Yes, it's been a while since I've been on the blog. Just got lazy and busy.
I wanted to take a minute to raise a point about the comparison between Verzbicas' sub 4 high mile and Alan Webb. Not to take anything away from an 18 year old kid who can break 4 minutes but my son Greg pointed me to several posts on Running2win.com. I did not know that Verzbicas was home schooled and was personally coached for years. He never actually ran for a high school team and only ran in hand picked high level championship caliber events. By contrast, Webb went to a public high school, ran on a team and also ran multiple events per meet including relays. The same cannot be said for Verzbicas. So to me this raises an interesting question; who is the better runner and whose performances can best be judged against other high school runners given the schedules, team participation and events run? Again, I don't wish to demean anything Verzbicas has accomplished but given these parameters, my money is on Webb.
2 comments:
Good post! But, Verzbikas has run some amazing multiple event races. Indoors this year, he ran low 14s for 5,000 meters, and the then won the mile and 2 mile an hour or two apart in something like 8:40s, and 4:11 or so. Not bad!
But, you are right..Webb ran 3:53 in high school, although ironically, that was in the Prefontaine Classic with professional runners, not in a high school meet. At least Luke's sub-4 was all high schoolers. Plus, he has been focusing on the triathlon, not running, so far.
A friend of mine (a former runner, now avid walker) read this post, and commented to me that he thought Webb was better at the mile, but Verzbicas was definitely better in the longer distances. I tend to agree as Webb seemed to specialize in the mile, and just occasionally appeared in a 2-mile or a cross country race.
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