Oliver Varney

@brady_h Problem is many of these races especially ultra have waiting list or lotteries. Some people can wait years and years. It's not fair if when it gets tough and your time goal goes out of the window to tap out as long as your healthy.

Hot take? I agree. Live to see another day.

@vintagemapstore Kent and Sussex boundaries look massively different to today's. Eastbourne and beachy head are part of sussex

A New Map of England & France. - The French Invasion; or John Bull, bombarding the Bum-Boats. Date: 1851

@stevemagness It felt like a desperate attempt for nike to stay relevant as a brand whilst throwing her under the bus at the same time. There must of been someone in the room saying the probability was like under 1%. Either that or she had been showing alot more in training and underperformed.

A few thoughts and a breakdown of Faith Kipyegon's sub-4 minute mile attempt. Let's dive deep. Why'd she fall short? 8 seconds was too much. All the big boosts (shoe tech, bicarb, etc.) had already been used. So the largest boost she'd get would be pacing/drafting. In her official WR, she had pacing to just past halfway. In this event, she'd get it the entire way around. That would give her ~2 seconds. The Nike folks were hoping optimizing pacing with 11 pacers would do more... But it's just not what we've seen in the real world, as I outlined in my pre-race breakdown. In my pre-race breakdown, I basically called it on the nose, that she'd go for it and fade. I thought 4:05 mid, and she faded a touch more than I guessed. But any seasoned coach would have guessed about the same. The mile is a tricky beast to master. The race itself: You could tell by 400m she wasn't going to get close to sub 4. Why? She was 60.2 at 400m. I texted my group chat and said "too slow" and that she wasn't coming close, because it told me...she was pressing to ride that line. And sub 60s was not where that line was going to be. Her splits (roughly from youtube video) 400- 60.2 800- 2:00.7 1200- 3:01.9 Mile- 4:06.4 You could start to see her straining on the 3rd lap to try to stay close...Which is HARD to do. The 3rd lap is the worst. You are far enough out where it's starting to hurt a lot, but not close enough to the finish where you can taste it. So it took a lot of effort to push hard that 3rd lap. And that's partially why you saw the bear jump on her back the last 200 meters. Once that bear gets you, you are attempting a controlled deceleration. Every step you're fighting not to lose more speed/power. And ironically you have to relax and not tense up to do so. It's a hard place to be. That's the mile. It's riding a very tight line of what you can just barely handle and stay smooth at, while not accumulating so much fatigue, and dipping into your reserves so that your body has nothing to give in the last 400-200m. If she even split it and went 61.x every lap, she probably could have run 4:04 high- 4:05 mid today. Which I think tells us good pacing/drafting gives her 2 seconds. Which lines up with everything we know. What will it take for a female to go sub 4? The problem for Kipyegon is that the gap between her 800 and mile just isn't large enough. While she doesn't run many 800s, her best is probably 1:54 high/1:55 low. Even the most endurance based men who go sub 4 are at least 1:53 low. And that is very rare. 1:52 is generally the requirement, and the faster you are the more cushion. The slower your 800, the better your endurance. But that only compensates to a point. The women's 800m WR is 1:53 by someone who was almost certainly doped to the freaking gills. That means we need to somehow have some improvements that get the women's 800 to be faster...with someone who also has world class endurance. So your 400/800 types like an Athing Mu won't do. That's the challenge. It'll eventually get there. But the women's 800 hasn't seen a legit attack on a world record, even with some phenomenol young athletes with supershoes and bicarbonate. That's the hurdle. So what? Kudos to Kipyegon for going for it. That's hard... It's an impressive feat to see someone just lay it on the line. What we learned is that we're still a ways off. And we likely need some more training progress and a new breakthrough (shoe tech, bicarb or nutrition advancement, etc.) to get there. Pacing/Drafting helps. But it's on the level we've seen in normal races (a few seconds), not the magnitude that was hoped for or hypothesized before. It's interesting that Nike couldn't come up with a further jump in breakthrough shoe tech or optimized it individually to Kipyegon. I think part of the reason is we know some people respond better to the new super shoes...but we have no idea why. Researchers haven't tied it to any biomechanical marker. The clothing junk was marketing nonsense. And if I'm honest, the broadcast was cringe. More infomercial than serious breakdown of an attempt. Would have loved more depth and analysis versus the fluff we got. I understand why: It's one big Nike commercial. They need the return. But the gravitas of an effort like this from Kipyegon deserves serious coverage. Women will eventually get there. That's the nature of sport. It gets better. I do hope though that we see the first women get under 4 in a normal competition. So that there are no what ifs, caveats, or asterisks. It's just the barrier breaker being immortalized like Bannister. There you go. Kudos to Kipyegon on the effort.

Was the nike sub 4 womans mile a desperate response to nike stock price and popularity tanking. I mean surely they thought she must of had a good chance to running it.

@Aviation_samay @WarMonitor3 We beat you at the cricket yesterday though, and don't even pretend that didn't hurt for the majority of your population 😉

@WarMonitor3 UK is slowly dying it’s death

Britain continues to buy aerial assets its airforce is unable to refuel…

@runliftrunlift The other funny thing is that they are stressing so much, but the majority are using an optical heart rate sensor, which is widely inaccurate in the context of a few % of max heart rate

Keep your easy runs very easy. Walk if you need to. It works!

@runliftrunlift Its an ego thing for most people. The best thing is not to wear a watch at all so you have no clue of time or distance.

@svarun91 @BetDEXLabs @BetdaqEnda Any news or timelines on a UK license / horse racing product?

@OliverVarney3 @BetDEXLabs Our brokerage is assisting high stakes punters get down via largely different outs than what's avail on the exchange - targeted at a different market as @BetdaqEnda said below.

🏇 BIG Royal Ascot play... One of our brokerage clients dropped 50k @ 5.5, landing a whopping $225,000 in profit! 🔥💸

@BetdaqEnda @svarun91 @BetDEXLabs I dont know the current state, but you have to look at smarkets. A business starts off with clear cut lines, then see a profitable avenue that helps both the "third party" and the exchange. Suddenly the third party gets it ass handed to it, and new transaction commission appears

@BetdaqEnda @svarun91 @BetDEXLabs Its quite easy to come up with a number of scenarios where either having the additional information from a private sharp punter will help or secondly the situation whereby the exchange also owns a "third party" seeding company that also offers some form of private bets.

@BetdaqEnda @svarun91 @BetDEXLabs Lines can become very blurred when that said private layer is also the largest layer on the actual exchange also.

A brokerage would be different Oliver. It’s definitely not the same model as those exchanges. A brokerage actually replicates a real exchange to some degree. However getting a 50k horse race bet on the biggest festival of the year is one example. I wouldn’t get excited and think the same counter party would accept a 5k bet on Limerick. The main benefit of a brokerage is when two sharp opinions differ. It’s not a retail product.

@svarun91 @BetDEXLabs Is this not the smarkets and matchbook model? Everyone says they are fine until you continually beat them and then they start adding transaction charges and other stuff and ultimately become a bookmakers rather then an exchange

@OliverVarney3 @BetDEXLabs Private layers and other outs. We know how to consistently get down sharp flow if that’s what you’re asking.

@stevemagness Your tweet is about incentives, and people showing a false unachievable acts. If you can't see the link then I'll leave it there

A lot of your favorite fitness influencers on Performancing Enhancing Drugs.. It’s just what it is. They are incentivized to look and do things outlandish that get attention. PEDs allow for it. Another reason why you should be careful copying what fitness influencers do.

@brian_drago_ Sub 16 for the example is probably 1 min too fast, if your looking at vo2max rather then what's more important, which is pace at lt1 /lt2

@OliverVarney3 We’re saying the same thing 🫡

The face I make when someone thinks a Boston marathon qualifier is harder than a sub-16 5k

@blkkenyb Sure it's downhill, but let's all ignore the peds he's taken because he's wearing jeans lol

The haters will say it’s because it’s downhill but he just did a 1:06 in jeans

@TJThomps @brady_h @JoelSnape The first test (time trial) i had been working in an office job and was drinking alot and overweight. I suspect I probably would of been slightly higher using a cart. Interestingly, when I measure actually my running economy was awful likely due to achilles issues.

I would distinguish between VO2 max and velocity at VO2 max. If we tested you with a metabolic cart for your first 48 Vo2, I bet we would actually measure a higher VO2 value because your running economy was worse. Those types of assessments for Vo2 are subject to error because they are using running velocity to estimate vo2 max, which means running economy is a large, unaccounted for variable.

Okay here's my follow up question: what percentage of people do we think have the genetic capability to hit sub-4 (when they're born)?