Gowans fast

[marty]

This track accopmlishment was interesting.  I never would have thought it a first for the Big Red.

[David Harding]

This track accomplishment was interesting.  I never would have thought it a first for the Big Red.

It is indeed a milestone, but perhaps not so surprising that it took until now to reach it.  I think that we can agree that although athletes strive for consistency, even in track and field there is variability in performance.  That means that if you are close to some performance metric (e.g. a 4-minute mile), the more frequently you compete the more likely you are to have an upward fluctuation that puts you over the top.  For the last 30 years the event has mostly been run as 1500 m, not one mile, so there have been few attempts at one mile.  And if you are training for 1500 m, there must be subtle differences in your pacing, yielding sub-optimal performance when you do run a mile.  If the time were linear with the distance, a 4-minute mile translates to 3:43.69 for 1500 m.  You can see here how it has gone in our league http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/history/recordsbooks/2015-16/Mens_Indoor_Track-Field.pdf  .
By the way, I would claim that track and field is another sport where Cornell has made quite a respectable showing in recent years.