A pair of stray morsels of putative interest to scamper-happy minds
Sinead Diver is a rare example of a lady who really can hang with her male peers
First, my nephew Hayden is racing a 1,500 meters today at the Trinity Invitational in Connecticut. The meet starts at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, with Hayden slated to run at 12:40 p.m. or so. Live results of the meet can be found here, and a video stream should appear here.
This will be Hayden’s first 1,500 meters since breaking two minutes for 800 meters and his third overall the outdoor season, the first two having been in typically dismal early-spring New England conditions.
Hayden is a stronger half-miler than miler at the moment and will perhaps prove constitutively better even as he matures. Were this arrangement reversed, he'd have a real shot at breaking four minutes (for example, Shannon Rowbury's stat line includes 1:59.97 and 3:56.29; Jenny Simpson’s, 2:00.45 and 3:57.22). But even allowing for the limited breadth of his present-day wheelhouse, Hayden should be able to run as fast as 4:12.
Also, below are the Boston Marathon results for the male 40-to-44 and 45-to-49 age groups.
In December, 45-year-old Sinead Diver ran 2:21:34 at the Valencia Marathon. No matter how much faster that course is than Boston’s was this year, the difference can't be more than a few minutes.
Perhaps Boston didn't draw the best male masters marathoners in the world in 2023-Sara Hall, who turned 40 two days before the race, beat all but three men over 40 despite having an off day and running 2:25:48— but Fernando Cabada broke 2:12 twice as a younger guy, and it's still the Boston Marathon.
Does anyone think that Diver, training between the ages of 25 and 35 the way she did from age 35 to age 45, couldn't have run faster than Paula Radcliffe, whose 2:15:25 in 2003 still makes her the only Eurppean-born woman to have run under 2:19:19? Hell, Radcliffe herself is still “only” 49.
If you think Diver could not have run faster than Radcliffe, well, why not? I realize this chick is gobbling down and injecting whatever drugs she can take possession of, she's still a hell of a talent because no serious person thinks Radcliffe herself was anything besides a lanky vessel of royally boosted blood in her prime.
Perhaps we should celebrate the slightly slower yet remarkable athletes these women could have been, rather than the incredibly fast ones they instead became.