Stephen has the 5K at US Nationals in Eugene, OR tomorrow night. Looks like they won’t be televising it until 11 PM on the East Coast, so no one will see it. There are two things that could happen.
First, Bernard Lagat is the prohibitive favorite. In national championship races, particularly ones where one runner is the clear favorite, everyone tends to sit back and kick. The most likely scenario is that the race will go out in 4:32 as some poor schlep get stuck up front. Lagat will sit in 3rd and eventually blast everyone.
There’s another good American in the race – Chris Solinski. He is recovering from an injury – if he weren’t he might try to hammer a fast pace and suck the kick out of Lagat. But, with his injury, he has no motivation to do that. He has the time, he just needs to be top three. It’d be foolhardy for him to risk blowing up by running in the lead.
All of this is bad for Stephen, according to me. Stephen is in fantastic shape and this is an awesome field. Unfortunately, if the race is slow, it will be hard for anyone to know this. He could run great and come in 8th…and if the race is slow, it’ll be a slow 8th. No one will be any wiser, and the great opportunity will be lost. It’s very annoying.
Best case? One or more of the few guys that don’t yet have an A standard (13:19) decides that this is the right opportunity to try to get that standard. They go out in 4:16, then 8:32. Steve can run that pace, probably sitting two seconds back in 8:34. Then, close in 4:14, moderate kick home for 13:19. It’s within the realm of possibility, but that’s not how national championships work, and it’s a damn shame.
Solution: offer a $100 for the leader at each 200 meter point through the race. 200 meters is short enough that it won’t be like people are kicking for the bonus at the intermediate locations. It will encourage people to get up front and drive the train. If someone tries to take it through fast, they could get a consolution prize of $1500 or something even if they get eaten up at the end. And the USATF would only be paying $2500 total for the privelege of hosting an event that doesn’t feature our nation’s best runners jogging in front of the 900,000 idiots that waste their sleep seeing people run slowly for 3/4 of the race. They could make a graphic of the top 3 money getters in the race, and update it real time as the race progresses. It doesn’t need to convince everyone to race out front – anybody in a national championships field could pace the rest of them fast through 3000 meters. If three unattached guys decided to duke it out up front trying to cover some of their travel expenses, it would change the complexion of the entire race.
But they won’t do that.
Words 
Leave a Reply