Ryan Hill has chosen to race a total of zero times before Worlds

The time between the USATF Championships and the IAAF World Championships is just under eight weeks. This leaves a lot of time for rest, training, and dare I say it, racing. Looking back on the past seven weeks it is interesting to note who from Team USA chose to race often, race less, or not race at all. Below you will find the race schedule each U.S. distance runner chose heading into Worlds.

Who do you think ran the smartest schedule heading into Worlds?

Men's 800m

Erik Sowinski ran consistently throughout the month of July, while Cas Loxsom waited for almost a month before his first race back. Interestingly enough, Akron junior Clayton Murphy may be in the best shape of them all, with four 'championship style' races under his belt heading into Worlds. Of course, the 20-year-old Murphy didn't plan on racing Worlds as he was 4th at USAs, but he was the benificiary of the Nick Symmonds/USATF saga and just found out he was heading to Beijing last week.

Erik Sowinski (2nd at USAs)

1	07/12	02	1:46.34	NTL: Edmonton 800m	Edmonton, Canada
2	07/21	06	1:46.95	Bellinzona 800m	Bellinzona, Switzerland
3	07/25	08	1:45.82	London DL 800m	London, United Kingdom
4	07/30	05	1:46.15	Stockholm DL 800m	Stockholm, Sweden

Casimir Loxsom (3rd at USAs)

1	07/25	10	1:48.04	London DL 800m	London, United Kingdom
2	08/08	02	1:47.17	FloTrack Throwdown 800m	Portland, Oregon

Clayton Murphy (4th at USAs)

1	07/22	01	1:48.88	Pan Am 800m Semi-Finals	Toronto, Canada
2	07/23	01	1:47.19	Pan Am 800m Finals	Toronto, Canada
3	08/07	01	1:50.54	NACAC 800m Semi-Finals	San Jose, Costa Rica
4	08/09	02	1:46.38	NACAC 800m Finals	San Jose, Costa Rica

Women's 800m

Molly Ludlow has been a racing machine this summer, having hopped in seven races in under 30 days. Alysia Montano ran at Pan Ams but had a quiet summer otherwise. Brenda Martinez only ran in late July as she dealt with injury post-USAs.

Alysia Montano (1st at USAs)

1	07/21	02	2:02.95	Pan Am 800m Semi-Finals	Toronto, Canada
2	07/22	02	1:59.76	Pan Am 800m Finals	Toronto, Canada
3	07/24	01	0:51.17	Pan Am 4x400m Semi-Finals	Toronto, Canada

Brenda Martinez (2nd at USAs)

1	07/25	09	2:02.40	London DL 800m	London, United Kingdom
2	07/30	03	2:00.54	Stockholm DL 800m	Stockholm, Sweden

Molly Ludlow (4th at USAs)

1	07/04	04	1:58.68	Paris DL 800m	Paris, France
2	07/09	02	2:02.08	Lausanne DL 800m	Lausanne, Switzerland
3	07/14	05	1:59.73	Lucerne 800m	Lucerne, Switzerland
4	07/21	02	1:59.05	Bellinzona 800m	Bellinzona, Switzerland
5	07/25	04	1:59.58	London DL 800m	London, United Kingdom
6	07/30	08	2:02.67	Stockholm DL 800m	Stockholm, Sweden
7	08/01	--	PACE	ATL 1500m	Atlanta, Georgia

Men's 1500m

All three of these men have had similar schedules, racing 3-4 times with an added 800m speed work race. Robby Andrews has had the most successful races, however Matt Centrowitz and Leo Manzano have raced in much deeper fields. 

Matthew Centrowitz (1st at USAs)

1	07/09	09	1:49.20	Lausanne DL 800m	Lausanne, Switzerland
2	07/17	10	3:30.40	Monaco DL 1500m	Monaco, Monaco
3	07/25	02	3:55.03	London DL Mile	London, United Kingdom
4	07/30	11	3:39.29	Stockholm DL 1500m	Stockholm, Sweden

Robby Andrews (2nd at USAs)

1	07/02	01	3:35.82	PDX Summer Twilight 1500m	Portland, Oregon
2	07/24	03	1:47.80	Morton Games 800m	Dublin, Ireland
3	07/30	05	3:35.52	Stockholm DL 1500m	Stockholm, Sweden
4	08/07	01	3:57.38	Sir Walter Mile	Raleigh, North Carolina

Leo Manzano (3rd at USAs)

1	07/17	13	3:36.16	Monaco DL 1500m	Monaco, Monaco
2	07/25	08	3:55.67	London DL Mile	London, United Kingdom
3	07/30	10	1:48.55	Stockholm DL 800m	Stockholm, Sweden

Women's 1500m

Jenny Simpson and Shannon Rowbury had brief stints in Europe, Kerri Gallagher PRd early and Lauren Johnson stepped on the track six times mainly due to her standard chase.

Jenny Simpson (1st at USAs)

1	07/09	03	4:03.54	Lausanne DL 1500m	Lausanne, Switzerland
2	07/17	04	3:57.30	Monaco DL 1500m	Monaco, Monaco

Shannon Rowbury (2nd at USAs)

1	07/09	04	2:03.53	Lausanne DL 800m	Lausanne, Switzerland
2	07/17	03	3:56.29	Monaco DL 1500m	Monaco, Monaco

Kerri Gallagher (3rd at USAs)

1	07/07	01	4:03.56	Lignano 1500m	Lignano, Italy
2	07/11	08	2:02.63	Kortrijk 800m	Kortrijk, Belgium
3	07/17	11	4:06.07	Monaco DL 1500m	Monaco, Monaco

Lauren Johnson (4th at USAs)

1	07/07	10	4:16.23	Székesfehérvár 1500m	Székesfehérvár, Hungary
2	07/11	07	4:10.01	Kortrijk 1500m	Kortrijk, Belgium
3	07/15	--	PACE	Liège 1500m	Liège, Belgium
4	07/18	02	4:04.17	Heusden 1500m	Heusden, Belgium
5	07/24	12	4:12.26	London DL 1500m	London, United Kingdom
6	08/08	02	2:02.02	FloTrack Throwdown 800m	Portland, Oregon

Men's 3000m Steeplechase

All three raced in Paris then not much after that.

Evan Jager (1st at USAs)

1

07/04

02

8:00.45

Paris DL 3K Steeple

Paris, France

Donn Cabral (2nd at USAs)

1

07/04

09

8:17.20

Paris DL 3K Steeple

Paris, France

Dan Huling (3rd at USAs)

1	07/04	07	8:15.21	Paris DL 3K Steeple	Paris, France
2	07/07	05	3:40.67	Lignano 1500m	Lignano, Italy

Women's 3000m Steeplechase

Similar to the men, the steeplchase women ran a total of four races between the three of them.

Emma Coburn (1st at USAs)

1	07/09	03	9:20.67	Lausanne DL 3K Steeple	Lausanne, Switzerland
2	07/17	10	9:23.91	Monaco DL 3K Steeple	Monaco, Monaco

Stephanie Garcia (2nd at USAs)

1

08/07

01

4:28.84

Sir Walter Mile

Raleigh, North Carolina

Colleen Quigley (3rd at USAs)

1

07/09

11

9:42.53

Lausanne DL 3K Steeple

Lausanne, Switzerland

Men's 5000m

Ryan Hill did not race once. In fact, most of Jerry Schumacher's athletes hardly raced at all. Jager once, Huling twice, Quigley once, Hill none, Flanagan once, Infeld none. That is five total races among his six athletes! Rupp and True also hardly raced as well only one race each.

Ryan Hill (1st at USAs)
Did Not Race

Ben True (2nd at USAs)

1

07/18

03

13:06.15

Heusden 5K

Heusden, Belgium

Galen Rupp (3rd at USAs)

1

08/08

04

4:00.45

FloTrack Throwdown Mile

Portland, Oregon

Women's 5000m

The 5K women seem to be an outlier among the long distance Americans. Nicole Tully raced three times but ended with a DNF in London, Marielle Hall raced twice, and Abbey D'Agostino raced 4 times, all of which were high finishes and PRs/near PRs.

Nicole Tully (1st at USAs)

1	07/11	04	4:09.27	Kortrijk 1500m	Kortrijk, Belgium
2	07/18	06	4:05.89	Heusden 1500m	Heusden, Belgium
3	07/25	--	DNF	London DL 5K	London, United Kingdom

Marielle Hall (2nd at USAs)

1	07/25	04	15:19.96	London DL 5K	London, United Kingdom
2	07/30	09	9:07.22	Stockholm DL 3K	Stockholm, Sweden

Abbey D'Agostino (3rd at USAs)

1	07/07	01	8:58.39	Cork City 3K	Cork, Ireland
2	07/11	02	4:08.78	Kortrijk 1500m	Kortrijk, Belgium
3	07/18	03	15:03.85	Heusden 5K	Heusden, Belgium
4	08/01	03	4:11.68	ATL: Atlanta 1500m	Atlanta, Georgia

Men's 10,000m

While Rupp got criticized for not racing much this summer, he clearly was not alone as many of his fellow Americans raced 0-2 times post USAs (Mead twice and Kipchirchir once)

Galen Rupp (1st at USAs)

1

08/08

04

4:00.45

FloTrack Throwdown Mile

Portland, Oregon

Hassan Mead (3rd at USAs)

1	07/09	13	13:37.30	Lausanne DL 5K	Lausanne, Switzerland
2	08/08	03	3:59.89	FloTrack Throwdown Mile	Portland, Oregon

Shadrack Kipchirchir (4th at USAs)

1

07/21

04

29:01.55

Pan Am 10K Finals

Toronto, Canada

Women's 10,000m

Molly Huddle had a solid race in London as did Shalane Flanagan at Peachtree, but nothing else for these three women heading into Worlds.

Molly Huddle (1st at USAs)

1

07/25

02

14:57.42

London DL 5K

London, United Kingdom

Shalane Flanagan (2nd at USAs)

1

07/04

01

32:05.00

Peachtree 10K

Atlanta, Georgia

Emily Infeld (3rd at USAs)
Did Not Race

What do you think is the right approach? 6+ races? 4 races? 1 race? 0 races? Let us know in the comments below.