The prediction thing is hard. I had Rupp just missing the record and he smashed the darn thing closing in around 2:01 and 4:03. He ran a 29 lap from like 800m to 600m to go which was crazy but then he really kinda started to tie up and couldn't quite hold that pace, but he wasn't far from sub 13. He is once again in absurdly fast shape indoors which is stunning to me because it is so far away from any major meets! It's January for goodness sake. So it will be interesting to watch his continued development.
It looked like a pretty grueling finish for Rupp who managed to make it to the line and out last old rival Sam Chelenga (who had a phenomenal day by the way) so now with not too much time to recover, the question becomes can he come back and do it again at 2 miles? I'd have to guess no but I've been wrong once ...
As for Cain I was a bit off on her time (and Rowbury didn't even race) but it was really cool to see a World Junior Record. If they had hyped up the race as a bid for that mark (as it most likely should have been hyped) then the race would have been much more exciting. The flotrack guys tend to live in a fantasy world sometimes with these record attempts, gotta just analyze the race as it progresses. Sure the pacing wasn't perfect but Cain is just not an all-time kind of performer yet. She is still just 17 years old and not the best runner in the US for women. She is a fantastic story with a lot of potential whose best even is in the 15-3k range I'd imagine. She made a world champ final and probably could run 4:02 outdoors. Those marks are great but not a resume that suggests anything like 2:34.
All the same I look forward to her chasing more world junior marks going forward! It's really cool to have an american distance runner making any sort of waves on world records. Even if they are just world junior records.
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