The Running Thread --2025

[PrincessV]

Faith Kipyegon's sub-4 mile attempt is tomorrow at 1:15 ET! If you're looking for something to watch tonight, Amazon Prime has a really interesting sort of documentary that talks about her background (did you know she won the World Cross junior championship in 2011 with no shoes? ), the tech Nike's been working on, the work they've done on the pacing formation, and her season so far. I enjoyed it.

I don't know if there's a woman competing today who can run a sub-4 mile. But if anyone can do it, it's her.

I watched episode 1 yesterday - it was great. I have some concerns about the emphasis on time vs race strategy lately, and I doubt she’s going to break 4:00, but Faith seems to be excited about this, so I’m excited for her and I’ll watch!

Also, for my fellow ultra fans, Western States is this weekend. It’ll be live streamed on WSER’s YouTube channel.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

I feel like there’s no way she does it (although I think she’ll run faster than her current record)

Logically I think you're probably right, especially after the 1000m WR attempts this spring. But for the next slightly-less-than-24 hours, I'll have a little Faith.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Tangential to amazing feats in running (see what I did there?)

The Dead Cow Gully backyard ultra just finished up at 119hrs with the finisher, Phil Gore, completing 798km. That's.....that's ridiculous.

 

[garneska]

Sounds like a triathlete in the making to me

Well it is less running and more cross training as the medical professionals will recommend.

 

[Zutroy]

I feel like there’s no way she does it (although I think she’ll run faster than her current record), and then the media will be stupid and talk about her “failed attempt” that non-runners won’t understand is in no way a failure.

I am enjoying the spectacle of it all though.

She missed it by 6.42 seconds. Honestly, I think stopping for all the character photos is what cost her the sub-4 mile.

 

[nancipants]

What an exciting race. Bummer she didn't get it, but she said she's going to keep trying. It was nice seeing Grant Fisher as one of her pacers!

Those lights seemed way off to me. She was always in the green. Seemed like they were calibrated for her world record and not the sub-4.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Those lights seemed way off to me. She was always in the green. Seemed like they were calibrated for her world record and not the sub-4.

There was a set of lights for the sub-4 and another set for her WR. I think they made one green and one yellow, so it was hard to tell them apart.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

(But to be clear, the front of the lights is where the mark is, so being in the middle of the lights still means you're behind the pace.)

 

[Professor_Cookie]

Where are you?

yep, PC, UT

Park City, Utah! Home of the Greatest Snow on Earth.

 

[Abg1960]

What would my pace need to be in the marathon to do the rides offered and not get swept?

 

[Herding_Cats]

What would my pace need to be in the marathon to do the rides offered and not get swept?

this is a really big "it depends" question. I think a rough estimate would be at least an hour ahead of the balloon ladies. But also, if you run "too fast" you'll be through AK before it opens, and therefore not be able to ride anything.

We are definitely anticipating some course changes based on the current construction around Epcot, MK, and AK, but we don't know at this point how much that would impact the course or what sort of re-routing they may do.

Are you starting in a POT corral? A non-POT corral? Just because you put in the fastest non-POT pace doesn't guarantee you'll be in the first non-POT corral (D for the marathon.) The difference between starting in A corral and E corral is around 30min. That's nearly 2min/mi difference for pace with AK being just past mile 15.

What are the lines like at the rides? Sometimes they open single-rider for runners, and sometimes they don't. Some rides have very long pre-ride "shows" and you need to be able to dedicate quite a bit of time if you wanted to double up on RnR and ToT (as an example.) Every time I've run past EE it has a posted wait time of 30min.

This past MW they were NOT allowing runners on EE when I went past even though we were 45min ahead of the balloon ladies at that point.

If you stick around until the end of December, we do a big pdf doc with all of the things race-weekend related for the Dis'ers who want to participate, INCLUDING a gigantic spreadsheet of landmarks based on your anticipated actual pace, to help give an idea of when you'd pass certain things and help time out rides, on-course food/bev stops, or meeting spectators.