Galen or Ritz: Who Will Have The Better 5k PR?

Galen, if Alberto adjusts and lets Galen focus on the 5k for a while.

Wisdom wrote:

Galen, if Alberto adjusts and lets Galen focus on the 5k for a while.

Exactly. Its kind of like a Buddhist Riddle. Is Galen Rupp a fast 5K runner if he never runs it?

I just feel that Ritz is a super talent, whereas Rupp (still really talented) is the poster child for what long term planning and proper systematic development can do to a moderately talented athlete. Al Sal has had Rupp's career planned out for years and they have been together progressively working on it year after year, consistency is the key here for him (kind of like peter and seb coe).

i'm kind of worried about rupp's ego. he's probably going to be getting destroyed in practice every day for the next few years

I cannot actually believe that you just called Galen Rupp a moderately talented athlete.

You do understand that relative to the population even a 15 minute 5k runner is talented. And you call a 13.18/27.32 runner 'moderately talented'.

Ritz will have a better 5k PR than Rupp. Rupp will go under 13 though. I think Ritz, Teg, Webb, Rupp, and Solinsky will all break 13 and someone will lower the AR to sub 12:50 by the end of their career.

lkajdf wrote:

Ritz will have a better 5k PR than Rupp. Rupp will go under 13 though. I think Ritz, Teg, Webb, Rupp, and Solinsky will all break 13 and someone will lower the AR to sub 12:50 by the end of their career.

Rupp nearly broke 4:00 in high school while being trained as a 5K-10K guy. He'll be the one who pushes that AR down the lowest, but guys like Derrick and Fernandez may develope to further challenge it. I'm just hoping we can see multiple athletes under 13:00 next year.

I agree with Rupp having the faster time. As others have mentioned Salazar has been planning his career since he was 14. I think Ritz and even possibly Goucher were more talented than Rupp but from their early twenties onward to their late twenties they jumped into to many bad training situations and mishaps. That won't happen with Rupp and five years from now he will be way ahead of the game. I wouldn't be surprised to see him challenge 13 next year. I think the better question is what can this guy do with Webb? I can't believe more people aren't asking this. Up until this year Webb had faster times in the 5k and the 10k than Ritz!!And as we know he has an abundance of speed. I think he could possibly take the record down the lowest of this generation if everything works out in his new environment. Maybe even sub 12:50.

I think we will all find out a lot about Rupp next year when he has a true Professional season behind him. The last 2 years he has put a lot of focus on developing his closing speed and winning college races.

I'm totally confident he will shatter his PR in the 10K and come close to getting the 10K AR. Actually I think his biggest roadblock to the AR is not the present record but Ritz.

You could be right that Rupp is just a slight step below the other elite American runners. But you could also make the case that he is still ahead of Ritz as of now because he still has superior closing speed. Once Rupp puts together many months of endurance training, which I think he is now going to focus on, then add his closing speed on top of that, he will be tough to beat.

This is interesting. What we seem to have is people saying "Rupp seems better than Ritz to me." But just a couple of days ago, I don't think anybody would have predicted a 12:55 anytime soon for Rupp. The "Rupp is better" calculus works just fine with 13:16 Ritz. But now that Ritz has a 12:56 to his name, it's a whole new ball game. Let's not forget, it's not like Americans run sub-13 every day.

who is talking soon?

Bandwagon shift! Ritz was washed up until yesterday (he only beat Galen at Worlds because of Galen's long season and injury...). Now Galen will never better Ritz's new 5K PR? How is that extrapolated?

Solinsky won NCAA titles and Teg didn't so clearly Solinsky will end his career with better PRs and medals than Teg. Fernandez is better than Webb because he actually won the 1500 at NCAAs as a freshman. So subjective!

Silly Letsrunners...

Ritz is the better 5K, Rupp is the better 10K. They may be more equal at the marathon one day in the future. Both are fabulous and with a fabulous coach.