I know there has been a lot of talk about Steve Spence's 43year sub-5 streak potentially coming to an end this year, but one of our employees revealed this morning on our weekly all-staff conference call that he has his own streak.
Steve Soprano, aka Employee 1.1, has gone sub-5 every year since his freshman year of HS in 2003. Now 32 and with a 3 yr old boy at home, his running has really taken a hit this year. He said he realized in the fall he hadn't gone sub-5 this year and decided he needed to try to do it. However, he's barely been running.
He estimates he's run 8 times in October, 8-12 times in November and 7 times this month. But he's going for sub-5 tonight. He lives in the Albany, NY area and is apparently going to try it indoors in the convention center where he measured off a mile with a wheel. His mile PB is 4:26. 5000 pb is 15:03, 10,000 is 31:02, half-marathon 67:53 and marathon 2:26:43. His last sub-5 was a 4:38 indoor mile at BU in February of 2018.
Morality Police - We Need A Ruling
He did reveal however that he's trying it today because he's thinking he'll probably come up short and then that will leave him one more day to do it, possibly on a treadmill at 0% incline or downhill on a road mile.
Do you guys think those are legit options? In the era of the Vaporflys, can on really argue that a treadmill at 0% is cheating? RW says that the wind resistance causes one to add "5 percent to the total energy cost" of running and isn't that pretty much what the Vaporfly's do as well? So instead of buying him a pair of $250 vaporflys, we save the cash and allow him to try it on a treadmill.
And given all of the qualifiers coming from CIM, can we really ding him for a downhill mile, particularly if he doesn't have the Vaporflys?
Lastly, anyone in the area that can live stream this for us?
Employee 1.1's 17 year sub-5 streak is on the line. Can he break 5 today at age 32 with almost zero training?
Report Thread
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No, he needs to do it on firm ground. Anything else is cheating.
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The LRC anti-vaporfly crusade continues with passive-aggressive allegations of cheating by VF-nation. Will 2020 be the year they quit going out of their way to make this a story and get my favorite shoes banned?
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how much have you drank already this morning?
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Will not count if done on a treadmill.
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It looks to be above freezing in Albany right now. Measure a mile on the SUNY campus perimeter road, or do it on an outdoor track. Get it done, Steve!
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A treadmill does not count. A slightly downhill road mile is okay but a looped course or track is really what a streak is all about.
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Treadmill definitely does not count.
Downhill road mile doesn't really count, but that's up to his conscience. I wouldn't count it if I were him.
Question: Are any of his other sub-5's questionable like this? If one of his other results that kept the streak going are like this, then these would be okay. The streak is the streak, and it's his streak, so he makes the rules. -
I live right across from the ualbany campus, there are plenty of stretches of road and the track looks clear!! If he fails today, if he wanted to do it near the campus I would try to live stream it
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Predictor wrote:
A treadmill does not count. A slightly downhill road mile is okay but a looped course or track is really what a streak is all about.
Treadmill is harder than a downhill road mile by a longshot.
I think it's only fair if it's a treadmill with a 1.5% incline or flat road mile/track mile. -
Can someone pace him on a track?
I think an outdoor track with spikes would be the easiest method, especially with a pacer. Easier than a treadmill, maybe. Definitely easier than the convention center. -
pacer wrote:
Can someone pace him on a track?
I think an outdoor track with spikes would be the easiest method, especially with a pacer. Easier than a treadmill, maybe. Definitely easier than the convention center.
this. weather has been good in new york. no excuses. do outside on a properly measured track. with video. -
It only counts if it's on an actual track. The tracks in Monaco and Stanford are not options however.
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To keep the streak going by doing it on a treadmill would be akin to Dave McGivary's(sp?) "streak" of 40+ years of running the Boston Marathon. Even though he does it after the race is officially over and in 2013 continued his "streak" by running the course about two weeks after the race, he still counts it.
I'd be okay counting a slight downhill course, but loop would be better if it's on the road.
Good luck!! -
Steve here. Rojo asked me to post what my training has been to give some more context for anyone who is curious.
I haven't been doing any "real" training since the first half of 2018. I had a non-running related surgery in June 2018 and then just never got back into it after that. So my last real workout would be from before that. I had a handful of decent runs in August, but in September through November I've barely run (probably less than 10 times a month except for maybe November) and a lot of these "runs" have been 1 to 3 miles. My longest run since August is 36 minutes. No workouts, no strides. Here is December:
December 1-5: OFF
Dec. 6: ~300m jog
Dec. 7-13: OFF
Dec. 14: 30min
Dec. 15: 15min
Dec. 16: OFF
Dec. 17: 30min
Dec. 18: OFF
Dec. 19: 33min
Dec. 20-23: OFF
Dec. 24: 36 minutes w/ 2 strides
Dec. 25-28: OFF
Dec. 29: 2x400m workout on the road just to see if I could actually run 5minute pace (~4 miles total)
Dec. 30: Sub-5 mile???
To answer a few of the questions, I was planning on doing a flat road course, but then saw the weather today was terrible with 30s and rain. So I decided to do it at the local civic center which is about 6 laps to mile (I wheeled out the exact distance). I do have a friend that is going to help pace me and I'll ask my wife to film it with my phone, but I have no idea how to set up a live stream. (I assume I could figure it out, but since this is last minute, I don't think I'll have time. Sorry to the handful of you who might have watched.)
Rojo I appreciate you trying to rationalize it for me, but to be clear, I 100% do not consider treadmill with 0% incline or a downhill course to be legitimate. So if I miss it today, my legitimate streak will end and I'll cheat tomorrow with the treadmill or a downhill course and start a "illegitimate streak" I guess. All the years have fair up to this point with sub-5s on the track or flat course. (Although one year in college is technically undocumented since I lost my logs and didn't race in the spring... this is just for me anyway, I'm not planning on submitting this to Guiness haha.)
Anyway, thanks for your interest and support! I have no idea what to expect, but I'm hoping that I have enough left over from 15ish years of real training to power me through. I haven't gotten fat yet, so that will hopefully help.
PS - I will not be wearing the Vaporflys so even if World Athletics bans them, my streak will not be tarnished. ;)
Edit: Rojo's thread title says tonight, but I'm going this afternoon. Meeting there at 3PM ET, so probably will start by 3:45PM. -
I think that 300m jog on Dec 6th should make all the difference. You'll do it no problem.
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Heck yeah you should. Because just like most of your opinions, no one cares about a 32 year old break 5 in the mile.
Let him do it on a bike or in a car, still no one will care. Keep banging the drum about shoes and being the old guy scream at clouds.
I repeat no one cares about this. You are, as always, annoying. -
But then he only took 6 days to recover. No way this happens.
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Steve,
Thanks for writing in . I knew you didn't consider a treadmill to be legitimate but just wanted to post it to get the vaporfly people all bothered up.
If I were you, I'd be torn between indoors and out. Outdoors sounds better since we have confirmation that the track is clear but I used to hate having my legs be cold at all. And would wear tights in like 45 degree weather for track workouts.
But the live stream is easy. 1) You have a fan offering to do it for you for free. Maybe throw in an autograph session afterwards.
2) Just log into the letsrun twitter on the phone, hit the compose tweet (+) sign in lower right hand corner, then click on teh camera icon in lower left corner and then click on live in lower right hand corner . THen you are all set. All you have to do is hit "Go Live."
I'm just not sure how we set it up for PPV like flotrack. I've got a call into them about proper pricing. Since it's one off and not recurring, we'll need to charge more - maybe like $50. -
Good luck. I have a streak of my own, 46 years straight of not running a sub 5 mile. Getting easier with age :)
