Chris Solinsky: "I Believe That I Was in Shape to Run Sub-7:30, Sub-12:50, and Probably Somewhere In The 26:40/26:30 Range"

“If you were the inventors of Facebook you would have invented Facebook.”

-Mark Z

I think Solinsky is one of the few people who maxed out their career. I think Ritz, Rupp, Hall, Webb, GF, etc left more on the table as far as PRs. Solinsky squeezed every bit of juice out.

Coevett wrote:

If memory serves me right :

John Walker 3:47 (without injury problems starting 76)

Steve Ovett 3:27 1500 (if he hadn't 'disliked the clock')

Seb Coe 3:27 1500m (Stockholm.81 Robinson)

Steve Cram 3:28/ 3:44 (1985)

I only know these because I've read a lot of interviews with those guys or seen it quoted here. I guess nearly all runners have thought they could have gone faster.

Of course, the guys who set the crazy times like El G and Bekele had a strange ability to avoid injury.

I think just about everyone says I hope I have another couple seconds in me when asked. Plenty of people have gone" I am training much better than when I set my PR so hopefully I can improve". Or the pace was a bit uneven so maybe another second there. For a guy who had 1 year as a world class runner (i.e. he was a 13:12+ guy the rest of his career) it is easy to imagine that after that big breakthrough there were still a few more seconds. He never had a chance.

The amazing part to me about Rupp is how he showed up every year for a decade. Compare that to Webb, Ritz, Solinksy, Wheating, Fernadnez (anyone else think after that 3:34 he was going low 13's the next year) and the hoards of other guys who had one or two great years and then broke down. I always assume that some of it is that guys needed to get lucky for those break through years AND a lot of times after those years people decide that they need to do more (did 90mpw last year. Lets do 110 this year) .

sprint fast wrote:

His excuse is that they are barely putting anything into distance while Florida State is.

There is plenty of money into the distance program at Florida. In-state tuition is extremely low. Solinsky should be able to capitalize on his "fame" seeing as letsrun dedicated a week to his 26:59. This was his 3rd year at Florida and his results are significantly worse than the previous coach (who was fired).

"anecdotally"

WinnytheBish wrote:

Mr. Oakley wrote:

I agree his 2010 looked suspicious. He leaned down for no apparent reason and improved a lot..

What does "no apparent reason" even mean? haha

Is this poster serious? The reason you would lean down is because you wanted to lose weight. Maybe his training was better than ever. Do you know how weight works? Are you an idiot?

When did he visit Dr Brown?

In my opinion, Chris S. is one of the greatest American distance runners ever. His range of PR's is amazing. That being said to say that he "Could of" run sub 7:30, sub 12:50, and sub 26:50 is a HUGE reach. The hamstring issue is not an excuse, it's part of the training and unfortunately, his body could not endure and or withstand the intense work needed to achieve those goals. To say "If" is another way of saying "I couldn't". To sit back now and say "Oh yeah, I was fit and ready to run these times" is too easy when sitting on the couch 20 years later. Mentally you're always ready but physically is another story. The time improvement for each of those events Chris alludes to is exponentially more difficult. Running 12:55 is a hundred times more difficult than running sub 13:00, running sub 12:50 is a thousand times more difficult than running 12:55 and so on. It's too bad he never made an Olympic team, he deserved it.

good runner but wrote:

Castro Castro Castro wrote:

Any runner can say they could have ran faster than their PRs. What you do matters. What you say is irrelevant. Injuries are part of being an athlete. I know he was answering a question but just giving some perspective.

I agree he could of just said yeah I think I could of lowered my personal bests had I been healthy and left it at that. To say sub 12:50? and 26:30s? My goodness that comes across as very disingenuous to just how fast those times are. Its a very millennial thing to do. I’m a millennial myself and stuff like this is why old timers dislike us so much.

The dude ran 12:55, I don't think 5 seconds is that crazy to him.

This is Jim Kiler wrote:

"anecdotally"

Not anecdotally. One of my friends interviewed for the job.

There's a handful of internationals on the team, they aren't flying across the globe to pay full tuition.

kid from PA wrote:

good runner but wrote:

I agree he could of just said yeah I think I could of lowered my personal bests had I been healthy and left it at that. To say sub 12:50? and 26:30s? My goodness that comes across as very disingenuous to just how fast those times are. Its a very millennial thing to do. I’m a millennial myself and stuff like this is why old timers dislike us so much.

The dude ran 12:55, I don't think 5 seconds is that crazy to him.

That’s like saying Bekele should easily have been able to run 12:32. After all, with a 12:37, 5 seconds should have been even LESS to him than it was to Solinsky according to that logic.

Solinsky had nothing remotely close to a 7:30, 12:50, and a 26:40 in him.

This is what I was just saying a few days back. He closed a 5000m race in 7:37 and the weather was, I assume, not ideal in a summer trials race. That alone indicates the potential for sub 7:30 at the time. Or again, Bob Kennedy ran the AR 12:58 and his 3000m AR was 7:30. Galen Rupp ran 12:58 in the 5000m as his pr and ran 7:30 indoors in the 3000m. Solinsky ran 12:55 and 12:56 a total of three times, so clearly he was in shape to beat 7:30. Moreover, those 12:55-56 races were not run with optimal pace. Those same guys he was contending with went on to run that 12:46-50 race in Paris in 2012. He also let himself get pushed out of one of them by Merga when it looked like he might have run even faster in the 5000m, more like 12:53, which was Lagat's AR. In the 10000m, he ran 26:59 with 1:56 close, 4 seconds faster in the close than the great last two laps of Ritz's legendary 5000m AR before that. So, Solinsky was ready to go 1/2-1 second per lap faster for the 10000m, putting him in the 26:30s or 26:40s.

Castro Castro Castro wrote:

Any runner can say they could have ran faster than their PRs. What you do matters. What you say is irrelevant. Injuries are part of being an athlete. I know he was answering a question but just giving some perspective.

This is a great point and one so easy to overlook.

How many times do you similarly hear "she/he is super talented but doesn't have the head for it". Well it may be true but mental aptitude etc is a massive component of talent so perhaps not so "super" talented after all.

Same in this case you pointed out. In theory it is possible to treat every key workout as a race and point to it and say "based on my training I could have xxxx". Injuries happen when you overload your bodies ability to adequately recover from training so we can safely say Solinsky simply wasn't good enough to recover from the workouts needed to run the times he listed. Therefore he actually wasn't capable of those times at all. He was capable of hitting workout splits that would suggest that potential - that's all.

Hey I'm not bashing the guy - what he achieved was incredible. He is the most surprising world class runner of my lifetime but lets keep things a little real and not over-sensationalize this like everything else seems to be over-sensationalized in the world these days. Chris Solinksy ran what he was capable of - I think he absolutely realized his potential and that's pretty awesome to say that about oneself.

If he coulda and he shoulda then he woulda.

Nice logic, unfortunately, it doesn't work that way when you're running at maximum effort. 1/2-1 second here and there sounds easy......from the couch. Other posts mention pacing, weather, and being pushed. Those are all part of racing. As frustrating as it is its part of racing and running fast.