Two Big Debuts

By Bryan Green

It's been an interesting first couple weeks in the new year.  Deena Kastor came back with a sub-70 half marathon in Arizona, while Ryan Hall got crushed by Simon Bairu on the same course, running only 64 and change.  There was an announcement that the state of Oregon was considering eliminating team qualifying for state meet cross country.  (Say what?!  Dyestat covered the news here.)  Indoor track kicked off with the New Balance Indoor meet and Haile Gebrselassie went for another world record at the Dubai Marathon but failed because he slept on his stomach.  (Seriously, get that man a Snoogle already!)

We were also treated to two fine debuts one week ago, with Shalane Flanagan running her much anticipated first half-marathon and Brett Gotcher's surprisingly fast debut for the full marathon.  (We should also mention the solid debuts by Brent Vaughn and Tim Nelson in the half marathon, who ran 62:04 and 62:11, respectively.)

Shalane won her race in a course record 1:09:41, which was good enough to put her 6th on the US all-time list for the distance.  She controlled the race from the beginning and there was little doubt as to the final outcome.  As she said after the race, "Yeah, I was thinking, or guessing I would run 1:10, and that would be very comfortable for me. To dip under 1:10, I think, is a solid performance."

Gotcher finished 7th in a field of solid foreigners, running a surprise 2:10:36.  He ran much of the race alone, and was on pace for sub-2:10 until the final two miles.  Still, his time is good enough for the 4th fastest debut marathon by an American and it puts him 27th on the US all-time list.  It's also just six seconds slower than Frank Shorter's personal best!

As he says in this interview, however, he's not entirely satisfied with the time: "Late in the race, I thought I was going to run a lot faster. Even though I am really happy and excited with my time, there is still a bittersweet feeling that I can go out and run 2:09 or maybe even under 2:09 on a really amazing day." 

So we have two performances, both slower than what the athletes felt they were capable of, and yet because they were debuts, they've gathered quite a lot of attention.  What is it about debuts that make us ooh and ahh over them?  After all, doesn't every athlete have at least 5 or 10 debuts in their career?

The fact is, we're only really concerned with two types of debuts: the Superstar Debut and the Overachiever Debut.  The Superstar Debut matters because the athlete has already proven herself over the course of her career at other distances, and built up an expectation of excellence.  Most debuts we remember are Superstar Debuts.  They are recognized by their publicly announced date, fervent debate as to what to expect, and generally, a slight feeling of letdown after the fact.  Flanagan's debut in Houston is a great example of this.

The Overachiever Debut comes about a different way.  The athlete is usually known or recognized in a general sense, but does not have high expectations placed on his debut performance going into it.  He then goes out and runs a time nobody thought possible.  It's not the case that he has actually overachieved, of course, as that would imply he performed better than he was actually capable and that's impossible.  But the fact that he surpassed expectations so greatly makes his debut something to celebrate.  Brett Gotcher's marathon provides us with a fantastic example of this.

Of course, there is also the extremely rare Superstar Overachiever Debut, in which everyone excitedly awaits the performance and yet the athlete still manages to exceed expectations.  A couple examples of this include Ryan Hall's 59:43 AR half marathon debut and Alan Webb's 27:34 10k debut in which he outkicked Dathan Ritzenhein.  I'd probably include German Fernandez's 3:56.5 indoor mile debut as well.  These performances were so stunning that they completely shifted expectations of what we thought the athlete was capable of in the future.  Many of us were hoping to see this from Shalane, but she opted to play it safe (hence the slight feeling of letdown).

For fun, I put together my Top 10 US Debuts of the past decade.  These were the races that made me sit up and say, "Wow".

What makes these debuts so fun, of course, is that they are pretty rare.  There are very few opportunities for big debuts on the track, since everyone usually enters their first 5k or 10k in a low-key meet.  It's incredibly rare for a top athlete like Leonel Manzano to go his entire career never having run a 5k, or Matt Tegenkamp never succumbing to the 10k's siren call.  (Will they ever move up?)  We pretty much have to settle for college freshmen going for it at Stanford, so here's to hoping Jordan Hasay does something special this year.

The rest of the hullabaloo, however, is largely based on a misconception, I believe.  There's a general assumption that no matter how fast an athlete runs in their debut, they'll run significantly faster once they've got a few races under their belts.  A middle distance runner stepping up to 10k isn't supposed to nail it on his first try, and neither is a track athlete stepping up to the half or the full marathon.  As such, a blazing fast debut is supposed to signify a bright future, one filled with further improvement.

But in the big picture, spectacular debuts ultimately mean very little.  A letsrun reader, malmo, posted the list of top US marathon debuts on a forum thread and it's amazing what it shows.  Of the 39 he lists, 20 of them also serve as the individual's personal best.  Half of the fastest debutantes never improved!  That number is really surprising on the face of it.  It seems to go against the common belief about debuts, especially at distances like the full marathon.

I don't have the data for the 10k or half marathon, but I would be interested to see what it says.  I'm pretty sure Ryan Hall's 28:07 10k PR was run in his debut, and Anthony Famiglietti's 27:37 10k debut is still his PR.  Of course, neither of these guys have focused on the 10k since then, so we have to be careful in reading too much into this.  But on a lesser note, it still took five years before Dathan Ritzenhein was able to lower his 27:38.5 debut 10k time by more than four seconds.  I know I expected much more much sooner, simply because it was his debut.

I think the most we can say is big improvement after a fast debut simply isn't a given.  Not only does one have to continue to step up their training, they have to now perform with the weight of increased expectations.  Not everybody can live up to it and not everybody is willing to dedicate themselves to the distance long enough to do it.  Here's to hoping that Shalane and Brett are able to do so.

Images: Photorun.net