Do you have faith in Faith?

Will she break 4?

No, Her PR for the 800 is 1:57.68, which would imply a mile time around 4:04-4:05. I’ll be generous and say she gets just under 4:03.

I tried swallowing my doubt and turning it inside out, but… nope, I find nothing but faith in nothing. :man_shrugging:

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i don’t think she has a realistic shot, no. i admire her for throwing it out there. as noted above, she lacks the underlying speed in the 800 and she has been training like a world’s best person for a while in a time of already made significant gains.

i disagree with @Ted_Hoffman 's projection based on her 800. too optimistic. a 157 runner is not close to running a 404 IMO (although she is not an average person). I think you need to find someone who can be sub 155 to have a chance at it.

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I find your lack of faith disturbing.

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I’m going on the assumption that she hasn’t run the 800 for a PR since she set it in 2020, so if she tried it now she’d run sub-1:57. But I don’t know that she’s going from high 1:57 to low 1:54, which is probably where she needs to have a PR to make 4:00 for the mile realistic.

The other notable thing: her world record for the mile is 4:07.64. Her 2nd best competitive mark is 4:16.71, she doesn’t have another mark under 4:18. Sure, the mile is not frequently run, but that was a massive drop on the PR on top of being a nearly 5-second drop on the WR. Even with pace runners and whatever new age energy-efficient shoe Nike has, dropping over 7 seconds is asking a hell of a lot.

I’m all out of faith.

This is how I feel.

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Are you cold and shamed?

I mean, wouldn’t you be if you were lying naked on the floor?

The reason this thread was created: so CS could post this.

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Maybe Nike needs to have ultra-springy shoes for this that provide extra forward momentum. Maybe even just put a fan behind the runner so they’re always getting pushed regardless of where they are on the track.

She was 5 seconds under her WR split at 1000m. One heck of an effort, really left it all out there.

bump

wr in the 1500m. 348 and change. so, ~405 for a mile or so. the mens record was 4:04.6 in 1942 and bannister went sub-4 in 1954. the war era certainly delayed the progression.

she’s awesome and the best woman in the distance for sure right now. i give her credit for the big goal and saying it. i just don’t expect it to happen in her career

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We live in a pretty amazing time for track. The 1500 and 5k yesterday might not have had the most competitive finishes but were great to watch. (And off topic, but the finish to the men’s mile was crazy)

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i have friends who are still close to the competitive world. the shoes are one thing. the track surfaces continue to improve some. but the training and the science behind that and recovery are way better.

Like, old times if the planned workout was 8 x 400m at some set pace with fixed recovery time between intervals, they were doing “more” and “better” if they went faster and skimped some on rest. but that overtraining can have bad impact. the elite runners are tracking lactic acid buildup and recovery to optimize the training and it doesn’t mean “more and faster all the time.”

and on lactic acid - mid distance (a wicked lactic heavy range) runners are ingesting “bicarbonate” right before races. (essentially a baking soda cocktail) it holds off lactic buildup some. If it improves performace (on average) 2%, that’s 2 seconds to a mens 800m at world class level. so that feeds the compression of “shit, everyone is running so fast.” and for some the gain could be only 1%, for other 3%.

add it all up and people are running some crazy fast times overall. not just one guy but half the field is bonkers fast