Renato Canova, Jason in, Wejo, Malmo etc...input on Ryan Hall's 2007 10000m/marathoning potential?

Vipam, it bodes well for whatever direction he chooses to take.

This is the level I thought he could be at way back in high school. I mean, he ran 3:42 in high school and he just looked like a little kid. He just never did anything in college except maybe one XC race, then in his senior year he showed his potential again at NCAAs, then right away at USATF.

I don't think he needs a quality elite field at all. Just let it all hang out at Stanford in May. It would be a nice homecoming for him.

What does that say about the standford coaching? not training at altitdue? Glad he stuck with running.

do you think sticking with the 1500m so long actually helped him or would he have benifitted even more by moving up earlier?

According to interviews I've read, he always tended to put in a fair ammount of volume, even when only racing the 1500. It is obvious now that the 15 was not his event. It is probably not worthwhile speculating if he could have done something better sooner, if only.... sub 60 minutes is less than 1 minute behind the world record. I wouldn't try to second guess that.

Does anyone think that the speed work associated with being a 1500 runner earlier could have helped better prepare him for this day? As a runner who is comfortable with faster paces would that not make him more adapt at running longer faster with the appropriate VO2 improvements later in his career?

I don't think he should waste time with the 10km. It seems that the longer the race goes, the better Ryan Hall runs!

The most signficant point of his amazing run in Houston is not just the time, it was that he ran ALONE, without anyone pulling him along, no one to chase. That alone is worth about 3-4 seconds per km.

Can he run 26:59 for 10km? Yes, absolutely, but it's not even close to track season. The earliest possible date for that would be the Stanford meet at the end of March.

He is obviously the fittest that he's ever been, at a very high peak in his training. I think that he should run the Tokyo Marathon in one month. The new course is super fast. Again, 3 months can be a long time in the intense life of a distance runner, and he should strike while the iron is hot.

Jason

My only concern is that Hall coming from a 1,500m/5,000m background uses carbohydrates at too high of a rate at this point in his career and doesn't have as great of an aerobic fat power as needed. Of course with training this can be fixed, but it's only been a year or so since he was a middle distance runner.

That's what I suspect happened to Ritz and he was a 5/10k guy, not a 15/5k guy.

Remember the half marathon is based on Lactate threshold and things like that. The marathon is based on FUEL. Totally different ball game.

malmo wrote:

. I mean, he ran 3:42 in high school and he just looked like a little kid.

I agree. I watched him run that race and it was very impressive. People forget that it wasn't JUST Ritz and Webb that year. It was great to watch. He hung in with the big guys at Bowdoin looking like a middle schooler.

A HUGE indicator of Ryan's true talent, as his dad mentioned, was his solo tempo of ten miles in 48:45 in High school. That indicates a 29-minute 10K for a kid that was training for the mile! For some reason, his coaches (high school AND college) didn't take much of a lesson away from that, and let him flounder at 800/1500/speed-side 5000.

The 10mi course he ran was either slightly short or downhill. I don't remember exactly as it's been years since Hall was in HS. But it was one of those, I'm leaning towards it was downhill. So while impressive, it wasn't quiet as out there as it seemed.

Yeah, he was at 28:20 at the 10k mark in his HM debut AR setting race. That's pretty freakin' amazing. I mean, Ritzenhein ran 28:11 for the 2005 10k Road Champs, ran 27:35 for 10k on the track, Goucher and Dobson just barely broke 28 minutes for 10k last year, and Hall runs 28:20 for 10k in a 21k race. Pretty freakin' impressive. America is steam rollin' now.

Nick Symmonds 3:56 in January

Ryan Hall 59:43, HM & 20k AR's

Matt Tegenkamp 13:04, 7:34

Alan Webb 27:34, 3:32, 3:48, 13:10

Dathan Ritzenhein, Fernando Cabada, Meb Keflizhigi, Brian Sell, Peter Gilmore running good to great marathon times

Ian Dobson 8k Champ

If Hall was at 28:20 at the 10k mark, I would think that in a 10k race on the track, he would probably be good for a 27:45 or better, without any specific training for it. Opinions?

I don't understand why people are still considering Ryan Hall a miler. After he ran sub 13:20 in my mind he ceased being a 1500m/miler. Ryan Hall has yet to run sub 3:40 after several years at the distance.

I thought the same thing as Jason, the longer the distance the better performance for Ryan. I would be surprised if his marathon performance overshadows his 1/2 marathon but a 2:06-2:07 on a good day in London whouldn't surprise me. I still would hope he concentrate on the 5000m/10000m alot with an occassionally marathon before starting to focus on the marathon on a yearly basis.

Vipam wrote:

I don't understand why people are still considering Ryan Hall a miler. After he ran sub 13:20 in my mind he ceased being a 1500m/miler. Ryan Hall has yet to run sub 3:40 after several years at the distance.

I thought the same thing as Jason, the longer the distance the better performance for Ryan. I would be surprised if his marathon performance overshadows his 1/2 marathon but a 2:06-2:07 on a good day in London whouldn't surprise me. I still would hope he concentrate on the 5000m/10000m alot with an occassionally marathon before starting to focus on the marathon on a yearly basis.

It's not that we consider him a miler. It's that he WAS a 1500m/5000m runner. He raced it. You can not deny that. The training and racing for a 1500m and even a 5000m would cause him to burn carbs at a higher rate than the training of a marathon runner.

Running a marathon and half marathon in the fall or winter every year and then coming back in the spring and summer with some 10k and 5k races wouldn't be a bad way to go.

Isn't Stanford a 390 metre track?

bad connection wrote:

My only concern is that Hall coming from a 1,500m/5,000m background uses carbohydrates at too high of a rate at this point in his career and doesn't have as great of an aerobic fat power as needed. Of course with training this can be fixed, but it's only been a year or so since he was a middle distance runner.

That's what I suspect happened to Ritz and he was a 5/10k guy, not a 15/5k guy.

Remember the half marathon is based on Lactate threshold and things like that. The marathon is based on FUEL. Totally different ball game.

No offense, but I'd nominate your post as the classic example of somebody who has spent too much time reading books about running, which unfortunately has made you so "informed" that you ended up having very little idea of what you're talking about.

A_Goofy_Runner wrote:

No offense, but I'd nominate your post as the classic example of somebody who has spent too much time reading books about running, which unfortunately has made you so "informed" that you ended up having very little idea of what you're talking about.

Organic morphology, Goofy Runner, it's all in your organic morphology.

Vipam wrote:

I don't understand why people are still considering Ryan Hall a miler. After he ran sub 13:20 in my mind he ceased being a 1500m/miler. Ryan Hall has yet to run sub 3:40 after several years at the distance.

I agree that he should still (hopefully) race the 5 on the track. I also think this actually bodes well for his 1500 - he can run under 3:40 this year if he opted to shoot for that. This would set him up to be competitive at the top rungs in the 5 and especially the 10.

I would tend to agree with MAYEROFF except not Tokyo but Beppu.

The thing for his future is that, if he can't sprint, he can't win interntainal 10k down. It doesn't matter what potential you might have, if you can't sprint, you'll be out of medal.

Don't think of the marathon as "the last resort" and miss out the opportunity. At least that's what Japanese would think (except for Takaoka...unfortunately).