What do you suppose is up with Rupp this season?

Too many good africans.

1234567890 wrote:

That was kind of my point, like he is probably a 12:52-12:54 guy right now and placed where a 12:52-12:54 guy should have. Now he needs to become a 12:47-12:49 guy with a slightly better kick and he will be in the battle again for a medal of any color.

Though he did not threaten a medal, he handily beat Gebremeskel in the 10000m, and came back to beat Alamirew in the 5000m. Before the finish, nobody would have given him a chance against either one of them in those races.

I think Alimerew beat himself in this race by trying to kick from 800m out and not letting Mo take the lead. Otherwise I agree. Rupp finished where he should have been expected to. The 10000 was his best chance at a medal and his results show that to be true over the years.

This was a good post. Unless Rupp is overtrained or tired from indoor season and shuts it down, he'll probably be supremely motivated to go after a 5,000 PR and AR just to prove himself. Maybe if he dials it back a bit, he will go record-chasing next year. I do not see him medaling in the 10,000 in 2016, so 2012 might be the best result he ever gets on the track in his career, but I still think he has 5,000 and 10,000 PRs ahead of him before he goes to the roads. Or, apparently the "juice" works better for Mo than Galen, according to the skeptics.

It would be cool to see Galen pace Ritz for about 30k of the Chicago Marathon as well.

1234567890 wrote:

This year the kick is still there but the field is faster now.

Great post, but I disagree a very minor point. His speed is there, but something was amiss this season that didn't allow Rupp to be as sharp as he was all of last year and through the 2013 indoor season thus effecting his ability to kick with the best. I believe the Rupp of '12 medals in the 10,000 this year. He just never looked sharp this season and this week reflects his previous summer races.

Difficult to predict, but I hope Rupp stays with the 10,000 for 2016. If things go well between now and then, he's got a great shot at another medal and possibly gold. The marathon is still an unknown. There is no guarantee that he adjusts to 26.2 miles. We do know he can run extremely well for 6.2 miles. Just my 2 cents...

Rupp seriously has a mental block in races where he's against Mo Farah. He has no problem bumping arms with Kenenisa Bekele for example, but he has a mental block which prevents him from passing Farah. The only time he beat Mo Farah in a race was when Mo fell in that mile, and even there he only beat Farah by under one second. I made a joke that if Mo Farah falls Rupp will wait for him, but it really is like that. He needs to stop treating Farah like a teammate and more like a competitor and not be afraid to push the pace or sprint past him. Take the lead next time Rupp! Use that 3:50 mile/7:30 3000m speed! And stop talking to Mo during races!

the clarifier wrote:

Has anyone noticed how civil A Duck has been on this thread?

No. I never read his bs anymore.

Salazar raced Rupp far too much indoors. He could get away with this at 70-80 miles/week but not at 110 miles/week.

The periodization that worked for an undertrained Rupp failed when Rupp was maxed out with both volume and racing.

Considering the coaching errors, I'd say Rupp had a great season.

Just needs minor tweaking of the dosages.

My take on Galen is that he is not a great racer. Period!

He is not the kind of guy that can go out, control from the front for a few laps, slip back into the pack, surge, hang on the leader's shoulder for a couple of laps to mess with his head, and then throw a long kick from about 1000 meters out with a brutal final 300-400. That just isn't the kind of runner he is. What does that mean? He is beatable. Period!

It seems to me that Galen is better in a time trial format where the pace is fairly consistent and he can "red-line" for a long time. He runs his better times in that kind of race and it is hard for others to hang on unless they are in phenomenal condition. Also, I think he believes the constant results: Mo is unbeatable, Lagat is unbeatable, etc... so he runs behind them and off their shoulder until they move and then he tries to move with them but it is always a reaction instead of a fight to drive in on his own. BUT... I DO like him very much. I think he will have a few more races that will slave to his strength before it is over and it will be fun to pull for him for those races down the road.

NOTHING IS WRONG WITH HIM.

First lets look at the 5k. He placed 8th in the 5k today. He placed 7th I believe in London. Case closed.

Now the 10k. Jeilan and Tanui placed ahead of him for 2nd and 3rd. Neither of those two were present in London. So the only person that beat Rupp AND was present in London was Farah.

It's not that hard to analyze these things.

Overtrained. He was trying to best 2012, was headed that way indoors, may have pushed the speed work a bit too much ... got the tight hams that changed his Twilight 800 to an average 3k, never got his legs back the rest of the season.

Maybe he'll rebound later this summer like 2011 when resting for WC's and afterwards got his legs rested and brought his fitness out.

runn wrote:

I DO think that the 1/2 and marathon are his best events.

Correct.

Potential fluke medals in the marathon and big prize money in fixed fields like Boston (aka "Hallstyle") are Rupp's future. Which is a great future. Embrace it!

A Duck wrote:

The worst experience Rupp has had in the last 13 years is that he has never know the joy of paying for his own running shoes, lol.

Or winning a SINGLE major international race, EVER, lol.

rupp-certified saladbar wrote:

A Duck wrote:

The worst experience Rupp has had in the last 13 years is that he has never know the joy of paying for his own running shoes, lol.

Or winning a SINGLE major international race, EVER, lol.

If those are indeed the two worst experiences he has had in the last 13 years he is living an incredibly charmed life.

Rupp has looked exactly like someone who had a minor injury early in the outdoor season and has been trying to play catch up with his conditioning ever since. Sort of like Centro last year. Except of course there has been no rumour of an injury.

Another possibility is that he has had an emotional let down and is adrift a little after dedicating multiple years toward ramping up to the 2012 Olympics.

Or perhaps Salazar got it wrong with his training regimen. Salazar is perpetually trying to experiment with training techniques. Perhaps an experiment went awry.

Of course I would still like the season to be entirely over before drawing grand conclusions. He could have one great performance in Zurich or Brussels and make this thread irrelevant.

The Waterboy wrote:

Rupp seriously has a mental block in races where he's against Mo Farah. He has no problem bumping arms with Kenenisa Bekele for example, but he has a mental block which prevents him from passing Farah. The only time he beat Mo Farah in a race was when Mo fell in that mile, and even there he only beat Farah by under one second. I made a joke that if Mo Farah falls Rupp will wait for him, but it really is like that. He needs to stop treating Farah like a teammate and more like a competitor and not be afraid to push the pace or sprint past him. Take the lead next time Rupp! Use that 3:50 mile/7:30 3000m speed! And stop talking to Mo during races!

^^^^^^^

This

Rupp's continued intra-race reverence to Mo is holding him back IMHO. That's one of the reasons I would have dropped Rupp down to the Mile/1500 this season and next if I were coaching him. Let him exploit what he can out of the middle distances while he's still young, then make the decision to either go for it as a de facto miler or move him back up to the 5k/10k in 2016.

The Waterboy wrote:

Rupp seriously has a mental block in races where he's against Mo Farah. He has no problem bumping arms with Kenenisa Bekele for example, but he has a mental block which prevents him from passing Farah. The only time he beat Mo Farah in a race was when Mo fell in that mile, and even there he only beat Farah by under one second. I made a joke that if Mo Farah falls Rupp will wait for him, but it really is like that. He needs to stop treating Farah like a teammate and more like a competitor and not be afraid to push the pace or sprint past him. Take the lead next time Rupp! Use that 3:50 mile/7:30 3000m speed! And stop talking to Mo during races!

No, he runs that way whether Mo is in the race or not, like the 5k Soi won in Monaco or Paris or wherever and the mile Choge won in London. It's just the way he runs. These Africans are very, very fast, you realize. Tough to get ahead of them.

Even funnier joke, Mo falls down and Rupp immediately falls down too, just to be close to him and bond

What the Heck wrote:

1234567890 wrote:

That was kind of my point, like he is probably a 12:52-12:54 guy right now and placed where a 12:52-12:54 guy should have. Now he needs to become a 12:47-12:49 guy with a slightly better kick and he will be in the battle again for a medal of any color.

Though he did not threaten a medal, he handily beat Gebremeskel in the 10000m, and came back to beat Alamirew in the 5000m. Before the finish, nobody would have given him a chance against either one of them in those races.

The first half of your post is sensible.

The second half is just silly. In nearly every race, one can find some superior runner who had a bad day (or who quit when he realized that he was not going to medal). The fact that Rupp beat these particular two is completely meaningless.

That wasn't my point, just that before the race, Rupp was the one who was supposed to blow up and end up destroyed, when in fact, in both races, he was still there and fighting all the way to the line (albeit out of the medals).

The two pre-race favorites to dethrone Farah in each event were the ones who went home DEVASTATED, while Rupp again had solid performances.

That was my point.

Perhaps our criticism of Rupp should be that he was too conservative. Maybe if he'd gambled and took a shot at taking Farah down he would have had better success. But if he'd failed, he'd be going home DEVASTATED too.

Hey RCS - you're trolling was better last year, what happened?

rupp-certified saladbar wrote:

runn wrote:

I DO think that the 1/2 and marathon are his best events.

Correct.

Potential fluke medals in the marathon and big prize money in fixed fields like Boston (aka "Hallstyle") are Rupp's future. Which is a great future. Embrace it!