Joan Nesbit Mabe nails 1500 American outdoor record
At the same Duke meet where John Hinton lowered the M45 world record at 1500, Olympian Joan Nesbit Mabe did the same for the W45 American record at 1500, fellow middle-distancer Lesley Chaplin-Swann points out. Joan ran 4:43.21 to smash the listed AR of 4:46.00 by Carmen Ayala-Troncoso in June 2006. Joan’s 1500 time is roughly equivalent to a 5-minute mile. The listed W45 AR for the mile is 5:07.76. The world record for the 1500 is wayyyyy out there, though: 4:05.44 by Russia’s Yekatarina Podkopayeva in 1998. (It’s so extreme that her times were banished from calculations of the most recent Age-Graded Tables.)
Joan, a poet as well as a runner, wrote about her new record on her runningland blog:
After hanging on to questionable fitness since January, I managed to box my way out of a paper bag last night at the Duke Twilight meet to break a US age group record in the 1,500m. I ran 4:43 . . . still not a sub-5:00 mile (which was my “radical” goal this year – ha! how odd that is to actually write down – radical goal – when I used to run mile repeats between 4:50 and 5:00).
Anyway, after the race an “old guy” friend of my said the most sensible thing: “Just think, Joan, you won’t have to hurt like that for another five years – when you turn 50!” Indeed.
Does anyone remember the Mike Myers character on Saturday Night Live named Deiter? At the end of his faux-European talk show, Sprockets, he would look at the camera and announce, “And now it is time on Sprockets when we dance,” then launch into hilarious gyrations. Well, now it is time on Nesbits when I dance.
Here’s the Duke 1500:
Event 5 Women 1500 Meter Run
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NCAA REG: R 4:27.80
Name Year School Finals
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1 Nicole Schappert Wake Forest 4:27.30R
2 Allie Kieffer Wake Forest 4:27.44R
3 Rebecca Ward William & Mary 4:32.85
4 Georgia Davis NC State 4:35.38
5 Meghan Burns William & Mary 4:38.67
6 Meghan Gaffney Appalachian St 4:39.38
7 Kristina Roth NC State 4:40.99
8 Jessie Yester NC State 4:41.13
9 Patricia Loughlin Duke 4:42.04
10 Joan Nesbit Mabe Carrboro AC 4:43.21
11 Keely Murphy William & Mary 4:43.56
12 Deanna Kulesz Western Carolina 4:43.81
13 Tara Connor Radford 4:47.35
14 Molly Lehman Duke 4:48.09
15 Kara McKenna NC State 4:50.08
16 Kati Albright Unattached 4:52.28
17 Jess Weber UNC Greensboro 4:52.59
18 Emily Sherrard Duke 4:54.41
19 Karin Ohman William & Mary 4:55.10
20 Anna Farias-Eisner Unattached 4:57.06
21 Aisha Brown NC Central 5:07.00
22 Desinia Johnson NC Central 5:11.66
– Michelle Sikes Wake Forest DNF
– Katie Doswell Unattached DNF
Related posts:
- Nolan Shaheed nails M60 American mile record at Portland
- Carol Young nails her W70 American record in hammer at Berea
- Alisa Harvey recaptures W40 American indoor 1500 record
- Joan Nesbit Mabe aiming for sub-5 mile at age 45
- Joan Nesbit Mabe shatters mile record in W45 debut
One Response
Dear Blog readers – The 4:05.44 by Russia’s Yekatarina Podkopayeva in 1998 should not be dismissed as too extreme. It simply serves notice that there are neighboring (W40 & W50, etc.) records that are vunerable to really well trained, talented athletes, and which will probably take years to knock off. WHY ? First, remember that records are not norms, they are statistical anomalies. Second, there really are limits to human abiities, and it is infrequent that we push ourselves enough to approach those limits, simply because it hurts so much. 4:05.44 is still somewhat off the women’s 1500 WR, and still lots of younger world-class women are running those kinds of times. The fact that Podkopayeva was able to run world class at 45 suggests that the natural aging process is not nearly so severe as our age-graded tables would lead us to beleive. That means that lots of age-group records are probably vunerable, but it will take an athlete who is healthy enough and determined enough, plus fairly lucky to have the right training situation and competition, to knock one off. The fact is, most athletes don’t try very hard to maintain themselves after retiring from elite competition. Lucky for the rest of us that they are happy to back off and just become one of us.
Ron K.
rck@vla.com
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