anacondarunner wrote:
It's ridiculous to call Hall's 4-5 year run at the top of American marathoning a "fluke." His performances at London (2007, 2008), Boston (2009, 2010, 2011), the Olympic trials (2007, 2012), Beijing (2008), and even the Houston half (2007) were no joke. All good things must come to an end, I guess.
^Agree.
I can understand how fans/followers of this event might be hopeful for RH to do well, and thus be disappointed when he does not do well (and -- specific to today's race -- be puzzled about his race strategy), but the resentment of and anger toward him seems odd, even by the standards of LRC. If someone read these RH threads without knowing anything about his career, they would think that he must have run one good marathon once upon a time, and then spent the next several years as a perpetual DNF.
Not that it will make any difference, but we might as well include his actual marathon career. In a roughly 5 year period from April 2007 to January 2012, in his first 10 marathon starts, Hall did this:
2007 London 2:08:24 (7th); NYC USOT 2:09:02 (1st)
2008 London 2:06:17 (5th); Beijing OG 2:12:33 (10th)
2009 Boston 2:09:40 (3rd); NYC 2:10:36 (4th)
2010 Boston 2:08:41 (4th)
2011 Boston 2:04:58 (4th); Chicago 2:08:04 (5th)
2012 Houston USOT 2:09:30 (2nd)
= 2:08:46.5 average. Eight top-5 finishes.
Whether one likes him or not (for whatever reason(s)), that is excellent running, and a marathon career that most runners would be happy to have.
Then there is the second phase of RH's marathon career:
2012 London OG DNF
2014 Boston 2:17:50 (20th)
2015 Los Angeles DNF
I would be curious to know what he was thinking today when he went out at that pace. And I will be curious to see if he runs any other marathons between now and the USOT. Absent some serious injury, I would expect him to be on the starting line for the OT, and -- even though at that point he will be 4 years removed from his last quality marathon (assuming he does not run one later this year) -- I would not be surprised if he made the Olympic team. I state that not because I am a fan of RH, but because unexpected things can happen at the OT: many athletes tend to over-prepare and in the pressure of the event thus under-perform, and given how thin USA's marathon ranks are, it may not take an incredible time to make the team. He has as much chance as anyone (which does not mean I would pick him to make the team...).