What people get wrong about Walmsley

It's true that not everyone will run the equivalent of a PR or even finish the race and that applies to our hero as well. Maybe he will run as fast as some people are predicting or he could crater. All we have to compare are track and road race resumes and Walmsley doesn't stack up well.

Both of you are exactly right. He may choke. Look, I'm not any superfan. I don't really follow this guy. I've just been checking out anything on anyone leading up to the Trials. Looked at the Luke Puskedra thread. I'm not really saying anything different from you that are sort of wishy-washy on this dude. What IS certain is that not everyone has the run of their lives. A couple guys will. There could be someone who really surprises everyone. And I don't see that being JW. It's just that some naysayers suggest that the finish order will be equivalents to the PRs or worse yet, their half PRs.

So let's say he bails out half way through. You know what, so will a couple of the 'other 30 guys'. Maybe this Luke character has a miracle. It's just that I suspect the 30 or 40 everyone lists will really be 20. That many will DNS, DNF, or just choke. One could be the darling of the daily thread. (Still don't know who is starting them.) It's just that anyone in that group who DOES come close to his potential will be top 15 or 20.

Walmsley fanboy wrote:

Everyone is predicting his marathon time based off his half marathon time, but this is not the right approach.

Most people go UP to the marathon from the half marathon, which is why people use half marathon times to predict full marathon times. But Jim is going DOWN from 50 to 100 mile races to these short races like the half marathon. Imagine being great at the 10K and going down to the 800m. Would you use the 800m time to predict that person's 5K time? Or would you use their 10K time? Would make way more sense to use their 10K time.

Jim is more likely to do better at the full marathon rather than the half. Using his 50 mile record, he has a predicted finish of 2:10:46 in the full marathon.

Good luck Jim.

It’s more like comparing a guy’s cross country 5k and his track 1600 to guess his track 3200. Except the cross country race was in sand so you can’t really make any comparison from it

When Walmsley is a bunch of minutes behind 3rd place I will spam the boards with Jim Walmsley threads. Just like Matt Carpenter coming to the roads with his high VO2max Jim will get trounced. If Jim could make the team he would be competing on the roads going forward. There is far more money there and he is not good enough to do that obviously.

After a few weeks training for the trials he believes he's in 2:10 shape...gtfo. Abdi ran 2:11 for top American at NYC several times and focused on it for many years. Made way more money than Jim will ever make and was far more talented in his youth. Can't wait to watch this race.

It would actually be like if the 10,000m guy ran a 2500 (I know, not an actual distance), would you base that persons 5,000 off of their 2,500 or their 10,000?

I’d use a combination of the 2 myself.

going to be a little cold wrote:

First, when using the pejoritive form of "fanboy" it should be spelled fanboi.

Second, the hills on the Atlanta course are worth 2:55. I don't think anybody will break 2:11.

But what about when one is using the pejorative form of fanboy? Any idea?

truth hertz wrote:

..."top" ultra runners like Fordyce trounce the weak fields that assemble in the ultra world. So they find more and more wonky "achievements" to chase. Sometimes that is a marathon, and non of them ever replicate their ultra "glory" in a real event.

Too bad the marathoners are too gutless to try and race 50 miles, 100k, or 100 miles or more. All those minor-league mary-boys suffering in anonymity could surely easily step up, win WS100, dominate the ultra world, make a living running and escape the anonymity of their 2:14 world. But no.

Gutlessness breeds jealousy, too.

are you okay wrote:

Fordyce's 21 year old record for the Comrades down course (5:24:07) was broken by two-time olympic marathoner Leonid Shvetsov (5:20:48), who set his marathon PB of 2:09:16 two months after he set his half-marathon PB of 1:03:19.

Don't know if he got popped, but Schvetsov was Eddie H's EPO connection back in the day (and probably a bunch of others)

bad analogy OP wrote:

It’s more like comparing a guy’s cross country 5k and his track 1600 to guess his track 3200. Except the cross country race was in sand so you can’t really make any comparison from it

Yes, I didn’t read the thread before responding... I like this one, too...

Wasn't Jim a 4:04 miler in college? He ran around 8:40 for the steeple. He has speed. Why are we acting like a 13.1 mile race is way beneath his range?

Sure, he's been purely running ultras since his college days, but let's not pretend that his half marathon was a shock to his system and deceptive in predicting a marathon time for him. It's probably as accurate of an indicator for him as it would be for anyone else in the field.

Actually if I remember correctly it was in an actual 50 mile race that it was run in terrible weather with tactics so he probably would have run faster if it was a time trial...

Think he also crossed the 50 mile point faster London to Brighton but doesn't count as point to point.

That was with regards to Fordyce post on gimmicky achievement. Quote didn't select!

I’m not a fanboy but I really got to like him after hearing the interview (his humility and knowledge of the sport) and realizing that his training is very much old school. He doesn’t have the engine that some of these other guys have but he’s trying to beat them using the back door sub-threshold approach. We all know that strength equals speed and the longer the race the more that becomes true. I really feel that while Walmsley is certainly not the most talented guy in the field his training is what will allow him to maximize his performance over 26.2. I would advocate that other elites try the same thing before concluding they are not high responders to that sort of training.

Every big marathon now we see guys who are working 9-5 and still running close to 2:10. Honestly if you're a full time athlete and not running 2:10 then you'd want to reevaluate your life. I expect 2:10 from Jim. Maybe not on this course but he should be in 2:10 shape. NO excuses.

Are any of these supposed Walmsley fanboys actual fans and not men or women sitting behind a computer screen in Hoka's corporate offices, making sure to get Hoka onto the LRC message boards 9 times a week?

Martians Attacking wrote:

Wasn't Jim a 4:04 miler in college? He ran around 8:40 for the steeple. He has speed. Why are we acting like a 13.1 mile race is way beneath his range?

Sure, he's been purely running ultras since his college days, but let's not pretend that his half marathon was a shock to his system and deceptive in predicting a marathon time for him. It's probably as accurate of an indicator for him as it would be for anyone else in the field.

He was a good college athlete. But he wasn't great. He was never in danger of winning a national championship and was never a top talent. He was probably the 20th best D1 distance runner in his senior class all things considered. That's really good. But the best of the best were far better than him.

I'm not American, or a Walmsley fanboy, buy I think a number of people are blinded by their prejudice against Walmsley. A quick Google search gives me the top American male times since 01 January 2018:

Rupp (2:06:07)

Korir (2:07:56)

Fauble (2:09:09)

Riley (2:10:36)

Mock (2:10:37)

Ward (2:10:45)

Stinson (2:10:53)

This gives me 3 x times below 2:10 in the last 2 years and then 4 x mid 2:10.

Looks like most people give Walmsley 2:10 -2:11 capability. How is that not competitive, and we get comments like "top 20 will be a good finish"? If everyone has a fairly good day living up to their capabilities, top 5 is not out of the question.

Only the tough wrote:

Too bad the marathoners are too gutless to try and race 50 miles, 100k, or 100 miles or more. All those minor-league mary-boys suffering in anonymity could surely easily step up, win WS100, dominate the ultra world, make a living running and escape the anonymity of their 2:14 world. But no.

Gutlessness breeds jealousy, too.

I don't know if it's gutlessness. It's more likely that most mentally stable people are just not interested in running for 5, 10, 15 hours at a time.