What if van Niekirk had ran a second lap after doing his 400m WR of 43.03??

WhatIf??? wrote:

So the world record set for the 400m is 43.03 set by Van Niekirk.

The 800m world record is 1:40.91 set by David Rudisha in 2012.

What would have happened had WVN decided to carry on running?

58 seconds to complete a second lap for someone of WVN ability seems pretty easy.

I know this is true of most WR looking like this, but the gap seems disproportionately big between 400 & 800 WR.

Niekirk makes it 100 more meters of jogging (maybe 200 with some luck) then collapses, throwing up everywhere.

Goes through 400 with easy, the next 100 with easy. 500 to 600 slow down a little bit more and become a lot more harder. But never the less he goes through 600 in a new world record. Than he slows down dramatically from 600 to 700. Than from 700 to 800 he is grinding it with everything he got. His form turns into a Salazar type shuffle, finishing in 1:43.

*had run

Dwightarm wrote:

*had run

Is this right?

Show your working.

Dwightarm wrote:

*had run

Seems unusual you would use present tense there.

You wouldn’t say “what if I had WATCH the half of that match”

Or “what if I had EAT more of them french fries”

GrammarPolice wrote:

Dwightarm wrote:

*had run

Seems unusual you would use present tense there.

You wouldn’t say “what if I had WATCH the half of that match”

Or “what if I had EAT more of them french fries”

Sorry meant to say:

You wouldn’t say “what if I had WATCH the second half of that match”

GrammarPolice wrote:

Dwightarm wrote:

*had run

Seems unusual you would use present tense there.

You wouldn’t say “what if I had WATCH the half of that match”

Or “what if I had EAT more of them french fries”

"Run" is both the simple present tense and the perfect past tense.

Run-ran-run.

I run

I ran

I have run

I think he'd definitely struggle, remember after he won the 2015 world champs he had to be stretchered off by medics:

https://www.scmp.com/sport/article/1852950/south-african-wayde-van-niekerk-runs-himself-ground-spring-400m-surprise-world

Had run.

Also, to the OP, how about you go out a run a 400 all out and hang on for 800 and report back.

It is the one standard event where speed degradation (but not decreasing effort) is part of running an optimal time. Rudisha ran his fastest times off of opening laps of 48.5-49.5. He was likely capable of a 44.xx open 400, but with more endurance than WVN. Slowing down by 4-5 seconds from one’s 400m best is proven to be a pretty good goal for 800m.

Now, if WVN went out in 47 and tried to hold that effort for a sub-53 last lap, it would be interesting.

GrammarPolice wrote:

GrammarPolice wrote:

Seems unusual you would use present tense there.

You wouldn’t say “what if I had WATCH the half of that match”

Or “what if I had EAT more of them french fries”

Sorry meant to say:

You wouldn’t say “what if I had WATCH the second half of that match”

You are on to something. The correct form for what we are looking at must be "had runned" .

After an all out 400m, in which you don’t know you have to run another until you hit the finishing line, I’d set the over / under at 90 seconds and I may take the over.

A max is just that.

Now, for the each second slower, I’d probably pop off ~5 seconds or so from the over / under until it’s a normalized split.

43/90 = 2:13

44/85 = 2:09

45/80 = 2:05

46/75 = 2:01

47/70 = 1:57

48/65 = 1:53

49/60 = 1:49

50/55 = 1:45 (max time if he happened to be extremely talented at 800m)

Occasionally we some idiot try to go out in 47 or 48 only to completely tie up. He would have run a 75 on the next lap.

WvN was hitting a wall the final 100m of his WR 400m race. WvN raced the final 100m slower than 12 seconds. Since WvN never ran mileage even like a low mileage 800m man, WvN never could have raced sub-75 600m on his sprint training program.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

Now, if WVN went out in 47 and tried to hold that effort for a sub-53 last lap, it would be interesting.

Amazing that every 400m WR holder could go sub 1:40 if they ever simply bothered to keep going for another lap. They wouldn't even need to do any different training. It just seems that no 400m WR holder since Juantorena has had the idea to keep going for another lap to see how easy breaking the 800m WR is. Even though a guy like WVN becoming a double 400/800m WR holder and/or double 400/800m Olympic champion would instantly put him into Usain Bolt territory and increase his profile and earnings 10 x, it's like they've just never thought of it.

If a 43 second world record holder could easily break the 800m world record (ie. run 1:40) does it follow that most 44 second 400m guys could run 1:42, and most 45 second 400m guys run sub 1:45 - without any 800m training?

Alberto Juantorena never held 400m world record. Juantorena did not add 800m due to a high level of confidence. Juantorena added 800m after he did not make 400m final in 1972 Olympics. If Juantorena were confident in his 400m ability, he never would have participated in his 400/800 hybrid training program.

For the record, I do not think there has been a 400m specialist who could have run faster than the current WR. I just said I would be more interested in seeing one athlete in particular run an 800m race with a 47 second first lap than I would see that same athlete open up in 43.

An American runner tried to break the world record for 800 and went out too hard for the first lap and nearly blacked out 550 meters in and had to stop.

It's something that cannot be attained no matter how hard someone tries. Their body would fail after running a first lap too hard, especially a 400 meter all out. The race won't even be finished.

Bettergrammarpolice wrote:

GrammarPolice wrote:

Seems unusual you would use present tense there.

You wouldn’t say “what if I had WATCH the half of that match”

Or “what if I had EAT more of them french fries”

"Run" is both the simple present tense and the perfect past tense.

Run-ran-run.

I run

I ran

I have run

Agreed. One of my pet peeves about LetsRun is runners who can't conjugate the verb "to run."