Emily Sisson is gunning for the American record in Chicago, while Conner Mantz looks to continue a BYU tradition
Plus catching up on scattered rambling, racing, and Internet crapola
Today, we* celebrate the staging of the third big-time international marathon in fifteen days, with the Berlin Marathon, the London Marathon, and today’s Chicago Marathon occurring on consecutive weekends. Thankfully, London will again become an April race starting six months from now. Not only does its covid-propelled presence in early autumn dilute the elite fields of other September through November events, but it also makes it harder for pundits with one foot planted in apathy and the other twisting around in vestigial fandom to keep up with '“important” events.
My comments on the Chicago Marathon, which starts at 7:30 U.S. Central Daylight Time, are below. First, a short selection other stuff germane to recent posts and happenings:
Aidan Cox ran 14:32.6 to win the Battle of the Border yesterday to edge his closest opponent by approximately 400 meters (race video; results).
Coming into the weekend, the fifth-fastest boys’ 5K cross-country time in Milesplit’s nationwide database was 14:32.1, with the leader at 14:20. Given that relatively few boys have ever run these kinds of times on accurately measured courses, I assumed that Cox’s 74-second margin of victory was unusual for such a fast performance, given that such performances reliably occur in the context of at least some competition.
Maybe that’s true, but in late August, a kid from Michigan also ran 14:32 and won by just shy of 103 seconds.
I didn’t mention this in yesterday’s post, but a week ago, Cox was soundly beaten on his own home course (15:29 to 15:32) by a junior named Byron Grevious from Phillps Exeter, a private school. Cox won’t have to face Grevious—the owner of an 8:22 indoor 3,000 meters who also beat Cox in a track 3,200 meters last spring—in any state or regional championship events, but prep-school kids also go to national championship meets like the team-first Garmin RunningLane races in early December and the Champs Sports series (the latest incarnation of the Kinney/Foot Locker/Eastbay hot corporate potato) focusing on individuals one week later. Last fall, Cox was seventh at the GarminLane race in 14:18, while Grevious was 32nd in 14:41.
I also didn’t mention this DyeStat profile of Cox, as I was unaware of it at the time. Cox grew seven inches from 5’ 6” to6’ 1”6’ 0.3” between last summer and the just-completed one. Not only did this result in some sore knees, but it means he’ll be 6’ 8” by the time he heads to the University of Virginia next August, which is when he will also turn 18. He will be built exactly like Reggie Miller, one of the skinniest Hall of Fame inductees in basketball history.
As New Hampshire Track and Field commentator Jim MacKenzie pointed out, the only New Hampshire boy to win a national Foot Locker title, Pinkerton Academy’s Matt Downin, did not go undefeated or even close to it in his otherwise magical regular season. In fact, he was beaten three times by the same runner from a neighboring town, Londonderry’s John Mortimer, who wound up second behind Downin at the national championships in San Diego. There was no Nike Cross Nationals series in those days, so everyone of note took part in the Foot Locker series.The London Marathon last Sunday saw seven women break 2:20 (results). The field had nine women with sub-2:20 personal bests, but it’s unusual to see a significant portion of the elite field run true to top form, or close.
The winning times of 2:04:39 and 2:17:26 seemed almost ho-hum given not just what happened in Berlin the week before but the overall state of world-class marathon running.The Chicago Marathon is today. Letsrun has a quick-hits preview here, an analysis of American Emily Sisson’s American record attempt here, and a look at the chances of Sisson and American marathon debutante Conner Mantz here.
Concerning Sisson, Jon Gault thinks she can go under Keira D’Amato’s 2:19:12 mark from January. I am too cheap at the moment to subscribe and read the whole piece, so I am assuming Gault is estimating Sisson’s marathon potential based on D’Amato running as fast as she did in Houston off a 1:07:57 half. Or maybe he thinks 1:07:11 by itself is indicative of a 2:19:12. I would call this borderline in the era of superflats and doable if Sisson is on EPO (more on this below). She’s an inexperienced marathoner compared to the kinds of runners who typically break records in the event.
Mantz is being assigned a mammoth upside by pundits for several reasons. One is that he has no real focus other than the marathon, which he seems supremely well suited for physically. He is a product of Brigham Young University, which produces overage athletes, yes, but is responsible for a decades-long string of smart, disciplined, and spectacularly well-prepared marathoners, at least male ones. You’ve all heard of Jared Ward, but some of you also know of Paul Cummings, Ed Eyestone, and Paul Pilkington.
Right now, Mantz is a 13:10/27:25/1:00:55 guy. That might make him capable of the 2:07:57 he’s after (Leonard Korir’s American record for a debut marathon). But I think he’s a race or two away from that. If he goes out in between 1:04:00 or 1:04:30, I think he’ll run 2:08:30 to 2:09:00. If he blows up, I don’t think he’ll run any slower than 2:11:30.
On Labor Day, D’Amato and Mantz won their respective divisions at the New Haven 20K, D’Amato in 1:04:29 and Mantz in 59:08. Sisson was second in the women’s race in 1:04:35. Dividing D’Amato’s New Haven time into her Houston time gives a result of 0.4632. If Mantz can run fast enough in Chicago to produce the same ratio or better, his time will be 2:07:39 or faster. Easy peasy!
The problem is that I don’t think Mantz is enjoying all the same advantages D’Amato is. This may prematurely compel him to leave the sport he loves for a planned career in engineering.
Sisson, on the other hand, has been around for a while and understands what it takes to break records. If she is chasing the record with utmost honor, more power to her. I think she’ll run 2:20:30-2:21:00 with a second-half fade partially offset by an improbable 5:10 final mile. If this happens, she’ll place in the top five.
After all, this appears to be the approximate strategy, The image below includes portions of two of the Letsrun preview pieces. If the part from Treacy about the 1:09:30 is true, then the part from Sisson about "merely" wanting to break 2:20 actually means, "If I do slow down in the second half, hopefully I still manage a 1:10:29 or faster."
I haven’t mentioned the race up front, which no Americans are likely to crash for very long, if at all. Instead, I will refer you to a Twitter thread (modified for non-users of the platform) by 2:09:09 marathoner and Roots Running member Noah Droddy. He’s expecting as many as ten American men to break 2:12. I’m guessing we’ll see half that many, but three of those will be sub-2:10 performances.
Anyway, the Chicago leaderboard is here.
Digression time: You can tell that Droddy hates Letsrun. A guy as thoughtful as he is would have no reason otherwise to refer anyone to coverage by Citius Mag, which openly supports doping, or Fast Women, which promotes the most reckless stupidity and worst Wokism-grifters imaginable.
I get why people despise the Letsrun message board, and I suspect someone very close to Droddy is responsible for the unhinged Letsrun Watch presence on Twitter and Reddit. I also rarely look at it, because the average poster there is unbelievably daft. This state of affairs has as much to do with the site owners themselves as the behavior of Wokish loons on Twitter has to do with Elon Musk personally, and it will continue for as long as people continue to breed humans whose primary function is typing things into Internet browser fields.
I was more sympathetic to "those boards suck" perspectives before the arrival of social media, when the only places people could dump on Letsrun were blogs or other message boards. Now that Twitter has revealed literally everyone alive to be as bad as any Letsrun poster when it comes to the level and style of anonymous discourse, I have no sympathy for anyone who whines about them. Also, I’m certain that chronic Letsrun bashers like Erin Strout use the Letsrun boards under pseudonyms to spread their venom; you can tell that so-called journalists are responsible for a lot of shitposting there, because even though Strout et al. are inept journalists, their grammar greatly outpaces that of a typical Letsrun drone.
(Social share photo of Emily Sisson by Getty Images.)