Lessons from a New World Record

I watched a bit of the iaaf Diamond league in Monaco earlier today. I consider myself particularly lucky not to have missed the extraordinary run by Sifan Hassan from the Netherlands that cumulated in a new Word Record for the Mile run.

You see the pace for the first 200 meters was absolutely dreadful, with the pacemaker going way too fast. She almost came to a complete stop when she realized no-one was making an attempt to keep up.

By the 800m mark a World record was absolutely out of the question, at least by most estimations. That was the same time however, that Sifan began to make her move.

She just kept powering through the laps and never looked back. An Ethiopian lady (whose name I've forgotten) tried to keep up with her but ended up paying dearly for it by fading badly and not even making the top 5. You see, Sifan has already established her speed and stamina by being a World class competitor in both the 800m and Marathon races.

Sifan won the race by almost 50 meters and set a new World record In the process.

A lot of lessons come to mind from the race. The most obvious will be about determination on the part of Sifan. What we cannot ignore though is the level of preparation and sacrifice she's paid to etch her name in history.

For the Ethiopian lady, she probably would have finished second if she didn't try to match Sifan, knowing her own limits. To this I say we should run our own races, cause the best competition is a competition with nobody.

I doff my hat to Sifan.