Jonathon Riley - why not better progress??

Speed Kills wrote:

Alan Webb ran 3:53 in HS and 3:50 tree years later.

He now toys with the non-Lagat U.S. competition, has beaten Bernard Lagat, beats Kevin Sullivan regularly, and owns an American record at a distance that he may not have been the best at as a prep. All since high school.

The 3 second deal is an ignorant way of looking at Webb's progress.

ttc, you make a great point. I think in HS, Webb had a near perfect race when he ran 3:53. But if you put him in five races back then, his average performance would have been several seconds slower. Now, he's is a consistant 3:50 guy. Last year, he did it twice, and also ran the equivalent or faster 1500m time twice, and this year, he's run the equivalent 1500m time once + a 3:51 equivalent in his only two serious races at the distance. If he has a breakout race this year or next, as he did in Pre 2001, his pr would probably come down to 3:48 or maybe even 3:47 if it happened next year.

yes

Speed Kills wrote:

My understanding about Riley (other than he is a rather, uh, lets say "unique" individual) is that he was running as much as 130 mi/wk at Stanford.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. His room for improvement doesn't seem huge. What's he going to do training-wise? 150 miles? 180? Much was made about Gerry Lindgren running huge mileage in high school and setting the 5,000 record. Not much was made about how little he improved in college.

where do you morons come up with this? riley was doing nowhere near that. STOP FOCUSING ON MILEAGE!!!!! it means nothing.

Speed Kills wrote:

My understanding about Riley (other than he is a rather, uh, lets say "unique" individual) is that he was running as much as 130 mi/wk at Stanford.

Young Coach wrote:

Don Sage: Well lots of you may disagree with me but I believe he is a victim of doing too much volume, too much intense sessions at a young age, when athletes do that they either get injured or reach their limits fast. That's my opinion on what has been written about his training in high school.

I AGREE ! And the same for Mr. Steve Magness.

It also got him a free ride to college. If he went from 4:16 to 4:13, nobody would care.

cruzan wrote:

I AGREE ! And the same for Mr. Steve Magness.

rip van racer wrote:

It also got him a free ride to college. If he went from 4:16 to 4:13, nobody would care.

cruzan wrote:

I AGREE ! And the same for Mr. Steve Magness.

And that's the ethical dilemma you can face if you're the coach of a kid that has a certain amount of talent (some of which might not be known yet). Take the case of Steve Scott, who was a mediocre high school miler (4:15 PR in HS, which is barely fast enough to make the California state meet these days) back in the 70's, and because of it, ended up at UC Irvine instead of, say, Villanova. As a coach, you know that long term development is what matters, and you don't want to push him along too hard. But in these Title IX days, the scholarship opportunities aren't that great any more, and if he doesn't push "too hard" for his long term development, maybe he doesn't get a scholarship....and the world doesn't get to see Steve and his 130+ sub-4s.

It can be a difficult balance.

ummm UC Irvine had some talent besides Scott when he went there. It wasn't a humdum kind of place.