Lewandowski huge PB 3:31.95

page 1 of less than 100 wrote:

From 3:34 to 3:31

He's improving faster than a certain 18-year old. At 32. As usual - nothing to see here.

Armstronglivs wrote:

page 1 of less than 100 wrote:

From 3:34 to 3:31

He's improving faster than a certain 18-year old. At 32. As usual - nothing to see here.

At age 30, Mo Farah improved by 5 seconds, so it’s not as it has never been seen before.

People are acting like this is a huge improvement, but I'm not surprised. This is his first year actually focusing on the 1500. Before this, he was solely focused on the 800.

1776 wrote:

People are acting like this is a huge improvement, but I'm not surprised. This is his first year actually focusing on the 1500. Before this, he was solely focused on the 800.

^^ This ^^

Lewandowski has been around the international scene for a long time. Dude has some solid wheels, 47 in the open 400 and 1:15 in the 600m.

Shshj wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

He's improving faster than a certain 18-year old. At 32. As usual - nothing to see here.

At age 30, Mo Farah improved by 5 seconds, so it’s not as it has never been seen before.

You might want to rethink that example.

dookie19 wrote:

1776 wrote:

People are acting like this is a huge improvement, but I'm not surprised. This is his first year actually focusing on the 1500. Before this, he was solely focused on the 800.

^^ This ^^

Lewandowski has been around the international scene for a long time. Dude has some solid wheels, 47 in the open 400 and 1:15 in the 600m.

That he has been around a long time should mean it is less likely that he would make dramatic improvements late career. He's improving like a teenager.

I can see Lewandowski as world champion based upon his wicked closing speed in the right race. He needs luck for sure, but he's the kind of runner that can win in a slower paced race.

Armstronglivs wrote:

dookie19 wrote:

^^ This ^^

Lewandowski has been around the international scene for a long time. Dude has some solid wheels, 47 in the open 400 and 1:15 in the 600m.

That he has been around a long time should mean it is less likely that he would make dramatic improvements late career. He's improving like a teenager.

You're not factoring in the fact this is his first season focusing on the 1500. It would be like if you ran a marathon in high school just to do it, barely go under 3 hours. Not run another marathon till after college and taking 40+ minutes from your marathon PB.

Cousin Ernie wrote:

I can see Lewandowski as world champion based upon his wicked closing speed in the right race. He needs luck for sure, but he's the kind of runner that can win in a slower paced race.

Now he needs to focus on sprints and closing speed, that he already has and later just pray for a slow race?

Alll wrote:

Lewandowski makes progress: yeah, that's awesome.

Musagala makes progress: it's because of shady italian coaches in Uganda

Love Letsrun

Your knowledge of track is substandard . No way he or Nick are juicing .

Hounddogharrier wrote:

Alll wrote:

Lewandowski makes progress: yeah, that's awesome.

Musagala makes progress: it's because of shady italian coaches in Uganda

Love Letsrun

Your knowledge of track is substandard . No way he or Nick are juicing .

Yes, I believe they're not, but I also believe that Eliud Kipchoge and Rhonex Kipruto are not juicing.

Well ...... wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

That he has been around a long time should mean it is less likely that he would make dramatic improvements late career. He's improving like a teenager.

You're not factoring in the fact this is his first season focusing on the 1500. It would be like if you ran a marathon in high school just to do it, barely go under 3 hours. Not run another marathon till after college and taking 40+ minutes from your marathon PB.

So why would at age 32 this be his first season focussing on the 1500? Is he losing it over the 800? I don't think so. He is no Rudisha or Kipketer - he had every reason to move up long before now if it was in him. Simply not a credible argument to add the 1500 as a career after-thought for an 800 specialist.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Well ...... wrote:

You're not factoring in the fact this is his first season focusing on the 1500. It would be like if you ran a marathon in high school just to do it, barely go under 3 hours. Not run another marathon till after college and taking 40+ minutes from your marathon PB.

So why would at age 32 this be his first season focussing on the 1500? Is he losing it over the 800? I don't think so. He is no Rudisha or Kipketer - he had every reason to move up long before now if it was in him. Simply not a credible argument to add the 1500 as a career after-thought for an 800 specialist.

A lot of people change focus during their career. He probably thinks he has a better chance to medal in the 1500 than 800. Which would explain the change and the 800 is a young man game.

Armstronglivs wrote:

So why would at age 32 this be his first season focussing on the 1500? Is he losing it over the 800? I don't think so. He is no Rudisha or Kipketer - he had every reason to move up long before now if it was in him. Simply not a credible argument to add the 1500 as a career after-thought for an 800 specialist.

He clearly started a move towards the 1500m after the Rio Olympics with the goal of the London WCs.

Before 2017 he would run one or two low key 1500m races a year, in 2017 he ran it 9 times, including reaching the final of the World Championships (he only made the semis of the 800m). Seems pretty straightforward decision for a guy nearing 30 who was losing his competitiveness at 800 and correctly figuring out he was going to be more in the mix at the 1500. His best time in 2017 was 3:34, his first season running the 1500m seriously.

This year was his first as primarily a 1500m runner and he's beaten his pb by 2 seconds. Last season he was still running a lot more 800m than 1500m , and ran the 800m at Monaco, thus it's not surprising he didn't run a fast one last year, especially with his style of sit and kick.

So he started running the 1500m two years ago and ran 3:34, he started focusing more seriously on the 1500m this year and has ran 2 seconds faster in one of the fastest (in depth) races for years.

Nothing suspicious about any of that.

The only thing that might stand out is that he's ran a 1:43 800m this year, but he's still running more 800m than 1500/mile races (7 compared to 6), so there's no reason why he shouldn't still be capable of the sort of time he's ran pretty much every year since 2009.

32 yo is still clearly close to one's athletics prime these days if you haven't had bad luck with injuries. This was proven decades ago with the likes of Walker, Scott, (and to some extent by Coe - all these had injuries and ill health, esp Walker and Coe, but could still be competitive when they had a healthy year in their 30's) and continued with the likes of Nick Willis. We're used to seeing a lot of Africans fade away or disappear early, but we know the reasons for that, and age cheating is just one of them. (and of course, other East Africans can somehow remain at their peak in their mid to late 30's).

Lewandowski may well have been a sub 3:30 runner if he'd switched to the 1500m earlier.

800 is a young man game wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

So why would at age 32 this be his first season focussing on the 1500? Is he losing it over the 800? I don't think so. He is no Rudisha or Kipketer - he had every reason to move up long before now if it was in him. Simply not a credible argument to add the 1500 as a career after-thought for an 800 specialist.

A lot of people change focus during their career. He probably thinks he has a better chance to medal in the 1500 than 800. Which would explain the change and the 800 is a young man game.

All middle distance are. Elliott was winning Olympic gold at 22 at the distance - then his career was over; Snell won it at 25 and then basically retired. But now you think guys can naturally move up to the distance in their thirties, and run it as though they were ten years younger. This isn't the marathon. It's the usual story, though.

Armstronglivs wrote:

So why would at age 32 this be his first season focussing on the 1500? Is he losing it over the 800? I don't think so. He is no Rudisha or Kipketer - he had every reason to move up long before now if it was in him. Simply not a credible argument to add the 1500 as a career after-thought for an 800 specialist.

See the previous answer. He failed to reach the final of the 800m in London but came 7th in the 1500m. That's a pretty clear sign that it would be a good idea to move up. He wasn't even the best in Poland anymore (Adam Kszczot).

There are far more accredited-WADA labs in Europe than Africa, until 18 months ago there wasn't a single accredited lab on the entire continent of Africa. Lewandowski has been on the scene for ages as an elite 800m runner, that successfully made the step up in the last two years.

ex-runner wrote:

Great runs by Lewandowski and Musagala. Why can't we celebrate both?

Pretty sure that Musagala won the race an Lewandowski finished 10th.

Just as sure that had those positions been reversed we would not be including Musagala in this thread.

No racism here on Letsrun though

Preet Sure wrote:

ex-runner wrote:

Great runs by Lewandowski and Musagala. Why can't we celebrate both?

Pretty sure that Musagala won the race an Lewandowski finished 10th.

Just as sure that had those positions been reversed we would not be including Musagala in this thread.

No racism here on Letsrun though

This is very true. I wouldn't call it quite racism though.

I am interested in Lewandowski's performance from a European point of view, it's a big breakthrough and shows he can put the Norwegian's under pressure in real races.

I wasn't so interested in McSweyn for example.

However my point stands, if we are going to talk about Lewandowski and Musagala then both runs should be appreciated. Not just one