Hello MileSplit Nation,
I know many of you are really dialed into the high school side of track and field and, for some of you, the collegiate side of the sport as well. But it might be a different story when it comes to professional track and field.
Do you feel like you know what's going on in professional track and field? Do you watch any professional track meets? Could you name a current professional track athlete if you were put on the spot? Do you feel like it is somewhat difficult to follow the pro side of the sport? Do you know who Grant Fisher is, for example? Or Sha'Carri Richardson?
If you feel like you might be interested and don't know where to start or where to look, you're not alone. And that's also normal! It can be a bit of a puzzle. I personally like to think I follow the sport really closely, but even I wake up on some mornings to find out there was like a USATF 17k road championship in like Iowa, and I only find out from scrolling Twitter.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Alex Predhome and I'm beginning what will be a column breaking down some professional track and field meets, discussing who is in the fields of big meets and sharing some racing analysis and insights to hopefully demystify some things. A quick little bit about me is that I'm personally a distance guy. In high school (in the caveman era where we didn't have super shoes), I started out in the 1600 and 3200 with an occasional 4x800m, then migrated to the 5k and 10k, and nowadays I primarily run half marathons and marathons. I have a 15:03 5k, 68:20 half, and 2:27 marathon to my name. That said, I love watching all sorts of competition on the track and in the field.
Now I can't promise that I'll solve every issue with finding and watching these meets, as the sport is still in a bit of a scattered place. Unfortunately, that one is above my pay grade. But I think that we could together get a better idea of how to understand the big races by dissecting on the Diamond League circuit, a few other key meets, and big championships during the year. We'll learn how these professionals race and hopefully have some fun along the way.
With that in mind, feel free to keep an eye out for my first column where we analyze the first diamond league meet. We'll call it "Reaction Time."
See you then,
Alex
Hello MileSplit Nation,
I know many of you are really dialed into the high school side of track and field and, for some of you, the collegiate side of the sport as well. But it might be a different story when it comes to professional track and field.
Do you feel like you know what's going on in professional track and field? Do you watch any professional track meets? Could you name a current professional track athlete if you were put on the spot? Do you feel like it is somewhat difficult to follow the pro side of the sport? Do you know who Grant Fisher is, for example? Or Sha'Carri Richardson?