Coffey, herself an elite runner, didn’t think Trebon could pull off the feat, while Trebon was sure that his life as a professional cyclist would carry him through the effort on limited training. We took a poll of readers with 60% of the 829 voters thinking that Trebon could run a five-minute mile.
Last night was the night Trebon went for it with Coffey live-broadcasting the event over periscope with over 100 folks tuned in to watch Trebon’s effort.
There was some good-natured bantering as Trebon warmed up before it was game time. A last-minute decision saw Trebon elect for a flying start, something that at first blush seemed like it would be an advantage.
For his first of four laps, Trebon put in a 72 second effort, on pace if not a little quick. Going out too hard would perhaps leave him drained in the final stretch and there was talk that Trebon had set out to go 75 seconds on the opening lap.
Trebon then came by in 2:31 and 3:51 for his second and third laps. It seemed that the early pace had in fact taken a toll leaving Trebon just 1:09 to get the last quarter mile done to finish in five-minutes flat.
But it wasn’t to be.
Official time! pic.twitter.com/iDINruAZ5x
— Karlee Coffey (@KarleeCoffey) March 4, 2016
Trebon’s time of 5:06:28, while certainly impressive given his limited training, was off the goal. Coffey would be able to say “told you so,” but would have to give Trebon some respect for the impressive effort.