young runner.
This.
When certain runners aren't doing as well as they want, they just quit (COUGH COUGH RUPP COUGH COUGH COUGH). So they have "no bad results" unless you look at their endless strings of DNS and DNF results (COUGH COUGH RUPP.)
Good for this guy for starting and finishing when things obviously weren't 100%. (FFS the guy broke 4 in his first mile ever.) I wish more runners had his GUTS.