What a Day for Cam Levins: 3:54 Dominant Mile Win and then 30 Minutes Later He Takes Down Rupp in 2 Mile
by: LetsRun.com
January 31, 2015
What a day for Cam Levins. The Canadian 10,000m man first turned heads by winning the men’s mile by a crazy comfortable 2.5 seconds in a huge PB of 3:54.74.
He then came back half an hour later to win the men’s 2 mile in 8:15.38 and, perhaps more importantly, beat his training partner Galen Rupp for the first time.
Levins, like Galen Rupp and Mo Farah before him, has found another level of speed under coach Alberto Salazar. Recap of both races below, 2 mile first, with LRC commentary.
Levins capped his day off with what ended up being a comfortable win in the 2 mile
Men’s Two Mile: Cam Levins Pulls The Shocker
Talk about a shocker.
The men’s two mile was going exactly according to plan until the very end when suddenly Cam Levins went off script and pulled a stunner.
Coach Alberto Salazar had requested a 4:12 first mile for prize pupil Galen Rupp and that’s what he got from rabbit Trevor Dunbar. The next 800 meters (not yards) was a slightly faster 2:03.72 for Cam Levins, who had the lead when Dunbar stopped with 800 to go. Rupp then took the lead and peeled off laps of 30.44, 29.64 and 29.29. Despite the accelerating pace, Rupp wasn’t alone, but nearly everyone watching in the Armory and the live national television audience on NBCSN was expecting Rupp to power away to victory.
However, on the backstretch, first Levins and then Ben Blankenship and Suguru Osako went by Rupp.
No, your eyes weren’t deceiving you. The seemingly unthinkable was happening. Rupp was getting smoked on the last lap.
Rupp looked like the Rupp of most of his high school and college career, the man without a kick, as the Olympic silver medallist only managed a last lap of 29.61. Not anywhere close enough to match the final lap of 27.52 put up by his training partner Cam Levins, who won in 8:15.38. Japan’s Suguru Osako, who also is coached by Salazar, moved up late to edge Blankenship for second in a new Japanese record of 8:16.47 to Blankenship’s 8:16.53. Rupp was fourth in 8:17.24.
Quick Takes From 2 Mile: Impressive Double For Levins We already were going to praise Levins profusely for his win in the mile and his improving speed. Coming back to run well in the 2 mile just 30 minutes later is icing on the cake. This field outside of Rupp was not that strong but the way Levins won was impressive. His last mile of the 2 mile was sub-4:03, 30 minutes after he won the mile in 3:54. Nice day of work.
Galen no doubt a little surprised
Rupp Fans, It Is Not Time to Panic
Galen Rupp opened indoors last year with a 13:01 5000m. This year’s opener originally was going to be a possible world record attempt, then the pace got scaled back to 4:12, and then in the end Galen got beat by three other guys including two of his own training partners not named Mo Farah.
Can’t remember the last time Rupp ran a subpar race? Last year in his outdoor 5000m opener Galen ran 13:19 and got beat in a kick. Just two weeks later in his next race he ran an American record 26:44.36 and ended up as the best 10,000m man in the world in 2014. It is not time to panic.
2 Mile Results and then Mile Recap
| Place | Athlete | Time | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cam Levins Nike Oregon Project |
8:15.38 | ||||||
| 2 | Suguru Osako Nissin Foods |
8:16.47 | ||||||
| 3 | Ben Blankenship Nike OTC |
8:16.53 | ||||||
| 4 | Galen Rupp Nike Oregon Project |
8:17.24 | ||||||
| 5 | Lee Emanuel HOKA |
8:21.24 | ||||||
| 6 | Reed Connor Unattached |
8:27.87 | ||||||
| 7 | Andrew Springer NJ-NY TC |
8:42.88 | ||||||
| 8 | Chris Kwiatowski NB Pacers |
8:55.37 | ||||||
| DNF | Trevor Dunbar Nike |
Mile: Levins Wins Going Away in 3:54
Domination for Levins in the mile
Levins used a 54-second final 400 to win the men’s mile going away in 3:54.74 as the 10,000 meter Olympian handily beat Great Britain’s 3:52 miler Chris O’Hare, who was second in 3:57.26. Penn’s Thomas Awad was third in 4:00.20.
After an opening first half of 1:57, the pace slowed to 1209 (2:59.90) until Levins hit the accelerator. He ran his next-to-last lap in 27.70 and last lap in 27.14 to win going away.
Dominant victory by the Canadian, and he was just getting started on the day.
Quick Take #1: A very good result for Levins, who has a 27:27 10,000 pb.
Coach Alberto Salazar has become regarded as one of the world’s best coaches mainly because he’s found a way to make distance men like Mo Farah and Galen Rupp much faster. It looks like Levins is well on his way to developing lethal speed as this was a massive pb for him. His mile pb coming in was a modest 3:57.16.
Outdoors, his 1500 pb is 3:36.88 which equates to about 3:54.2 for the mile. For Levins to basically equal his lifetime best indoors off a very slow pace is clearly a very good result. Little did we know how much better the day would get.
Results of 1 Mile *Video of mile here
| Place | Athlete | Time | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cam Levins Nike Oregon Project |
3:54.74 | ||||||
| 2 | Chris O’Hare adidas |
3:57.26 | ||||||
| 3 | Thomas Awad University of Pennsylvania |
4:00.20 | ||||||
| 4 | Liam Boylan-Pett NJ-NY TC |
4:01.77 | ||||||
| 5 | Taylor Gilland Boston Sharks |
4:01.95 | ||||||
| 6 | Trevor Van Ackeren NJ-NY TC |
4:01.98 | ||||||
| 7 | John Coghlan NYAC/Nike |
4:02.73 | ||||||
| 8 | Chartt Miller Iona |
4:04.52 | ||||||
| 9 | Jesse Garn Binghamton |
4:05.86 | ||||||
| 10 | Christian Gonzalez NJ-NY TC |
4:08.25 | ||||||
| DNF | Shawn Roberts NJ-NY TC |
Discuss these races on our messageboards:
Armory Track Invite Live Official Thread
CAM LEVINS FINALLY BEATS RUPP!!!
What was Levins’ POST MEET WORKOUT?
BEN BLANKENSHIP FINALLY BEATS RUPP!!!
Relax – Rupp got beaten but it’s on January. Emperor will strike back