... but anyway, back to the thread at hand:
WE SHOULD NOT TALK ABOUT CRUZ BREAKING 4:00.
It’s a stupid pursuit. We put too much emphasis on breaking the magical 4:00 barrier in high school. It promotes an unhealthy obsession with times, rather than winning. And it creates a false sense of that “hey, if I’ve run a faster qualifying time than my competitor, then I’m bound to beat him.” That mentality never works in a tactical race, and once said athlete starts to lose to competitors with inferior qualifying times, then a sense of defeatism sets in.
Alan Webb = perfect example of this. Guy ran a 3:46 mile and yet only made one Olympic team (in a country that doesn’t have a really deep mid-D talent pool compared to Kenya and Ethiopia) and couldn’t even get out of the first round! He ran a great time trial but could not compete on the international stage with other similarly talented athletes.