Clayton Murphy is DONE

Bob schul country wrote:

He needs to run a 1500 soon.

He's been running the 1500 for years. But he seems to have plateaued there as well.

forked wrote:

1:48 for last. Hoppel runs 1:44.

Can’t believe USA won’t even miss him in Tokyo but us men’s 800 is stacked now.

Wow!!!!

Tough crowd. The first race of the season and you've already stuck a fork in the Olympic Bronze Medalist and label him done. How about waiting until few performances are under his belt and then make a prediction? Either you really know your sh*t, or you're really stupid.

"Go Run One"

I love how little it takes to prompt the “(insert name) is done!!” threads on letsrun.

I heard Kipchoge did a progression run but had to drop out on the last mile because he ate some bad cheese for lunch. HES DONE!!!

Murphy will be fine

Les wrote:

Bob schul country wrote:

He needs to run a 1500 soon.

He's been running the 1500 for years. But he seems to have plateaued there as well.

He has been running training races at that distance, not taking it serious and surely not training for the 1500.

He was a state champ in the 1600 in HS on about 20 mpw......he can run sub 3:50 in the mile if he worked at it.

In 2016, it looked like he would be running 1:42 or even 1:41 and low 3:30s at worst by this time, but that was his best year. However, as rojo points out, he has been running 1:43 since then, not shabby at all. Races now mean very little or nothing about shape at trials or Olympics. I wish good luck to him to get it all back with his college coach, whom I didn't think he should have left (look at Hoppel--he saw the good thing he had with the college coach). A 1:48 indoors doesn't worry me one bit. This was a guy of incredible talent, with endurance but also a 45 relay split. In fact, I would train him with Brazier, not separate workouts, except that maybe he lost confidence being in the same group. He and Brazier are very, very similar in speed-endurance combination (and their major pr's are something like 1:42.93/3:36 and 1:42.34/3:35.85).

forked wrote:

1:48 for last. Hoppel runs 1:44.

Can’t believe USA won’t even miss him in Tokyo but us men’s 800 is stacked now.

Couple of angles here

1.48 doesn't mean he is completely done and doesn't mean the season is a wash - but...

The narrative that "he always starts the season slow and ramps up..." is highly nuanced and not so simple to just apply to this year.

For example in 2016, that 6th place run was his only non 1st place finish that season until he went to Rio where he finished 4th, 2nd and 3rd (for bronze). Based off that it's probably safe to assume that the 6th place in 1.48 was a complete abirritation race (possible illness, injury, something happened in/during the race?)

My point is, those seasons he ran under 1.44 (and they are easy to find on the WA website), in his indoor campaigns he was competitive far more often than not - which is what you would expect from an Olympic Bronze medalist.

To the eye, that race last weekend isn't good though - he did not even look remotely competitive. Like if you are in heavy mileage phase and you finish 6th in a big kick-down race and get beaten by dudes who may care more about indoor season then you do then that's fine. You might finish 6th but you were right there save for something determined by your periodization. This did not look to be the case. That would also assume that Bryce Hoppel has it completely wrong with his training to be in such killer shape right now which I kind of doubt. My personal thought was Murphy just looks worn out.

To back that up he had run 99 individual races from 2016-2020! This even counts the fact he only ran 4 races in 2020 because of covid so from 2016-19 he was averaging around 24 races a season! That volume is crazy.

So is it unequivocally over for him? Can't say that - but again, to the eye this didn't look promising.

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

a complete abirritation race

God I hate autocorrect - this should of course be "aberration" race.

Before someone gleefully points that out.

Please, oh wise one, what are his poor life choices?

Olympic favorite baby!!!

rojo wrote:

OP. You are a fool.

In 2016 on January 30th, Murphy ran 1:48.67 for 6th at the Penn State meet, losing to Brannon Kidder, Ryan Mahan, Joseph White, Dylan Capwell and Craig Engels. How did the rest of the year end up for him?

When I was typing up notes for today's meet, even I was stunned by how consistent Murphy has been over the last few years. Yes, he hasn't been Olympic bronze good but he's certainly been good enough to make an Olympic team. Murphy's Sbs starting in 2016. 1:42.93, 1:43.60, 1:43.12, 1:43.94. So he'd run under 1:44 for 4 years in a row before Covid.

Who besides Brazier and Hoppel is breaking 1:44 this year?

Rojo vindicated after Murphy’s win tonight. OP goes home DEVASTATED.

forked wrote:

1:48 for last. Hoppel runs 1:44.

Can’t believe USA won’t even miss him in Tokyo but us men’s 800 is stacked now.

Lololololol

forked wrote:

1:48 for last. Hoppel runs 1:44.

Can’t believe USA won’t even miss him in Tokyo but us men’s 800 is stacked now.

That's cool. It says he's only 26 though so i'm sure he has like 29 years of peak strength left.

forked wrote:

1:48 for last. Hoppel runs 1:44.

Can’t believe USA won’t even miss him in Tokyo but us men’s 800 is stacked now.

Plus who cares? The Olympics are every 4 years. The odds of peaking at the olympic trials for any athlete is extremely rare. What if he timed out his game plan wrong?

He should definitely switch to the 60meters for now until he gets stronger. Seems a bit weak.

Clayton Murphy?

He's baaa..aak.

forked wrote:

1:48 for last. Hoppel runs 1:44.

Can’t believe USA won’t even miss him in Tokyo but us men’s 800 is stacked now.

Serious question - why do Americans spit out their greats like used gum the moment you think they've served their purpose?

Murphy's great performance was the 2nd biggest surprise in the 800m behind Brazier's tough night.

Of course a few weeks ago Jewett was not in sight.

Hoppel ran great as did Harris.