World Half Marathon: What will Dathan Ritzenhein run?

Hasn't this thread been done already?

i don't know, i haven't been on most of the weekend and before that i didnt care about it enough because i was distracted by teg's 12:58 and trying to find some splits on him

I would be surprised if he broke an hour, at the same time I think if he doesn't it's going to be a bit of a let down considering his awesome 5k performance. Though 5k and half marathon fitness are two different ends of the spectrum.

Ritz will win in an American Record of 59:26.

High 61 to low 62.

60:12. I would say under 60, but I don't think the early pace will support a fast time. The pacing of Ritz's recent 5K suggests a lot more strength than speed, which will translate to the half better than some people think.

McMillan's calculator puts him at 59:47 based on his 5000m. Of course, it also puts him at a 3:44 mile and a 7:25 3000m, which he's obviously not going to do. But it puts his 10000m at 26:52, and some people think he could go sub-27 right now.

Based on his WC 10k time, he would only be capable of a 13:10 for 5k and 60:54 for a Half, but that's not accurate either.

So just based on a faulty calculator I'd put him between 59:30 and 61:00. I'd be willing to bet on the lower end of that, depending of course on the weather and how evenly-paced he runs. If it's an even pace and he can get into a good group I think he can go sub 60, and maybe even go for the AR.

It's hard to say if Ritzenhein runs better the longer the distance gets because his recent successes (27:22, 12:56) have come under a different training program than what he was using when he ran his HM and Marathon times, so to be fair, can we neglect those times as having less weight in determining what he is capable of when it comes to analyzing his progression for different distances?

Because I would say that he gets better the longer the distance gets, but if he's run 12:56 and 27:22, that doesn't match up with 61:25 or 2:10.00(calculator or no calculator), so I think the 'outliers' are his times ran while under Hudson.

I definitely believe Ritzenhein is capable of running under 60, and I think Salazar will definitely get him ready to do that, but whether or not he does depends on the race. Since this is a world half marathon championship run, it's not going to be a time trial unless someone wants to go out and set a blistering pace.

I do think however that Ritzenhein will be able to keep up with the top pack of runners, and I believe he will be able to finish in the top 10.

I think it will be interesting to see how his training pays off for him in the longer races. With the recent sub-13 5K I hope that it translates well. Ritz has always seemed to be geared more toward the longer distance and hopefully we will see him show this. I am hopeful that a sub-hour is shown.

Everyone always says ritz is better suited for long distance, that doesn't jive with reality though. His best performances have seemingly been at the 2 mile and 5k distances so far. Will be interesting to see if that changes now under salazar.

This race is still a month away (Oct. 11), and in England, so lots of things can still happen between now and then that cause slow time, but assuming no injury or illness or horrible weather, I'll say:

59:52

Beating Hall's AR would be a tough order, though I wouldn't be surprised if he did it. Nothing he does other than a world record would surprise me.

Based on the last couple of years my guess is that someone will go out at (or even under) WR pace and dare everyone else to try to keep up with them (ala Wanjiru at the Olympics), so I don't think it will be a totally tactical race.

Will Ritz go with the pace????

I think with another month plus of AL-Sal under his belt he will go out hard in an attempt for an amazing result to justify the hype. If he survives, he'll be under 60 and have a shot at Hall. If he blows up, he'll be lucky to stay under 62:30.

I say 61:15 based off the first number that came to mind.